By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 10 2013 (IPS) – If Syria eventually agrees to relinquish its stockpile of chemical arms under the 1993 international Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), what of the six other countries that have either shown reluctance or refused to join the treaty?

Currently, there are 189 states that have signed and ratified the treaty prohibiting the manufacture, use and transfer of the deadly weapons. But seven member states have been holdouts: Burma and Israel have signed but not ratified, while Angola, North Korea, Egypt, South Sudan and Syria have neither signed nor ratified.

If Syria agrees to accept the U.S.-Russia proposal to abandon its weapons under the CWC, it still leaves six others outside the treaty.

A meeting of the Security Council to discuss Syria, scheduled to take place Tuesday, was cancelled without explanation.

If a resolution, inspired by Western nations, is adopted by the Council later in the week, Syria is expected to agree to hand over all of its chemical weapons for storage and destruction by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) based in The Hague, Netherlands.

Asked what progress the Security Council has made on the proposal, the president of the Council, Ambassador Gary Francis Quilan of Australia, told reporters it was premature to speculate.

“It’s a step by step process,” he said.

Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, who has written extensively on weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), singled out two other Middle Eastern nations, Egypt and Israel, as either having developed or used chemical weapons.

He pointed out that Israel is widely believed to have produced and stockpiled an extensive range of chemical weapons and is engaged in ongoing research and development of additional chemical weaponry.

“The insistence that Syria must unilaterally give up its chemical weapons and missiles while allowing a powerful and hostile neighbour to maintain and expand its sizeable arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons is simply unreasonable,” Zunes told IPS.

No country, whether autocratic or democratic, could be expected to accept such conditions, he added.

Egypt was the first country in the region to obtain and use chemical weapons, using phosgene and mustard gas in the mid-1960s during its intervention in Yemen’s civil war.

“There is no indication Egypt has ever destroyed any of its chemical agents or weapons,” said Zunes.

The U.S.-backed regime of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak continued its chemical weapons research and development programme until its ouster in a popular uprising two and a half years ago, and the programme is believed to have continued subsequently, he noted.

Asked whether the United Nations has the capacity to handle the weapons, U.N. associate spokesperson Farhan Haq told IPS, “The secretary-general has consistently called for Syria to accede to the Chemical Weapons Convention and to fully abide by its responsibility to maintain the physical security of any chemical weapon stockpiles in its possession.”

The OPCW, which oversees the CWC, has considerable experience storing and destroying chemical weapons.

In a statement released Tuesday, Amnesty International USA said it welcomes steps that would lead to the removal or destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons, given that they are internationally banned and their use is a war crime.

“Taking this initiative to the U.N. Security Council offers an opportunity for the international community to take other concrete action to stop the flow of conventional weapons that have caused the vast majority of civilian deaths, refer the situation for criminal investigation, and demand unfettered access for the U.N.-mandated Commission of Inquiry,” said Amnesty’s Deputy Executive Director Frank Jannuzi.

Asked about the proposal to transfer Syria’s chemical stocks to international control, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters Monday, “I think that would be proper [thing] for Syria to do, to agree to these proposals.

“Then I am sure that the international community will [take] very swift action to make sure that these chemical weapons stocks will be stored safely and will be destroyed. I do not have any doubt and worry about that. First and foremost, Syria must agree positively to this,” he added.

Harking back in history, Zunes told IPS Syria’s chemical weapons programme was established in response to Israel’s development of a chemical and nuclear arsenal.

The Syrian government has long expressed its willingness to give up its chemical weapons as part of a regional disarmament agreement as called for in U.N. Security Council resolution 687, which stated that Iraqi disarmament was the first step in establishing a regional disarmament regime.

When it had a non-permanent seat on the Security Council in December 2002, Syria introduced a draft resolution to this effect, but it was not tabled due to a threatened U.S. veto, he added.

Zunes said for more than 45 years, the Syrians have witnessed successive U.S. administrations provide massive amounts of armaments to a neighbouring country with a vastly superior military capability which has invaded, occupied, and colonised Syria’s Golan province in the southwest.

In 2007, the United States successfully pressured Israel to reject peace overtures from the Syrian government in which the Syrians offered to recognise Israel and agree to strict security guarantees in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied Syrian territory, he noted.

© Inter Press Service News Agency, republished with permission.

by the Canadian Peace Alliance

Winnipeg, Sept. 7: Winnipeggers demonstrate for peace in Syria. Photo: Paul S. Graham

By Peace Alliance Winnipeg

September 21, 2013 – For now, the threat of a US-led military strike on Syria has receded. Nevertheless, we cannot afford to be complacent. While the crisis is not currently front-page news, the slaughter continues inside Syria, and the US government has left no doubt that it will attack on the slightest pretext. With that intervention would come a wider war, one that could engulf the region and perhaps the world.

