Crossing Arizona

No One Is Illegal-Toronto invites you to a film screening of “Crossing
Arizona”! Join us for the Toronto premiere of this award-winning film.

Film Screening: CROSSING ARIZONA
Thursday, November 22 – 9pm
at The Brunswick Theatre
296 Brunswick Ave (west of Spadina, just south of Bloor St, Toronto)
Tickets: $10 waged, $5 unwaged/students/seniors

About the film:
Heightened security in California and Texas has pushed ‘illegal’ border-crossers
into the treacherous Arizona desert in unprecedented numbers – an estimated
4,500 a day. Most are men in search of work, but increasingly the
border-crossers are women and children seeking to reunite with their families.
This influx of migrants crossing through Arizona and the attendant rising death
toll have elicited complicated feelings about human rights, culture, class,
labour and national security.

“Crossing Arizona” examines the crisis through the eyes of those
directly affected by it. Frustrated ranchers go out day after day to
repair cut fences and pick up the trash that endangers their livestock and
livelihoods. Humanitarian groups place water stations in the
desert in an attempt to save lives. Political activists rally against
anti-migrant ballot initiatives and try to counter rampant fear
mongering. Farmers who depend on the illegal work force face each day with
the fear that they may lose their workers to a border patrol
sweep. And now there are the Minutemen, an armed citizen patrol group
taking border security into their own hands. As up-to-date as the
nightly news, but far more in-depth, “Crossing Arizona” reveals the
surprising political stances people take when immigration and border
policy fails everyone.

The Imaginary Border Academy

The Imaginary Border Academy (L’Académie de la frontière imaginaire) was initiated at the Artivistic gathering in Montreal , 25-27 October, 2007;

It is our aim to provide copyleft pedagogical resources for engaging all forms of borders.

As was agreed with the clink of two Caribs by an incomplete decision making body, the academy is within the tradition of Autonomous Education, Free Universities, Community Education and Free Skools.

The Academy strives to cultivate a non-hierarchical pedagogical approach to understanding, subverting and undermining borders.

http://borderacademy.org/

Nov 19, 20 Canada Park film screenings , Dec 2 picket at Sheraton Hotel

On December 2nd the JNF of Canada will be in Toronto at
the Sheraton Hotel to fundraise for “Canada Park,” which
is illegally constructed on the destroyed Palestinian
villages of Beit Nuba, Yalu and Imwas.

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7pm on Monday Nov 19 , 7 pm on Tuesday Nov 20
Come to our free film screenings on Canada Park and
discussion of the JNF and its key role in establishing and
perpetuating Israeli Apartheid.
Brunswick Theatre 296 Brunswick Ave. at Bloor, West of
Spadina
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4:30pm on Sunday December 2
Join us at the Sheraton Hotel (Queen/Bay) To say: “NO!” to
the funding of racism and ethnic cleansing!
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60 years after the massive ethnic cleansing of indigenous
Palestinians from their homelands and the destruction of
over 430 Palestinian villages, the world is waking up to
the realities of Israeli apartheid.

In Canada, the JNF enjoys “charity” status, for its racist
land theft. The JNF is an integral part of the systematic
denial of the fundamental right of Palestinian refugees to
return to their homes. After 60 years of waiting, it’s
time to say “Enough!”

On December 2nd, stand in solidarity with the 5-million
Palestinians locked-out of their homeland. Send a clear
message to the Canadian government that fundraising for
apartheid and ethnic cleansing will not be tolerated.

