On saturday, October 13, over 60 people commemorated the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Thomas Sankara at an event held in Toronto.

Thomas Sankara had led a revolution in Burkina Faso, from 1983 to 1987, during which the country saw unprecedented participation of the masses toward a collective goal of self-sustained development.

Pictures from the event organized by The Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA), Network for Pan-Afrikan Solidarity (NPAS), and International League of People’s Struggles (ILPS), can be seen here.

Below is a documentary of Thomas Sankara.

Thomas Sankara was also rememberd in Senegal where the ILPS helped coordinate the event. See the report written by Demba Moussa Dembele below. Read more…

Gentrification kills 550 jobs in Mimico

Editor – Revista Encuentro

TORONTO, ON – Approximately 550 jobs will be lost as the Christie cookie plant located at Lakeshore Blvd. and Park Lawn Rd, closes its door in 2013.

In operation since 1948, the 625,000 square-foot factory manufactures such products as Bits & Bites and Stoned Wheat Thins.

Jeff Gurczenski, a 54 year-old fork lift operator who has been working for the plant for 8 years told the Toronto Star that the plant closure will impact him severely. “Very tough with my age and the economy,” Gurczenski said. “It’s a lot of people, a lot of years.”

Labour groups and peoples organizations have also reacted, with Toronto and York Region Labour Council President John Cartwright stated “If something is not done, there will be hardly any blue-collar jobs left in an increasingly unaffordable city”.

Spokerperson for the May 1st Movement, Pablo Vivanco stated “this is another example which shows that transnational capital has no allegiance to the communities it operates in and the workers that it employs.”

The owners of the 27 acres site and operators of the plant, Mondelez Canada stated in a news release that “While this was an appropriate location for a large bakery when it was first built, the significant residential development surrounding it has led to operating constraints that will become increasingly difficult with the further residential expansion that is underway.”

A spin-off of the snack division of Kraft Foods, the US based Mondelez International has operations in more than 80 countries with annual revenues of approximately $36 billion from its brands including Cadbury chocolate, Nabisco and Oreo biscuits and Tang powdered beverages.

City officials have acknowledged that that Mondelez intends to turn the lands into condominiums. “They’re talking about going to regeneration lands … but at the same time they show us a site plan with 7,000 condos, 27 towers,” said Councillor Peter Milczyn, the chairman of the city’s planning committee.

Like many working class areas in Toronto, South Etobicoke has been experiencing a rising tide of gentrification.  Gentrification, or class displacement created by increases in property values which make housing and commodities unaffordable for working class people, often occurs as a result of re-zoning of lands to permit and encourage private condominiums to be built.

In the l990’s, high-end condominiums were built on the Waterfront area at the Eastern section of Mimico, beginning a wave condo developments in the area that have continued to this day.  The City of Toronto has supported this process through the designation of this area as an ‘employment revitalization area’, and the adoption in 2000 of a Community Improvement Plan which aimed to “examine existing development and plan for future development”.  Since 2006, the City of Toronto together with public relations and planning consultants have been engaged in advancing the Mimico 20/20 Action Plan, which looks to promote the re-development of Lakeshore Blvd and encouraging the small retail and condominiums characteristic of other gentrified areas.

Statistics confirm that this process of gentrification has in fact been taking place.  Average area property values increased from $355,618 in 2009 to $441,642 in 2011, while the percentage of families earning over $100 000 increased from 22% to 30.4% of the area population.

Gentrificación Eliminara 550 Puestos de Trabajo en Mimico

Editor – Revista Encuentro

TORONTO, ON – Aproximadamente 550 puestos de trabajo se perderán cuando la planta de galletas ‘Christie’, situado en Lakeshore Boulevard. con Park Lawn Rd, cerrara sus puertas en 2013.

En funcionamiento desde 1948, la fábrica de 625.000 pies cuadrados, fabrica aperitivos tales como ‘Bits & Bites’ y ‘Stoned Wheat Thins’.

Jeff Gurczenski, operador de ascensor tenedor de 54 años de edad que ha estado trabajando para la planta durante 8 años, le dijo al Toronto Star que el cierre de la planta le impactará severamente. “Muy difícil de mi edad y de la economía”, dijo Gurczenski. “Es un montón de gente, un montón de años.”

Grupos sindicales también han reaccionado.   El Presidente del Consejo Laboral de Toronto y York Region, John Cartwright declaró: ” Si no se hace algo, no quedara ningún empleo de cuello azul en esta ciudad cada vez más inasequible “.

Los dueños del sitio de 27 acres y los operadores de la planta, Mondelez Canadá, afirmó en un comunicado de prensa que “mientras que este fue un lugar apropiado para una panadería grande cuando fue construido, el desarrollo residencial que lo rodea ha creado restricciones en las operaciones que serán cada vez más difícil con la nuevas expansiones residenciales que está en marcha. “

Un separación de la división de aperitivos de la empresa estadounidense Kraft Foods, Mondelez Internacional tiene operaciones en más de 80 países con unos ingresos anuales de aproximadamente $36 mil millones por parte de sus marcas como Cadbury chocolate, galletas Oreo y Nabisco y las bebidas en polvo Tang.

Funcionarios de la ciudad han reconocido que Mondelez pretende convertir las tierras en condominios. “Están hablando de regeneración … pero al mismo tiempo muestran planes con 7.000 condominios, 27 torres “, dijo el concejal y presidente del comité de planificación de la ciudad, Peter Milczyn.

Al igual que muchos barrios obreros en Toronto, South Etobicoke ha venido sintiendo el impacto de una creciente ola de gentrificación.  Gentrificación, o aburguesamiento es el desplazamiento de clase creada por el aumento de valor de las propiedades que hacen que la vivienda y los productos sean inalcanzables para la clase trabajadora, y se produce como resultado de la re-zonificación de tierras para permitir y alentar condominios privados.

