Co-operatives and Liberation, not necessarily in that order
I just came across this song by Canadian icon Bruce Cockburn. As a kid, Cockburn’s Christmas music always found its way into holiday playlist. This song is a bit harder, although motivated in the same feelings of love and commitment. The words bring forward the deep truth of retaliation, of the felt need to hit back against unjust […]
Read More Bruce Cockburn, WarriorIn any revolutionary situation there is a question of resolution: which demands are enough, what kind of compromise do you make with power when you can’t win? Moreover, most revolutionaries during an actual uprisings are not extremists but moderates, and they require radicalization by a difficult situation to side with those who insist impossible ideas […]
Read More Why CLASSE is Right not to take sides in the Quebec ElectionLast week’s United Church resolution endorsing a boycott of Israeli settlement goods it feels that this could be the year that civil resistance against Israel goes mainstream. Sure, the press has lambasted the Church for its foray into middle eastern politics, but since they actually lack any arguments I’m confident that this action can be […]
Read More Settlement Boycott versus BDSNorth Americans wishing to express solidarity with the Palestinian cause, especially those who consider themselves to be on the political Left, are likely to look to BDS for leadership and a Palestinian voice. This is understandable because BDS is the most powerful worldwide Palestinian solidarity organization, and it has a Palestinian leadership. Moreover, the BDS […]
Read More The BDS is not the Palestinian Leadership (or the centre of the Palestinian Left)I’ve been “a vegan” for a few years now. Four, I think. That means that, for the most part (I’ll explain that in a minute), I have refrained from eating dairy, eggs and meat. I feel pretty disillusioned about the whole thing, to be honest. But that doesn’t seem a good reason to stop. I’ll try to […]
Read More Why I am still VeganStrange, the concept that has most enamoured my conscience since returning from my travels is that of “love”. I read “Prisoner of Love” on the airplane, and it put a lot of things together for me. Solidarity, revolution, resistance, taking sides. These are not acts of conscious reason, acts of pragmatic improvement. These are acts which […]
Read More Revolutionary LoveFrom the last page of Jean Genet’s last great work, “Prisoner of Love”: Any reality is bound to be outside me, existing in and for itself. The Palestinian revolution lives and will live only of itself. A Palestinian family, made up essentially of mother and son, were among the first people I met in Irbid. […]
Read More Prisoner of LovePalestine activists spend a lot of time talking about the Apartheid wall. And fair enough, that wall is terrible – it excludes about two million Palestinians from about 80% of their homeland – 3.5 millon if you include the wall around the Gaza strip. But there is another wall, called the “Israeli border”. That wall […]
Read More The Other WallAfter a lot of reflection, discussion, and reading I feel myself coming to the conclusion that a key problem with Palestinian activism is the position of Palestinian agency within the movement. In order for activist groups to stand in solidarity with a revolutionary people, they must not simply stand against the oppression of that people […]
Read More Solidarity Activism and Palestinian AgencyAnd I’m back in Toronto. I can tell most of all by the air, by the smell of it. The hot moist bath that passes for summer in Ontario. The bus crashes over the broken suburban pavement as we drive by a shopping mall. Other scents – the musky, oily flavour of the subway, the […]
Read More Returning to Toronto
Only a Northern Song 