For more information about the film screenings and
discussion at the Brunswick Theatre:
http://www.brunswicktheatre.com/ 416-238-7903

For information about the JNF campaign please email us at
endapartheid@riseup.net or visit our website at
http://www.caiaweb.org/jnfcampaign

Endorsed by:: Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA),
Palestine House, Jewish Womens Committee to End the
Occupation (JWCEO), Canadian Arab Federation, Students
Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA), Not in Our Name –
Jewish Voices Against Israel’s Wars (NION), Yosher-Jewish
Social Justice Network, No One is Illegal, Ontario
Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), Labour for Palestine,
New Socialist Group and Toronto Coalition to Stop the War

from Montreal

photos from Artivistic 2007

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=artivistic&w=all

Roundtable on precarity @ Artivistic 2007

Artivistic is an international transdisciplinary three-day gathering on the interPlay between art, information and activism. Artivistic emerges out of the proposition that not only artists talk about art, academics about theory, and activists about activism. Founded in 2004, the event aims to promote transdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue on activist art beyond critique, to create and facilitate a human network of diverse peoples, and to inspire, proliferate, activate.For the third edition of Artivistic, the expression [ un.occupied spaces ] was chosen to stimulate new ideas in response to the hidden confusions caused by the infinite networks of 21C globalization and neo-liberalism. [ un.occupied spaces ] dares to link the charged issues of environmentalism, indigenous and migrant struggles, and urban practices together through the angle of occupation. In an interconnected world, critical thought and action cannot but become flexible and uncompromising at once. To think with occupation consequently becomes a strategy for approaching these issues in a way that will reveal their interdependence, and fuel creative and tactical collaborative actions between “co-artists” (artists and non-artists). Built around three interrelated questions, the event consists of roundtables, workshops, interventions, exhibitions, performances, and screenings at our temporary headquarters at 5455 av. de Gaspé, #701 and in different venues and spaces of Montreal.
see the program here

16h00-18h00: Table-ronde / Roundtable discussion: Occuper quoi? What is (there) to occupy? (Précarité / Precarity)

(modérateurs / chairs: Sophie Le-Phat Ho, Catherine Melançon)

Roberta Buiani & Alessandra Renzi (Toronto): Precarious spaces / Spaces of precarity

Judith Cayer (Montrea): Centre social autogéré de Pointe-St-Charles

Marie-Hélène Cousineau (Montreal): Arnait Video Productions (Igloolik)

Keg de Souza & Lucas Ihlein (Australia): Squatfest

Aaron Lakoff (Montreal): Understanding precarity in Montreal

Bob thebuilder (Montreal): Collectif au travail/at work

For those inclined, a bit of theory…

Here are some essays on precarity published by EIPCP (european institute for progressive cultural policies): http://eipcp.net/transversal/1106

Website in support of Molleindustria shut down

The Italian government has shut down the site mentioned in the previous post….

The victimisation of Molleindustria political videogames

This is a link to a campaign started by a group of media activists and artists to protest the recent attacks by the Italian goverment against Molleindustria videogames (www.molleindustria.it). Molleindustria has been active for years within the precarity movement, first designing comic strips and then creating political videogames. The Italian government has recently been trying to take down their site due to a new game that attracts attention to cases of pedofilia within the catholic church.
“A couple of days ago, the italian collective Molleindustria decided to remove from its website its last videogame, Operation: Pedopriest, “in order to not worsen the situation of our webspace provider that is legally responsable for all the content”. This decision was taken after a point of order in the Italian Parliament called “Countermeasures to the religions’ offenses”, in which the leader of the Christian Democratic Party Luca Volontè asked to shut down this website appealing to a 2006 law about child abuse and pornography.
The law includes a chapter about “virtual pedo-pornography” that consider illegal to publish “pictures whose quality of representation makes unreal situations appear real”.

For more info and to download the game: http://www.lucavolonte.eu/pedopriest.html

More news from National Day of Action

National day of Action Website

http://www.afn.ca/NDA.htm

article from the Globe and Mail, 06/ 29/07

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070627.NATIVE27/TPStory/National

Flickr photos of National Day of Action

a search on Flickr has returned a huge amount of photos documenting the National Day of Action in Vancouver and Ottawa. wondering if anybody has any on Toronto??

Ottawa

http://www.flickr.com/photos/deisler/sets/72157600556792938/

Vancouver
http://www.flickr.com/photos/presley_perswain/sets/72157600563217057/