En l990, condominios de alto costo fueron construidos en la zona ribereña de Mimico, a partir desde ese entonces esta área ha visto desarrollo varios proyectos de condominios. La ciudad de Toronto ha apoyado este proceso a través de la designación de esta zona como un “área de revitalización de empleo”, y la adopción en 2000 de un Plan de Mejoramiento de la Comunidad que tuvo por objeto “examinar la infraestructura existente y planificar el desarrollo futuro”. Desde 2006, la ciudad de Toronto, junto con consultores de relaciones públicas y planificación han participado en la promoción del llamado Plan de Acción “Mimico 20/20”, que busca promover el desarrollo de condominios sobre esta parte de Lakeshore Blvd.

Las estadísticas confirman que este proceso de gentrificación se esta llevando acabo. El promedio de los valores de propiedad de la zona aumentó de $355.618 en 2009 a $441.642 en 2011, mientras que el porcentaje de familias que ganan más de $ 100 000 aumentó del 22% al 30,4% de la población de la zona.

*Article: Megan Kinch & Steve da Silva * Videography: Darryl Richardson *  Video: Editing Camila Uribe * Photos: Darryl Richardson & Steve da Silva *

Four years to the day after Jane Finch Action Against Poverty’s (JFAAP) founding on October 17, 2008 – the International Day for the Elimination of Poverty – one of Jane-Finch’s leading people’s organizations took to the streets once again with its allies to protest the worsening of poverty and police brutality in the community.

Designed for the quick flow-through of cars, the protest circled through the intersection that is the community’s name-sake and that corporate media and local university media loves to vilify: Jane-Finch.

The protest was very much of the corner as well, as people waiting for the bus listened to speeches and watched street theatre from their bus stops and at their red lights. The rally of some 150 people circled through the intersection, for nearly 90 minutes.

Demands from the crowd ranged from calling upon York University’s Excalibur newspaper to end its stigmatization of the area for problems on campus and in the university’s Village Community; calling for community control of policing and an end to police brutality; raising the welfare and disability rates; as well as more support for elders; and an end to horizontal violence within the community.

Despite the ‘good-cop’ act of the so-called ‘community policing’ strategy, with some of 31 Division’s foot cops chatting it up with people in crowd that has many problems with policing in the neighbourhood, the local division’s real attitude towards community residents was demonstrated when two cop cruisers barrelled through the Jane-Finch intersection, nearly hitting protestors and forcing marchers to leap out of the way.  Civilian cars weren’t irritated by the few-seconds delay caused by the tail end of the 150+ person rally that circled through the intersection on the green lights – but not for the cops.

The cop assigned to ‘engage’ with the protest quickly distanced themselves from the incident, saying that they had “nothing to do with the protest” and were simply “responding to another call” – even though the cars had no sirens on.

The protest concluded with performances from local popular theatre group, Nomanzland, as well as performances from other local artists.  The short street acts included, a mock oath to the queen, a desperate community member meeting the red tape of the social service bureaucracy, and a Jane-Finch rendition of the good’ old “Oh Canada… our home on stolen land.”

JFAAP is one of the few community-based organizations in the city that is moving the people in its community for social justice and political mobilization.

Title: Leila Khaled, M-1 (Dead Prez), Jan Myrdal, & Maria Augusta Calle – IMPERIALISM & PEOPLES’ STRUGGLE
Location: 252 Bloor St W (OISE)
Link out: Click here
Start Time: 17:00
Date: 2012-11-08

This keynote event is part of the “Right to Exist, Right to Resist” Conference. Advance registration for conference required; visit here to register.  Visit the website of the “Right to Exist, Right to Resist” Conference.

Leila Khaled – “Criminalizing the Palestinian Resistance and the Right to Rebel”

Palestinian leader Leila Khaled is a member of the Palestinian National Council and has been a prominent figure in the struggle to liberate Palestine since the 1960s. One of the most legendary Palestinian leaders, she is also an embodiment of the leading role of Palestinian women in resisting colonization, occupation and imperialism.

Khaled will be speaking about the ongoing criminalization of the resistance in Palestine by Israel and through the imperialist ‘War on Terror’ and the effects on the ‘shatat’– the Palestinian diaspora.

M1 / Mutulu Olugbala – “Culture is a battle ground: Imperialism and People’s Culture”

As one-half of the revolutionary hip-hop group, Dead Prez – which just dropped the much-anticipated 2012 album ‘Information Age’ – M-1 (Mutulu Olugbala) has been setting the bar for revolutionary hip-hop in the belly of the imperialist beast for more than a decade since the album ‘Let’s Get Free’.

M-1 will be speaking about the im­perialist globalization and its effects on culture and the resistance of anti-imperialist people’s culture; in addition to performing at the ILPS-Canada concert on Saturday, November 10 at the Annex Wreckroom.

Jan Myrdal – A life’s reflections on anti-imperialist struggle

Jan Myrdal is an internationally renowned author from Sweden and an anti-imperialist thinker and activist with decades of work. From his first book on the socialist transformation in China in 1963, Report from a Chinese Village to Confessions of a Disloyal European (1967) and his first book on India, India Waits (1984), Myrdal has long been a supporter of the struggle of the oppressed for liberation.

From his membership in the communist youth movement in Sweden in 1943 to his break from Euro-communism’s incorrect stance on national liberation in the oppressed countries to his most recent publication of Red Star Over India (2010) on the Maoist movement in India – for which Jan Myrdal was banned for life from re-entering the country by the Indian parliament – Myrdal brings decades of reflections and experiences on anti-imperialist politics.