All who want a peaceful world must work for peace in Syria and resist the efforts of those who would drag us into yet another war. On International Peace Day, we must call upon our government to abandon its support for military intervention in Syria and instead to work for constructive, peaceful solutions.

We are not alone in our resistance to war. Recent polling in the United States, Britain and Germany, for example, shows that clear majorities oppose an attack on Syria. Even in France, the only major power to announce its willingness to join the US in an attack, public opinion is almost evenly divided.

Despite the US government’s most vigorous campaigning, the British Parliament voted against military intervention. The UN Security Council has refused to authorize a strike. NATO has ruled out military action.

British MPs voted against military action because the British people were well aware of the falsified British and American intelligence reports used to justify attacking Iraq in 2003.

That invasion caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and almost 5,000 coalition troops. Four million Iraqis became refugees, the country’s infrastructure was destroyed and Iraqi society was fragmented by sectarian violence that continues to this day.

Canada’s Shameful Role

Canada has funnelled more than $5 million to opposition forces and endorsed the use of military force. While Stephen Harper has stated that Canada has no plans for a Canadian military mission “at the present time,” Canada has provided the US government with consistent political support.

Foreign Affairs Minister Baird’s response to the recent agreement to destroy Syrian chemical weapons is telling. Baird called it “ridiculous and absurd” showing that Canadian foreign policy is incapable of finding solutions other than through the politics of confrontation and force in the international arena.

The Syrian war is widening

The people of Syria have already suffered over two years of a devastating war, with more than a hundred thousand Syrians killed and millions driven from their homes. What began as a nonviolent protest and then civil war has expanded to sectarian and even more dangerous international conflict.

Syria is a battleground where conflicts are being fought out between regional powers (Saudi Arabia and Iran) and global powers (the US and Russia). A US military attack would worsen the conflict between heavily armed and powerful forces, seriously escalating the war and further destabilizing the Middle East.

Attacking Syrian forces with cruise missiles and drones, which is what the US government would like to do, would only add to the death toll and delay the peace negotiations that must ultimately bring this war to a close.

Even if, through some miracle, the violence remained contained within Syria, the price would still be paid by the Syrian people.

Antiwar sentiment is strong and growing

Earlier this month, there were antiwar demonstrations around the world. Protests were held in more than 12 Canadian cities, including Winnipeg.

Peace can be achieved, but only with a huge global response. In Canada, we can show our solidarity with the people of Syria by insisting that our government change its direction and work for peace.

What can we do, here, in Winnipeg?

There are positive, constructive steps we can take to show our support for the people of Syria. We can contact our Members of Parliament. We can insist that they reconvene Parliament and take the following constructive steps:

1. Provide genuine humanitarian aid to the victims of the civil war in the form of food, medical supplies and financial contributions to the reputable humanitarian aid groups that have been stretched to the breaking point by this crisis.

2. End all forms of material and political support to opposition forces.

3. Adopt a genuinely neutral position on the world stage and press for peace talks that involve all of the contending forces.

Parliament must be reconvened to reverse the damage that our government has done by taking sides in this civil war. Canada has to become a responsible voice for peace in the Middle East and the world.

If you don’t know how to get hold of your MP, here are some phone numbers.

• Niki Ashton (Churchill): 204-677-1333
• Joyce Bateman (Winnipeg South Centre): 204-983-1355
• Candice Bergen (Portage-Lisgar): 204-822-7440
• James Bezan (Selkirk-Interlake): 204-785-6151
• Rod Bruinooge (Winnipeg South): 204-984-6787
• Steven Fletcher (Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia): 204-984-6432
• Shelly Glover (St. Boniface): 204-983-3183
• Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North): 204-984-1767
• Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre): 204-984-1767
• Joy Smith (Kildonan-St. Paul): 204-984-6322
• Robert Sopuck (Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette): 204-848-7000
• Lawrence Toet (Elmwood-Transcona): 204-984-2499

For more complete contact information, go here.

March 4, 2014: Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird with Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada, Vadym Prystaiko, Photo: iPolitics

by Glenn Michalchuk, Chair, Peace Alliance Winnipeg

There is a need at this time to go into the facts about the crisis in the Ukraine. The simple arguments of Baird and Harper about “democracy”, “sovereignty”, “independence” are a prescription for disaster. Their treatment of the crisis is a disservice to Canadians and a manipulation of the struggle of the Ukrainian people against internal corruption and foreign domination (of both “East” and “West”).

