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Stewards of the land

The words aboriginal, indigenous, native, primitive, adivasi, tribal  and first nations are used almost synonymously although there are subtle differences setting them apart. The word aborigine or aboriginal is associated with Australia, indigenous makes us think of  Latin America even […]

Keena – Native Indian Artist

Keena – Native Indian Artist – 1949 – 1995 Keena was born to a Mohawk father and French-Canadian mother in 1949.  She was given up to be adopted and, until she was a young teenager, grew up in an orphanage. […]

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The Curse of the Corn People

More than half of the population of Guatemala is indigenous, heirs of an ancient culture and trustees of centuries of ancestral knowledge and traditions. However, to be an indigenous person in Guatemala means, more often than not, to be a […]

Meditations on what it means to be indigenous

What is it to be indigenous? Indigenous to the land or to your self. Indigenous even to your heart. What is indigenous? Who is indigenous and to what? For we are metaphors of our minds, but the reality is that […]

A Mask

Unknown to perhaps many of us in this part of the world, there is a significant population of aboriginal people living mainly in the central swathe of India for centuries. Their plight has been recently been brought to the forefront […]

Opinion

I have a Question…… Twenty-nine organizations in Canada came together on November 16th, 2010 to issue a joint statement in response to Canada’s much postponed endorsement of the UN declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, originally adopted in 2007. […]

Norman Bethune and Montreal

Norman Bethune was a world-reknowned Canadian surgeon, a passionate humanitarian, and a brilliant medical innovator. Born in Ontario in 1890, Bethune studied medicine in Canada and Britain. In 1925, he contracted tuberculosis, epidemic at that time. He recovered and dedicated […]

3 Poems

De Maiz… Everyone is igualdad Said the man of the wise mind And the old hands He told me We are getting lost This is the way to find ourselves You grab this maiz You use the coa of free […]

4 Poems

SAND PLAINS, 1848 When deer are mating: The clatter of antlers. Sound of the drum beating- Log house where the family lived. Planted maize, sunflowers, and squash. Plum-red forest berries, wild rice. To woo a yakon:kwe- A woman of the […]

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My hands can still plough the fields.

My hands can still plough the fields. He was a teacher, my younger boy He taught me to write my name Suddenly for days he lay on the bed Malaria in the brain, they said We waited for a miracle […]

Tunes from a Palestinian Symphony

I am walking the streets of Ras Beirut where I grew up, where my parents’ home still exists in Diaspora; as I promenade while doing some errands within a four square kilometer area, I feast my eyes on the sign […]

Israeli Apartheid?

Israel is losing the propaganda war. Mainstream newspapers now provide ample reason to conclude that Israel oppresses the Palestinians with sadistic enthusiasm based on flimsy excuses. (The Palestinians, after all, have lost the military war. Even Hamas works hard to […]

Palestinians: descent into Hell — a personal reflection

Rezeq Faraj and the “Descent into Hell” It was when I read Palestine: le refus de disparaître, the 2005 book of our dear departed friend Rezeq Faraj, that I realized the full extent of the Palestinian people’s continuing “descent into […]

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Palestine is flowering in resistance

Over the last few years, the intensity and breadth of the solidarity actions for Palestinian rights dramatically increased. The second Intifada was followed by a campaign of non-violent direct-action, popularized in the West Bank by a joint Palestinian-Israeli organization, the […]

My summer at camp

Shatila is a part of the Lebanese war that will never be forgotten, but it is a part of Beirut that few want to remember. I’m an ex-resident of and a frequent visitor to Beirut, but I had never even […]

In Bil’in and in Palestine the Resistance Clearly Shows

Bil’in, situated to the west of Ramallah, is a village typical of the eastern Mediterranean from many points of view: the white houses that are arranged along the length of roads that hug the meanderings and natural contours of the […]

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Ilustrado

Ilustrado. By Miguel Syjuco, Hamish Hamilton Canada, an imprint of Penguin Group, 308 pp.,  Toronto 2010. Miguel Syjuco (pronounced See-hoo-koh), with Ilustrado, has achieved what Salman Rushdie achieved with  Midnight’s Children: a brilliant irruption into the literary scene. He also […]

The Challenges and Benefits of Dialogue

Media coverage of the peace talks presently underway in Washington is generally pessimistic about the prospects of success. It tends to be depicted as formalized theatrics, with a “down-to-business” atmosphere, dark suits, hand-shaking, and canned speeches. Little, if anything, is […]

Dialogue is a Precondition to Negotiations

One party asks for more than he is willing to settle for. The other party offers less than he is ultimately willing to concede. Both parties haggle until they reach a compromise. Such is the universal law of negotiating. As […]

Settlements

The armed settlers descend from their colonies on the hill tops on the Palestinian farmers of Sousia day in and day out, damaging their crops and orchards and denying them access to their own land and wells. Settlements Mansions […]

Canada and Israel- Building Apartheid

Canada and Israel – Building Apartheid by Yves Engler, a co-publication of Fernwood Publishing and RED Publishing,ISBN: 9781552663554,Publication Date: Feb 2010, Pages: 168 Right off the bat, let’s take an excerpt from a blurb on the book issued by – […]