Jan Myrdal will be sharing his reflections building anti-imperialist solidarity from within anti-imperialist countries, with some discussion on the solidarity with the people’s war in India taking place in Sweden.

Maria Augusta Calle – “From Manta to Julian Assange: Ecuador’s Challenge to the Anglo-American Imperialists”

Maria Augusta Calle is an elected Member of Ecuadorian National Assembly, representing Alianza Pais and currently the Vice President of the Food Sovereignty, Agriculture and Fisheries Development Commission of the Ecuadorian National Assembly.

Calle played a leading role in drafting constitutional reforms which explicitly prohibit any kind of foreign military base in Ecuador aiming, resulting in the permanent closing of the US military base of Manta from Ecuador in September 2009. More recently, Maria Augusta was central to the efforts within Ecuador advocating for the granting of asylum to Julian Assange in Ecuador.

With a Degree in Sociology and Communication, her media experience includes founding Altercom, the first independent and alternative news Agency of Ecuador and serving as the the Ecuadorian correspondent for TELESUR. Additionally, she has a long history as an organizer with women’s organizations and with the Indigenous Movement in Ecuador.

Written by the Network for Pan-Afrikan Solidarity - October 10, 2012.

First published at http://pambazuka.org/en/category/obituary/84655

‘…an authentic national middle class ought to consider as its bounden duty to betray the calling that fate has marked out for it, and to put itself to school with the people….’ [1]

The Network for Pan-Afrikan Solidarity (NPAS) offers its condolences to the immediate members of Brother Charles (Charley) Roach’s family as well as to his fictive kin in the Afrikan Canadian community and those in social movement organizations throughout Canada and elsewhere. Brother Roach passed away on October 2, 2012 from brain cancer at the age of 79. Brother Charley was a lawyer, organic intellectual, Pan-Afrikanist, artist, police accountability advocate, community-builder and anti-imperialist/anti-colonialist. He was based in Toronto, Canada.

Hopefully, news of the dear comrade’s death will be met less with profound sadness than with joy and appreciation for our having had the chance to share time and space with him. We ought to celebrate his life, which was well-lived, and committed to the pursuit of justice. We should recognize Charles’ record of service, which would have made Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral proud of this member of the intelligentsia who devoted his life to the emancipation of the oppressed.

We can assert without fear of contradiction that Brother Charley betrayed the calling that fate so often marks out for those who pursue the practice of law. Rejecting the paths that lead too many lawyers and other professionals toward blatant complicity with forces of oppression, Brother Charley placed his knowledge and skills at the disposal of Afrikans and other members of suffering humanity across the world. It would have been quite easy and is generally financially seductive for members of the Afrikan petit bourgeoisie or professional middle-class to sell their services to the highest bidder and become handmaidens for the systems of exploitation. Our dearly departed brother committed what the Guinea-Bissau revolutionary Amilcar Cabral termed ‘class suicide’ by rejecting his class identity and as such ‘completely identified with the deepest aspirations of the people to which [he] belong[ed]’ [2]

It is the position of NPAS that Brother Charley exemplified the best of the Afrikan intelligentsia who embrace the radical tradition of the struggle for liberation. The presence of this man in the Afrikan community was made even more glaring and self-evident due to the relative absence of other members of his class from the work of militant and oppositional activism and grassroots organizational development. Among the ranks of the professional Afrikan middle-class and their counterparts in academia as professors and students, we often find a disdain for or estrangement from genuinely transgressive work and action for social emancipation and Afrikan liberation. It is apparent that many of the Afrikan middle-class fear endangering what Bishop Desmond Tutu calls the ‘crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself [their] master.’[3]

Brother Charley rejected opportunities to receive the perks and profits that are attendant with playing compliant to oppressive systems. Having worked for the City of Toronto as a lawyer he left to better serve the people as an independent legal advocate. Later in life he turned down the opportunity to work as a provincial judge. He would have had to make an oath of allegiance to the Queen of Britain and that would have compromised his anti-colonial and anti-white supremacist commitments. According to Peter Rosenthal of the law firm Roach, Schwartz & Associates, ‘One of his most persistent projects is the abolition of the oath of allegiance to the Queen as a condition of citizenship. The monarchy, he believes, is a symbol of colonialism, an insult to both his African and Irish roots, and contravenes his belief in equality [anti-racism]’. [4] Our dear brother who has gone to the realm of the ancestors walked the talk with strength of character and humility. He was a true role model, par excellence, for younger activists and organizers!

He is a positive example for the Afrikan-Canadian middle-class, especially those in academia who celebrate in words their love of the concept praxis [5], which goes beyond writing and publishing little-read papers that call for tearing down the walls of Babylon. Praxis comes with doing the work of liberation or being politically active. Brother Charley’s body of work includes challenging state violence inflicted by the police against Afrikan people. His role in the creation of the Black Action Defence Committee and the work that it did in limiting the number of Afrikan people killed at the hands of the armed wing of the state will remain a shining tribute to his legacy as an engaged organic intellectual.

Charles Roach was also a cultural worker and a supporter and practitioner of the cultural arts. Retired educator and comrade-in-arms Lennox Farrell shares with us the type of artist that Brother Charley was to our struggle:

‘An artist, Mark Twain like Charley, also believed that art is never politically inert; inane sometimes, but never inert. Art is active. Art is activating! In addition, art in its many manifestations is not only the fusing of form and function into beauty, it is also, in the jaws of injustice, that tongue speaking politics to power’. [6]

The culture of an oppressed people may be used as a weapon of struggle. According to Cabral in the text National Liberation and Culture:

‘The value of culture as an element of resistance to foreign domination lies in the fact that culture is the vigorous manifestation on the ideological or idealist plane of the physical and historical reality of the society that is dominated or to be dominated. Culture is simultaneously the fruit of a people’s history and a determinant of it. [7]

Brother Charley saw in the cultures of Afrikan people the force for resisting white supremacist erasure of self, identity and community and collaboration with colonialism. He was born in Trinidad where the people used carnival arts to assert their humanity and push back against the idea of the cultural inferiority of the Afrikan during the periods of enslavement and post-emancipation.