The political, military and economic crisis which is emerging out of the conflict in the Ukraine shows the dangers of the present era. It shows that the end of the Cold War did not usher in a new and less dangerous period. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union Russia, the EU, United States and NATO have been locked in a strategic battle for control of the former republics that made up the Soviet Union and the nations that were aligned with it. In some cases, such as Poland, the issue is largely settled with control by the U.S. and NATO assured. Indeed, in response to the Russian move into the Crimea the U.S. and Poland are conducting joint air force exercises. However, in the Ukraine and elsewhere the contention is ongoing and hence the present crisis in Europe.

The crisis in the Ukraine is a continuation of the struggle that emerged in the Orange Revolution of 2004 and pitted pro-Western forces in the Ukraine against those closely tied to Russia and its interests. The collapse of socialism marked the transformation of the economy into a capitalist economy and with it the emergence of a class of oligarchs who control both the economy and politics in the Ukraine. The Orange Revolution of 2004 and the current “revolution” are largely a dispute between these powerful oligarchs and their respective backers in the EU and Russia.

The Ukrainian people are caught in a political battle between sections of the financial oligarchy for control of the Ukraine. The results of the most recent revolution do not represent a gain for the people. Yulia Tymoshenko, a key figure in the Orange Revolution, had her conviction for corruption overturned by the Ukrainian parliament following the coup and has now emerged as a spokesperson for the new government. There are other forces at work as well. On the darker side is the role played by extreme right-wing political parties and organizations in recent events.

The battles fought with police (and featured on the evening news reports in Canada) were led in large part by right wing paramilitary groups such as the ultranationalist “Right Sector.” Representatives of parties on the extreme right have taken key positions of power in the “new” and “democratic” government of the Ukraine. These developments are a dangerous current that Canada, the U.S., Britain and the EU seem content to ignore in their contention with Russia.

Western leaders are now photographed alongside ultra-nationalist Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok. Last year the World Jewish Congress called on the EU to consider banning Svoboda along with Greece’s neo-fascist Golden Dawn. The new Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Sych is a member of the Svoboda party as is Andriy Parubiy, the Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council. Thus, it is a fraud for the Canadian government to suggest that the crisis in Ukraine is a battle between “democracy” and “authoritarianism.”

It is equally fraudulent for the United States, Britain and Canada to speak of concern over the “territorial integrity of the Ukraine” and the “norms of international law.” While they denounce Russia for its actions in the Crimea as unsuitable to the 21st Century and a remnant of the Cold War the fact is the U.S. and Britain have waged two wars against Iraq (one in defiance of the United Nations) and waged a war of occupation in Afghanistan. Canada, for its part, has been complicit in all these adventures. Violation of international law is a norm of big power confrontation and a consistent threat to international peace and security.

The people of the Ukraine are caught in the middle between the maneuverings of Russia and the Western powers. Neither “East” nor “West” can guarantee them peace, freedom and security so long as the objectives remain the politics of control and domination. Internally, the forces which promised neo-liberalism as the measure of democracy have failed. They have split the Ukraine along the lines of “East” and “West” and given space for the emergence of fascism and reactionary nationalism as a political force. In 2010, Viktor Yushchenko, President of the Ukraine from 2005 to 2010, and a leader of the Orange Revolution made the “nationalist” Stephan Bandera a “hero of Ukraine” despite Bandera’s collaboration with the Nazi’s and involvement in pogroms against Jews and Poles.

Canadians can take no heart in the alignment of the Canadian government with the forces that have seized power in the Ukraine or its continuing incitement of confrontation with Russia. These actions are not about support for national rights, freedom or democracy. They represent the fault lines of a new and catastrophic confrontation which is in the making. The danger reaches from Central Europe, through the former Yugoslavia, Georgia, Syria, the Middle East and Central Asia. The Ukraine is the most recent pressure point in this geo-political wrangling.

The Canadian government is fully engaged in this dangerous game through NATO and its support for U.S. and British policy to heighten these tensions. Much of the mainstream Canadian media has filtered the content of its reporting of the crisis in order to support these tensions. The danger is in accepting the narrative which is pushed – whether it is “weapons of mass destruction” as in the case of Iraq or “freedom and territorial integrity” as in the Ukraine crisis. It is important for Canadians to take a stand against this manipulation.

