(By Aviva Cipilinski. Special to Canadian Dimension April 30, 2008.) “Where are you and what are you doing?” asked my concerned parents from thousands of miles away.

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Vancouver, April 28 — Mordecai Briemberg, retired Douglas College ESL teacher and well-known campaigner for the rights of Palestinians and an end to war and racism, won the YMCA’s Power of Peace Award on the weekend.

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April 2008: We the undersigned organizations congratulate the Canadian Union of Postal workers (CUPW) for joining the international boycott of Israeli apartheid. We call on workers and labour unions worldwide to join CUPW in creating a strong and effective labour movement in solidarity with struggles against Israeli apartheid and violence.

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Writing from Toronto — this strike is a fiasco.

If ATU Local 113 were not a crappy, right-wing, American business union, maybe it would think of something like this: a fare strike, in which drivers would refuse to collect fares. Passengers would love them, and if any of the drivers were to be arrested (it’s illegal), passengers would rally round. Of course, because it’s illegal, it would require a high degree of discipline and commitment. And this would mean a serious, long-term effort to educate members during the years between bargaining. It would also require practising a politics of solidarity, so that others would be there for you the way you were for them. A union that thought like that, and that encouraged and practised a disciplined militancy, might also be a union that pushed for expanded, free transit for all, because of its environmental and economic benefits, and because of the principle of decommodification and a vision of alternative, socialist possibilities for how to arrange the city.

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Comparisons between terrorism and the red scare are omnipresent today. That’s largely because the comparisons are telling. A clear parallel can be drawn between Canada’s Cold War policies and its post-September 11 doctrine. This brief piece relays one such parallel, but the similarities in both policy and practice are compelling.

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(Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 100 April 25, 2008) By Zak Smith.

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(From Ed Corrigan) There appears to be an organized campaign underway to attack pro-Palestinian organizations across Canada and organizations that are critical of Israeli policies. The focus is on the Universities, the University of Western Ontario, York University and at the CEGEP Bois-de-Bologne in Montreal where Jewish students are trying to ban a CALEB-Tadamon! conference. No doubt many more organizations are under attack. The dark cloud of fascism is  rearing its ugly head across Canada.

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We write to urge you not to cancel a joint conference by Comité d’action pour la lutte étudiante boulonnaise (CALEB) and Tadamon! April 21 on Israel and Palestine. Behind this censorship attempt appears to be a false belief that critics of Israel are anti-Semitic, or anti-Jewish to be precise. The Jewish people in Quebec and Canada are divided on the issues of Israel and Palestine. There are many Jewish people like us who support open discussion and activities for Palestinian human rights, and oppose the Israeli occupation and suppression of the Palestinian people.

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(From Edward C. Corrigan). Here is a disturbing email that I received from University of Western Ontario PIRG.

It is not clear from the email what grounds were put forward for deratification and if any warning was given to UWO PRIG as to problems and any opportunity to correct procedural errors. I am not sure how other UWO student clubs are treated and what circumstances are required before deratification. UWO PRIG has been the official sponsor of a number of pro-Palestinian speakers on campus since the deratification of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) at Western several years ago. The pro-Palestinian stance of the SPHR club was clearly a part the attacks on that club.

UWO PIRG also sponsored speakers critical of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians. These speakers included Israeli historian Ilan Pappe who  spoke about the “Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine in 1948-1949″ and Dr. Ismail Zayid, who gave a presentation on the discriminatory nature of the Jewish National Fund. If these pro-Palestinian presentations were part of the reasons behind the deratification of UWO PIRG and SPHR then they follow a pattern of anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism that has been found to exist at the University of Western Ontario in the past.

Anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism has been the subject of at least four human rights complaints made to the Ontario Human Rights Commission against the University of Western Ontario. All four complaints were up held by the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Three complaints were up held against the University of Western Ontario and one was up held against the University Students Council (USC). My article on the USC complaint and on the battle to present the pro-Palestinian speakers, many of them Jewish, at  Western can be found in “The Palestinian Question at the University: The Case of Western Ontario,@ American-Arab Affairs, Summer 1987, pp. 87-98. (This journal is now called Middle East Policy). The University Student’s Council was required to publish “a statement of regret” and to ratify Canadians Concerned for the Middle East (CCME). The pro-Palestinian club also won the backing of the Canadian Civil Liberities Association and a supportive editorial from the Globe and Mail. Many Jewish academics and other prominent figures also criticized the attempt to censor debate on the Palestinian issue at UWO.

The three complaints of “differential treatment of Arab students” were filed in 1987 against the University of Western Ontario. The University of Western Ontario was required to publish an apology and pay four Arab students $2,000 each for “their mental anguish.”  Newspaper reports of the “Anti-Arab complaint” were carried in the London Free Press and the Globe and Mail on February 10, 1994. “In his open letter of apology university president George Pedersen admitted Western was slow in responding to the local Arab Palestinian community’s ‘legitimate concerns’ and failed to achieve ‘the ideals associated with freedom of speech in the incidents cited.’” (”UWO agrees to apologize, pay Arab students $8,000,” London Free Press, February 10, 1994 p. B1)

What is disturbing is that the President of the University of Western Ontario, Dr. Paul Davenport, defends his accepting an award from the Jewish National Fund, which was found to be a racist organization by the Israeli Supreme Court for discrimination against Arabs in Israel, on the basis of free speech. I am a strong supporter of free speech and academic freedom. However, the silence of the UWO Administration on repeated attempts to harass and shut down pro-Palestinian organizations at Western and organizations that sponsor pro-Palestinian speakers, speaks loudly about hypocrisy and to discriminatory and even racist attitudes towards Arab and Muslim students at UWO, and those who associate with them. This silence and refusal to intervene also speaks of a blatant double standard towards free speech and academic freedom when it comes Palestinian human rights at Western when these same arguments are used to defend racism against Arabs in Israel by organizations such as the Jewish National Fund.

Edward C. Corrigan, BA, MA, LL.B

UWO Alumni  1977 and 1991.

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