In 1967, during the centenary celebration of the settler-colonial state of Canada’s independence Brother Charley ‘was a leading player in the creation and development of Caribana, Toronto’s annual African-Canadian celebration’. [8] The 1960s in Canada witnessed an explosion in the population of Afrikans migrating from the Caribbean as a result of changes to the explicitly white supremacist immigration system and the dire need for workers. The latter situation was the outcome of White workers staying in Europe to participate in its post-World War II reconstruction. Afrikans in Toronto used their resistance culture of carnival to send a message that they were here to stay and would not be silenced by the twin forces of economic exploitation and racist domination. Caribana was thus created to affirm the cultural integrity of Afrikan-Caribbean people and their culture as well as beat back the advance of the corrosive imposition of psychological oppression.

Brother Charley and his comrades of the time were not only preoccupied with the artistic and psychological weaponry elements of culture. At Caribana’s inception, its founders envisioned the festival being used to finance the erection of a community centre [9]and community development programmes for the people. The members of the Afrikan working-class were struggling with their oppressive condition as racialized and gendered workers in the Canadian labour force. These pioneers, especially Brother Charley, saw no divide between meeting the material needs of the people and attending to the requirements of the psyche for affirmation and a healthy environment.

Using culture to educate, mobilize and organize the oppressed and their allies, our champion of a brother was an important contributor to the creation of the International Festival of Poetry of Resistance in Canada. His actions and thoughts in the area of culture boldly affirm Toni Cade Bambara’s exhortation that, ‘[t]he responsibility of an artist representing an oppressed people is to make revolution irresistible.’ [10] Unlike the socially useless direction of mass culture and the frivolous nature of popular culture, the cultural work of our brother significantly contributed to maintaining a culture of resistance to imperialism, white supremacy, sexism, capitalism and other structures of exploitation. Along with our professionals, intellectuals, and academics, many of our poets, painters, and other cultural workers have much to learn from people like Brother Charley.

All in all, the Afrikan Canadian writer and law school graduate Anthony Morgan sums up the essence and contribution of the organic intellectual Brother Charles Roach as a humanist and fighter for social justice:

‘He demonstrated that true love of and respect for self and community meant not disregarding one’s connection to a people that suffers from disproportionately high and chronic rates of unemployment, underemployment, poverty, glorified thuggery, academic under achievement, police surveillance and brutality, and incarceration. To the contrary, Roach remained ever cognizant of and engaged by the words of the great Caribbean-American writer and activist, Audre Lorde, who once said, “Your silence will not protect you.’ [10]

END NOTES

[i] Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, (New York: Grove Press, 1963) 150.

[ii] Amilcar Cabral, “The Weapon of Theory”, Address delivered to the first Tricontinental Conference of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America held in Havana in January, 1966 http://goo.gl/tbj4I

[iii] The Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation, http://www.tutufoundation-usa.org/exhibitions.html

[iv] Peter Rosenthal and Vivian Pitchik, Charles Roach: Homage to a warrior, NOW, July 19-26, 2012, vol 31 no 47, http://goo.gl/9jH5B

[v] “Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practiced, embodied, or realised. “Praxis” may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas.” Retrieved from http://goo.gl/xmF3g

[vi] Lennox Farrell, “A tribute to ‘Canada’s first citizen’, Charley Roach,” Share, 3 Oct. 2012: http://goo.gl/bWZE5

[vii] Amilcar Cabral, “National Liberation and Culture,” Transition, 1974, 45: 13,http://goo.gl/KzSxP

[viii] Timothy Appleby, “Veteran civil rights lawyer dead at 79,” The Globe and Mail, 3 Oct. 2012: http://goo.gl/hfJ31

[ix] Peter Jackson, “The politics of the streets: A geography of Caribana,” Political Geography, March 1992, 11 (2): 133.

[x] Aisha Brown, “The king of pop’s progressive impact,” Examiner, 27, Jun. 2009:http://goo.gl/KseR0

[xi] Anthony Morgan, The Black Canadian activist who was never a citizen, The Huffington Post, 4, Oct. 2012: http://goo.gl/9n8ag

From the May 1st Movement

20 years ago, a justified rage spilled out into downtown streets.

Shortly after the outrageous injustice of the acquittal of the Los Angeles Police officers who were videotaped beating Rodney King prompted a week-long uprising in LA, outraged people in Toronto responded to the call of the Black Action Defense Committee to gather in front of the US consulate.  That same week a white, plain clothed police officer shot and killed 22 year old Raymond Constantine Lawrence, the 14th black man shot by the Toronto police Service since 1978.  The Yonge Street Uprising forced Queens Park to acknowledge the widespread racism in government policies and institutions, leading to some reforms.

20 years later, we still see the same racism, poverty and oppression in our City that gave way to the Yonge Street Uprising. These conditions feed an exploitative system that keeps communities and people poor, circumstances that lead to youth harming themselves and others in their own community.

Following the shootings in the Eaton Centre and in Scarborough, Toronto this past summer, politicians have opportunistically used the tragedies that claimed 4 young lives to further their own attacks on working people.  Mayor Rob Ford didn’t hesitate to call for more police on the streets, despite the fact that the ratio of police to residents is at its highest in 31 years and costs have doubled in the last decade. Across Canada, there are 69,299 officers at a cost of $12 billion in salaries.