By John Pilger

I watched Dr. Strangelove the other day. I have seen it perhaps a dozen times; it makes sense of senseless news. When Major T.J. ‘King’ Kong goes “toe to toe with the Rooskies” and flies his rogue B52 nuclear bomber to a target in Russia, it’s left to General ‘Buck’ Turgidson to reassure the President. Strike first, says the general, and “you got no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops.”

President Merkin Muffley: “I will not go down in history as the greatest mass-murderer since Adolf Hitler.”

General Turgidson: “Perhaps it might be better, Mr. President, if you were more concerned with the American people than with your image in the history books.”

The genius of Stanley Kubrick’s film is that it accurately represents the cold war’s lunacy and dangers. Most of the characters are based on real people and real maniacs. There is no equivalent to Strangelove today, because popular culture is directed almost entirely at our interior lives, as if identity is the moral zeitgeist and true satire is redundant; yet the dangers are the same. The nuclear clock has remained at five minutes to midnight; the same false flags are hoisted above the same targets by the same “invisible government”, as Edward Bernays, the inventor of public relations, described modern propaganda.

In 1964, the year Strangelove was made, “the missile gap” was the false flag. In order to build more and bigger nuclear weapons and pursue an undeclared policy of domination, President John Kennedy approved the CIA’s propaganda that the Soviet Union was well ahead of the US in the production of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. This filled front pages as the “Russian threat”. In fact, the Americans were so far ahead in the production of ICBMs, the Russians never approached them. The cold war was based largely on this lie.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has ringed Russia with military bases, nuclear warplanes and missiles as part of its “Nato Enlargement Project”. Reneging a US promise to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 that Nato would not expand “one inch to the east”, Nato has all but taken over eastern Europe. In the former Soviet Caucuses, Nato’s military build-up is the most extensive since the second world war.

Continued . . .

Winnipeg, May 27, 2014: “Scarlet Mowchanson” greets her adoring fans in front of the Winnipeg Concert Hall where the annual Negev Gala was being held to raise funds for the Jewish National Fund. Photo: Paul S. Graham

Activists from Independent Jewish Voices Canada staged some street theatre outside the annual Negev Gala, held May 27th at the Winnipeg Concert Hall to raise money for the Jewish National Fund.

IJV is highly critical of the JNF because of the central role it has played for decades in the theft of Palestinian land.

By announcing a “new JNF” – one dedicated to righting historic and contemporary injustices, the IJV activists hope to educate fellow Jews and other Canadians who they believe are often unaware of the discriminatory and harmful policies of the JNF.

The IJV also calls upon the federal government of Canada to remove the JNF’s charitable tax status in Canada.

by Glenn Michalchuk and Paul S. Graham

About 800 Winnipeggers gathered at the Manitoba Legislate on the evening of July 14th to protest the continuing Israeli bombardment of Gaza and the support of the Canadian government for Israel’s military action. The action was organized by Canadian Palestinian Association of MB (CPAM), Canada-Palestine Support Network (Winnipeg) and the Winnipeg Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (WCAIA).

The Winnipeg action was one of the many which have taken place across Canada and around the world in opposition to Israel’s assault on the civilian population of Gaza which has resulted in more than 150 deaths, many of them children. Over the years Gaza has suffered from embargo of basic food and other essentials in addition to full out military assault.

The large demonstration spent some time on the streets near the Legislature to bring the message to those in their cars before returning to the steps of the Legislature to hear remarks from the organizers.

In condemning the current violence of the Israeli state organizers also called for Canada to recognize the just demands of the Palestinian people as the way forward for peace in the Middle East.

This message stands in stark contrast to official Canadian policy which blames the Palestinian struggle for nationhood and the return of occupied lands as the source of the continuing violence between Palestinians and Israelis.

WINNIPEG RALLY FOR GAZA II

On July 19th, Winnipeggers returned to the streets in a second demonstration of solidarity with Gaza. This time, approximately 500 people assembled in front the the Canadian Museum of Human Rights at The Forks. Following speeches, which ended with a recital of the names of some of the Palestinians slain in recent days, they marched along Main Street and Broadway Avenue before returning to the museum. In this video report, we hear from:

• Krishna Lalbiharie, Canada-Palestine Support Network (Winnipeg)
• Rana Abdulla, Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba
• Terrance Nelson, Grand Chief, Southern Chiefs Organization
• Daniel Thau-Eleff, Independent Jewish Voices (Winnipeg)
• Bassam Hozaima,  Canada-Palestine Support Network (Winnipeg)
• Glenn Michalchuk, Peace Alliance Winnipeg

Photos were taken by Glenn Michalchuk. The video was produced by Paul S. Graham. Poster was designed by Krishna Lalbiharie.