What’s more, he and other Councillors such as Giorgio Mammoliti (who has actively tried to remove basketball nets from his Ward and famously called for the Armed Forces to be brought in to fight ‘gangs’) almost immediately called for an end to funding of ‘Hug-a-thug’ programs, presumably directed at social, recreational, and arts programs for youth. Paradoxically and shamelessly, Ford uses the youth from the football team he coaches to deflect from the mounting evidence of his own incompetence and corruption.

Premier McGuinty plays along with Ford and his buddies in Ottawa who on top of wanting more police are also working to build huge prisons and change criminal laws to send more people to jail and for longer periods.

Unfortunately, there are very few voices that have publicly called the response from Government to the shootings this summer for what it is – an opportunistic alignment with the ongoing coordinated attack on working class people and our neighbourhoods.

Everyday the news tells us about job cuts, wage freezes, and government cutbacks while at the same time reporting record profits for banks and large companies.  The lesson from 1992 is that injustice continues until people rise up to challenge them and those responsible.

The May 1st Movement, a coalition of community and labour organizations and activists rejects the scapegoating of working class youth and racialized communities which has been used as a pretext to justify the building of prisons coupled with the reduction of social and cultural programs while increasing police presence in low-income neighbourhoods.

Since Toronto Mayor Rob Ford took office, communities have organized to resist his agenda of cuts to social services, layoffs of public sector workers, and attacks on the poorest people in this city. We support and are encouraged by the rising tide of people in Toronto, including youth, artists and social workers who are beginning to realize that we cannot stay silent while the attacks mount on our neighbourhoods as well as the projects and initiatives that support our people.

We must continue to resist and organize to fight back against austerity policies and those who are pushing them.

To learn more about the May 1st Movement, visit www.may-1.org

To learn more about the “War on Communities” component of the “Right to Exist, Right to Resist” conference, visit www.ilps-canada.ca

Horizontal violence, political opportunism and the war on our communities

by Kabir Joshi-Vijayan

On July 17th 2012, just hours after the mass shooting at a Scarborough block party that left 23 wounded and two dead, Mayor Rob Ford declared:

“Some people have suggested there is a gang war brewing. I don’t know if that’s true. But, I do know it’s time for us to declare war on these violent gangs. …We must use every legal means to make life for these thugs miserable, to put them behind bars, or to run them out of town. We will not rest until being a gang member is a miserable, undesirable life.”

Indeed there were many upset faces, repeated condolences and angry words from officials and politicians after the Danzig tragedy. The usual bad cop/good cop routine was acted out: the Mayor had his ridiculed outburst about using “immigration laws” to exile anyone with gun charges from the city, and later blubbered on about useless “Hug-a-Thug programs”; the Premier chided the statement as “short-sighted” and pleaded for a balanced and reflective approach; ‘progressive’ politicians, like Councillor Adam Vaughan, got emotional: “If…all they want to talk about is jail, they can go to hell!”

After this media charade was over, both the stick and carrot were ready for action and unanimous approval. Within a week Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, Premier McGuinty and Mayor Ford were chuckling over a table passing a $12.5 million boost to aggressive policing programs in Ontario (the stick). A month later the same provincial government unveiled a $20 million plan for youth jobs and community programs (the carrot). Both strategies serve the same wicked agenda –  exploiting blood and fear to ramp up the invasion, occupation and containment of poor and oppressed communities.

Self-destruction festers in every hood in the city, consuming African (West Indian, West African and Somali) men as both the primary victims and perpetrators. Murders this year included two people close to BASICS members past and present: 22 year-old Nixon Nirmalendran, the second target in the Eaton’s Centre shooting; and a month later 25 year-old Abdulle Elmi. It’s clear that this  needs to be called out and confronted, but it’s no mistake that the official analysis fails to trace its origin.

This level of violence emerged in the early 90’s after Toronto’s ghettos were flooded with drugs and guns over the preceding years. This coordinated process began in the U.S. in a campaign to neutralize the revolutionary Black Power movement, particularly the Black Panther Party; and while those radical forces were sparse in Canada, the potential for social upheaval was still present. That lethal flood was followed by the disappearance of manufacturing jobs with the signing of the NAFTA trade agreement in 1992, and then by the systematic stripping of social assistance and programs under Mike Harris (Premier of Ontario 1995-2002). Those cuts to welfare and other benefits have been maintained by every provincial government and political party since, and because of inflation have actually been intensified.

Blatantly white supremacist policies like the Safe Schools Act deliberately fed the violence by expelling black students, pushing them into illegal means of survival, and thereby into sharper confrontation with each other. During the eventual Ontario Human Rights lawsuit it was estimated 80% of expelled students were non-white; the majority of those being black males. This agenda continues to advance with the annual increases to the Toronto Police Service’s budget (currently over $1 billion/year), and mass incarceration with the March 2012 passing of Harper’s Bill C-10.

So the calls of “Stop the Violence” from the same political and social forces that created the conditions in the first place couldn’t be more perverse. On the ground police officers not only do nothing to prevent conflicts from arising, but often deliberately instigate tensions between youth. The hypocrisy can be seen in public discourse where the only time crime becomes an issue is when it spills over into the commercial centers of the city, or when certain bodies become targets: a white teenager on Boxing Day, a 14-year old, or University graduate at a BBQ versus the dehumanized young men “known to police”. This is not to say the system as a whole really holds any more value for  the former lives; but that their deaths allow for the whipping up of public hysteria to push through long-desired pieces of legislation and policies that people would otherwise meet with skepticism.

After Jane Creba’s death in 2005 TAVIS (Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy) introduced new levels of occupation and surveillance to the poorest neighbourhoods in the city- and has since been responsible for 4 massive paramilitary raids and 22,000 arrests. On July 24th TAVIS got approved for indefinite provincial funding ($5 million/year), along with $7.5 mil to PAVIS (Provincial Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy), its now permanent counterpart across Ontario.  Also in Danzig’s aftermath the Harper regime wasted no time in relating and promoting their proposed piece of legislation that would see any non-citizen (landed, refugee, permanent resident etc.) deported automatically after any sentence over 6 months. As for Bill C-10 –  which ends pardons, introduces mandatory minimums and eliminates conditional sentences for a number of charges – we have yet to see the real impact in part because many judges are refusing to implement it. Now the Justice Minister and other are demanding they be forced to do so.

Along with pigs and prisons there’s the carrot being dangled in front of us: a multimillion dollar social service industry. The same 2005 “Year of the Gun” saw the designation of 13 priority neighbourhoods and the injection of millions through such boards as the Youth Challenge Fund. This was parallel to police expansion that saw TAVIS deployed in the same neighbourhoods. In total $100 million has been pumped into these areas over the past six years, and despite many important projects making use of the flow, most money never reached the ground and was instead siphoned off into bureaucratic structures, poverty pimps, and spaces inaccessible to actual communities. This government-NGO complex in fact serves as another form of control: preventing independent mobilization and self-determination, reinforcing dependency on the system and illusions of its necessity and generosity. Even the limited community power created by genuine peoples’ initiatives is destabilized as successful projects get funded one year and cut the next. Any substantial discussion of violence perpetrated by the system is censored, and sponsored organizations and individuals are often forced to work directly with cops and other crooked apparatuses, like the social housing authority, Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC).  Much of McGuinty’s Youth Action Plan goes directly towards this – the ‘Youth-in-Policing Initiative’ for example, or the $500,000 ‘Safer and Vital Communities Program’ where applicants “must partner with the police.”

Horizontal violence (violence amongst the people) will only be resolved when we have real democratic control over our communities; when neighbourhoods have enough organization to solve internal strife and defend their common interests against vertical violence coming down from the state. This does not mean we stop getting every dollar, space and opportunity we can grab to advance the immediate needs of our people, including using the social service sector for employment as many mass leaders have done. But it does mean moving towards the consolidation of institutions that remain accountable only to the people and strive for self-sufficiency.

When Rob Ford declares a war on gangs he does not mean a war on the Hell’s Angels, the Mob or any of the high level syndicates often allowed to operate as extensions of the system –  sometimes with the collaboration of elements of the state. He means a war on the racialized bodies at the very bottom of the drug trade.  He means a furthering of the attack on poor neighbourhoods: heightened levels of harassment, more sweeps, new laws and packed jails. And not because they oppose smoking, dealing, robbing or shooting when the victims are almost always in the same conditions and communities;  but due to the connotation of these behaviours: disregard for the law, and more significantly, the danger of that armed force being redirected at them. And for those not connected to these areas, the G20 and Quebec Student Strike have shown that the methods of physical repression and containment usually reserved for the hood will be extended to any rebellious section of the population.

As poor, working, and progressive people we have a collective interest in recognizing and resisting this physical, economic and social attack. If this is war they are the only side fighting. It’s about time we responded.

by Ysh Cabana

The parking lane along Progress Ave. was quite wide enough to congregate local Hip-Hop artists of Filipino descent from different parts of Toronto.  Dance crews walked it out with beats by the DJ. Graphic t-shirts stood along the walls of the garage that was bombed with stickers nascent of contemporary cultural identities. Emcees took to the front of the garage their verbal front while the youthful crowd matched the rhythms with hand gestures, almost as if scratching their own records.

Such was the scene in at the last summer block party organized by Filipinas Clothing Co. (FCC), an apparel brand owned by brothers Corwin, Harvey, Nikki, and Gino Agra. The one-off event succeeded in bringing together fans, Hip-Hop artists and even passersby to raise awareness of Filipino talent and collectivity.

Beyond his signature cigar hazed and bling-pimped videos, Fenaxiz rhymes with profundity yet grounded in reality. In “White Man’s Burden,” from his album Vintage released 2012, Fenaxiz educates his listeners about material history. Referencing the Rudyard Kipling poem of the same title, he reflects on the critical aspect of the history of his people and reclaims his personal story in Hip-Hop space:

“I was lost ‘til I found my inheritance
Now I know my worth, I control the world
And this rap ain’t even scratching the surface
Of our collective experience, my peoples
We gotta match our path with our purpose…”

For some time now, for Filipino-Canadians, “knowledge of self” has come from Hip-Hop. It is arguably part of a long standing Filipino culture which can also be traced in the Ilonggos’ romantic “binalaybay,” the Tagalogs’ “balagtasan,” and the Cebuanos’ “balak.”  Its productive grammatical process is vernacular yet stemming to the Filipino diaspora.

Seeds of Counterculture

Perceived internationally as the spawning ground of Hip-Hop, the district of Bronx in New York experienced an influx of new immigrants in the 1970s. The fragile low-income neighbourhoods were gradually deteriorating because of failed urban renewal policies. Mobility went to a decline for families who faced racist and classist subsidies in favour of suburban commuter residents, majority of whom were white.  Ironically, the diverse population in housing projects later became a major indicator of ‘authentic’ Hip-Hop culture. Until the end of the 1970s, Hip-Hop and rap music were primarily localized.

In Los Angeles, many working-class Filipinos were compelled to resettle in the outer districts, where the growth of West Bay Hip-Hop was witnessed in the 1980s. Through their sense of crisis caused by inclusive corporate development, the youth of this era had found ways of naming their experience. Emcees of Filipino descent were at the forefront of local Hip-Hop scene. Among the most recognized rappers were Bambu and Kiwi of Native Guns. Immersed in the long standing and ever evolving creation of the other elements of the culture—DJing, breakdancing and graffiti writing, Filipinos proved to be part of a thriving Hip-Hop generation that is parallel with the fundamental stage of Afro-diasporic narratives.

In fact, many second-generation Filipinos have, since then, been in a sense “blackened.” The sociocultural affinities of Filipinos with Blacks have been conceivable, especially if attributed with Hip-Hop culture. “Black Asians” has been a label that is even accepted by individuals themselves leaning on either positive or negative implications. Filipinos have a diverse culture that they can hardly be narrowed down into a homogenous stereotype. Such diversity affords an individual to associate themselves to another identity with either pride or self-denial.

For Scott Ramirez, Filipino Hip Hop in Toronto has started to experience its brighter days. While in university of which included a thesis project in his senior year, he went on a mission to record the impact of Hip-Hop culture as a channel of representation and a tool to facilitate knowledge of self. In his 2011 documentary “Flip Hop: Bridging the Gap,” the emcee posited that with the growing visibility of Filipino Hip-hop, solid community outlook is somehow achieved while its members are “instilled with a sense of cultural pride and confidence”

Tales from the Flipside

Wind back to 1995, Superskillz debuted as the first local stage to showcase Filipino talent among youth organized by university-based student groups. Though its heyday has past, it would usher waves of artists who saw connections outside their cliques as a way to tap into a larger audience, hence the so-called “Rise of Toronto” of more authentic Filipino in Hip Hop swag. The “Rise of Toronto” also meant the increasing number of immigrants who brought with them the current diversity which is the highest throughout the history of the city.

By 2000s, Filipino Hip-Hop in cosmopolitan Toronto was fueled by the beef that is defined by the rivalry between groups from east and west ends of the city. The solitudes of Mississauga and Scarborough were perceived to be dissected by the downtown core. The suburbs grew as preferred residential turfs of immigrants which in turn were not distinctly concentrated because of the labour market disadvantage under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

Young Filipinos were skewed as bolshies as tensions among new immigrants and assimilated youth who were born and raised in Canada increased. Figures from statistical research found the downward trend of success for the following generation of Filipinos. With the comparative value of the category of visible minority, the ethnic group were even shown as more likely who consistently underperformed in academics.

But regardless of the deplorable environment, Filipino youth were able to adapt Hip-Hop culture from the sole Hip-Hop Filipino station in Toronto Jump Off Radio (now defunct) to Bucc N Flvr representing Canada in an international street dance championships. To artists, it has a certain appeal to be an alternative space for transformation.

This was, in part, why the newcomer Agra brothers then jumpstarted Filipinas Clothing Co. The scope of FCC’s vision is more ambitious than doing rounds in the local events scene. It is a project that aims to “find avenues that will lead to positive changes in the Philippines and to less privileged citizens.” Thus, FCC, which also means for continuous change, asserts its potential in developing a critical lens that can be utilized to not only understand the composition of the world but more significantly to re-create it.

Forward to 2011, the first Flip Dot Battle Grounds took place in Toronto—“Flip” is an obvious play on Filipino while “Dot” is in reference to the city—as an outgrowth of a burgeoning format of Hip-Hop all over the world. Rap battle is a form of emceeing where artful insults are rhymed in acapella against each of the parties. Despite the hurls of loose meter, taunting and the lack of monetary compensation, rap battles are able to magnetize audience with the use of Internet channels to gain control of cultural capital. For instance, the Philippine-based FlipTop movement even exceeded by million views its predecessors America’s GrindTime, and Canada’s King of the Dot combined. Filipinos once again pushed the gameplay a notch higher. Only then, Flip Dot is decidedly worth more than watching.

FDBG “The Video That Sparked The FDBG Revolution In Toronto” (Prelude to “The Rise Of Toronto”)

Word Up

The unity that is espoused by FCC is probably best embodied by the supergroup Southeast Cartel, which has become the preferred brand by arguably the most popular emcees in Toronto including  Tagalog-rapping Franchizze and Abstrakt of Dos Amardos, Pipoy, Dagamuffin, Biggz, Raygee and Bustarr of Sundaloz, Rydeen, and Mississauga-based Da Barkadaz. Southeast Cartel combined conventional views of Filipino with improvisation of language, either native, second language or both.

However, ifthe emergent Flip Dot culture is any indication, organizing Filipino youth still has a long way to go. Fenaxiz  speaks sincerely again in “The Real Toronto” :

“The good, the bad, the beauty, the ugly
The young, the old, the smart, the dummy
The peace, the war, the poor, the wealthy
The hoods, the ‘burbs, the sick, the healthy
The love, the hate, the true, the fake
The strong, the weak, the asleep, the awake
The success, the hustle, the stress, the struggle
It is what it is and this the real Toronto.”

In the end, it lures us to a calm compromise with “what it is,” instead of challenging the norm with what is to be done.

The challenge to forge unity among the Filipino youth through Hip-Hop is to bring forth new materials circumventing resistance against the standard notions of culture. While the more popular analyses on Hip-Hop’s origins date it back to the rhetoric of oppression caused by racial segregation, it is the understanding the axis of classes that strengthens it as a tool to deepen the lyrics and facilitate real human relations between different identities.

Perhaps the FCC block party was a swarm of Flip Dot’s finest. But for it to be a more durable performance is to spit back from Hip Hop roots of principled resistance, to put the cipher into plain text: “Makibaka! Huwag Matakot!” (Dare to struggle! Never be afraid!)

by shono

The following piece is a reflection on the June 2nd, 2012 shooting at the Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto that resulted in the deaths of two young men named Ahmed Hassan (age 24) and Nixon Nirmealendran (age 22). The piece speaks to the ways in which young men with dark skin are vilified and dehumanized by the general public and the complex ways in which violence structures the lives of all of those who live in Toronto.

This weekend the heavens opened up and the city exploded in a burst of light. I’m sure it happened, the gusts of wind told me so. And of course the headlines of the daily newspaper agreed, as they swept their ominous messages across the city of Toronto. Somewhere an army of voices declared a war on blackness and violence and darkness, and the city exploded right before our eyes, and no one could do anything of it. The newspapers spoke hushed words, spreading into the minds of the people, warning the law-abiding citizens that evil lurked among us, gangs of blackness and violence in the heart of the city. The newspapers said sternly and without challenge that this evil, like all darkness, must be purged from our lives, once and for all.

However, the choruses of voices that came hurtling forth wrapped within the wind spoke stories that the newspapers would never dare to print. Stories that screamed of sadness, and urgency, stories of violent neglect and stories of a world spiraling out of control. The winds shrieked, saying that it takes a broken world, for a broken man to pull a trigger, for he is never alone, it is a collective and communal process. But the newspapers would never say this, because then we’d all realize just how accountable each one of us is. The winds implored us to remember all that we had forgotten to do. For we had forgotten to mourn the death of a man, and we had forgotten that men break when they have been broken. We had forgotten that cities and people explode when they have no other choice, and finally we had forgotten that darkness is not evil it is sacred.
And as the city exploded, the only question that most asked was, how do we keep the darkness from our lives? When instead we should have asked how have we become so far gone, that we can’t mourn the life of a young black boy killed from broad daylight, in the busiest mall in the busiest city in this country.  And as the winds thrashed the streets, and the rain soaked the people, they begged me to listen, for when the city explodes, it is always a collective process. For men break, when they have been broken.
This weekend the police were on high alert, for the newspapers assured us that explosions in the city must come from darkness and blackness. All to get blown up in bursts of masculinity – ticking time bombs, ticking time bombs. The wind warned of a danger much deeper, but the police were still on high alert searching and silencing, searching and silencing.

And I am left with a thought, a reality of this world:
“I am scared of the darkness, but the darkness is sacred.”

shono is a spoken word artist and storyteller. lost in history, he sees the need to recover forgotten words, so he writes. ([email protected])

by Natasha Brien

On August 10, 1974, a prisoner by the name of Eddie Nalon died after bleeding to death in the segregation unit of Millhaven Maximum Security Prison in Kingston, Ontario. Systemic issues of unjust prison policy, and abuse of power, were deeply entangled in the cause of his death.

Mr. Nalon initially wanted a transfer to another unit. After officially requesting a transfer, he was instead placed in segregation, and eventually solitary confinement. Mr. Nalon made a written request to be placed back into general population, which the board approved; however, this decision was not conveyed to Mr. Nalon.

When August 9, 1974 arrived – the ninth of the month being the standard transfer date to be released into general population – and he wasn’t moved, Mr. Nalon must have assumed he would be left in segregation longer, and that his request was denied. The following day, Mr. Nalon committed suicide. It was later discovered that the emergency button in his cell was non-functional, thus any attempts to call for help, would have likely gone unheard by prison guards.

Every year since his death, August 10 is the day when Mr. Nalon’s life is commemorated; and has eventually this day coming to be recognized as Prisoner’s Justice Day (PJD). On this day, inmates and their allies in Canada and throughout some U.S. states, protest the mistreatment of men and women behind bars. Supporters of PJD express abhorrence for inhumane prison conditions, as well as mourn the deaths of countless people who have lost their lives while in custody or through conflict with the law. Prisoners remain in their cells for the day, fasting, and refusing to work, while non-incarcerated people hold gatherings in many cities across Canada and the U.S.

The theme of Toronto’s 2012 PJD, was ‘Women in Prison’, which took place at the Church of the Holy Trinity behind the Eaton Centre. Brampton also held a PJD that took place in St. James the Apostle Church with the theme being ‘We Will Be There for You’. At these two community gatherings, loved ones of inmates, ex-prisoners, activists, and concerned organizations partook in fasts, presentations, songs, poetry, viewing documentaries, and readings of stories from former inmates.

What really stood out, was the common theme that most imprisoned people come from various communities struggling to rise above oppression – poverty, systemic racism, childhood abuse, spirit injuries via colonialism, gender injustices etc. – only to enter into further institutional forms of violence via incarceration. Aside from extreme lateral violence amongst inmates, correctional institutions have also been guilty of violating the Correctional Service of Canada’s (CSC) code of conduct.

A well-documented example of prison violence is evident in the case of Ashley Smith – a woman who died in solitary confinement at the Grand Valley Institution for Women in October 2007. Some may say that Ms. Smith killed herself: the immediate cause of her death came through self-asphyxiation, as guards watched the incident take place. But Ms. Smith had been transferred between institutions seventeen times already within the year, having been pepper sprayed, tasered, subjected to full body restraints, involuntarily injected with anti-psychotic medications, and spending most of her last three years in “the hole” (solitary confinement). It’s hard to imagine how anyone could survive such conditions.

During the evening of the 2012 PJD in Toronto, a vigil was held outside of the Don Jail to protest the experiences people like Ms. Smith endure. People took to the microphone to share personal experiences and statistics surrounding these shameful conditions, and the dangers involved in expanding prisons, as well as creating harsher criminal laws. The crowd yelled in unison messages of support for inmates in hope that men currently in the Don Jail – and ghosts of men and women who have passed – would know they are not alone. The vigil concluded with a candle lighting ceremony, honouring our fallen brothers and sisters, and those still in the prison struggle, while putting out a call for the implementation of restorative justice everywhere.