By Matsui Kazumi, Mayor, The City of Hiroshima

Summer, 69 years later. The burning sun takes us back to “that day.” August 6, 1945. A single atomic bomb renders Hiroshima a burnt plain. From infants to the elderly, tens of thousands of innocent civilians lose their lives in a single day. By the end of the year, 140,000 have died. To avoid forgetting that sacred sacrifice and to prevent a repetition of that tragedy, please listen to the voices of the survivors.

Approximately 6,000 young boys and girls died removing buildings for fire lanes. One who was a 12-year-old junior high student at the time says, “Even now, I carry the scars of war and that atomic bombing on my body and in my heart. Nearly all my classmates were killed instantly. My heart is tortured by guilt when I think how badly they wanted to live and that I was the only one who did.” Having somehow survived, hibakusha still suffer from severe physical and emotional wounds.

“Water, please.” Voices from the brink of death are still lodged in the memory of a boy who was 15 and a junior high student. The pleas were from younger students who had been demolishing buildings. Seeing their badly burned, grotesquely swollen faces, eyebrows and eyelashes singed off, school uniforms in ragged tatters due to the heat ray, he tried to respond but was stopped. “‘Give water when they’re injured that bad and they’ll die, boy,’ so I closed my ears and refused them water. If I had known they were going to die anyway, I would have given them all the water they wanted.” Profound regret persists.

People who rarely talked about the past because of their ghastly experiences are now, in old age, starting to open up. “I want people to know the true cruelty of war,” says an A-bomb orphan. He tells of children like himself living in a city of ashes, sleeping under bridges, in the corners of burned-out buildings, in bomb shelters, having nothing more than the clothes on their backs, stealing and fighting to eat, not going to school, barely surviving day to day working for gangsters.

Immediately after the bombing, a 6-year-old first grader hovered on the border between life and death. Later, she lived a continual fearful struggle with radiation aftereffects. She speaks out now because, “I don’t want any young people to go through that experience.” After an exchange with non-Japanese war victims, she decided to convey the importance of “young people making friends around the world,” and “unceasing efforts to build, not a culture of war, but a culture of peace.”
The “absolute evil” that robbed children of loving families and dreams for the future, plunging their lives into turmoil, is not susceptible to threats and counter-threats, killing and being killed. Military force just gives rise to new cycles of hatred. To eliminate the evil, we must transcend nationality, race, religion, and other differences, value person-to-person relationships, and build a world that allows forward-looking dialogue.

Hiroshima asks everyone throughout the world to accept this wish of the hibakusha and walk with them the path to nuclear weapons abolition and world peace.

Each one of us will help determine the future of the human family. Please put yourself in the place of the hibakusha. Imagine their experiences, including that day from the depths of hell, actually happening to you or someone in your family. To make sure the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki never happen a third time, let’s all communicate, think and act together with the hibakusha for a peaceful world without nuclear weapons and without war.

We will do our best. Mayors for Peace, now with over 6,200 member cities, will work through lead cities representing us in their parts of the world and in conjunction with NGOs and the UN to disseminate the facts of the bombings and the message of Hiroshima. We will steadfastly promote the new movement stressing the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and seeking to outlaw them. We will help strengthen international public demand for the start of negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention with the goal of total abolition by 2020.

The Hiroshima Statement that emerged this past April from the ministerial meeting of the NPDI (Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative) called on the world’s policymakers to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. President Obama and all leaders of nuclear-armed nations, please respond to that call by visiting the A-bombed cities as soon as possible to see what happened with your own eyes. If you do, you will be convinced that nuclear weapons are an absolute evil that must no longer be allowed to exist. Please stop using the inhumane threat of this absolute evil to defend your countries. Rather, apply all your resources to a new security system based on trust and dialogue.

Japan is the only A-bombed nation. Precisely because our security situation is increasingly severe, our government should accept the full weight of the fact that we have avoided war for 69 years thanks to the noble pacifism of the Japanese Constitution. We must continue as a nation of peace in both word and deed, working with other countries toward the new security system. Looking toward next year’s NPT Review Conference, Japan should bridge the gap between the nuclear-weapon and non-nuclear-weapon states to strengthen the NPT regime. In addition, I ask the government to expand the “black rain areas” and, by providing more caring assistance, show more compassion for the hibakusha and all those suffering from the effects of radiation.

Here and now, as we offer our heartfelt consolation to the souls of those sacrificed to the atomic bomb, we pledge to join forces with people the world over seeking the abolition of the absolute evil, nuclear weapons, and the realization of lasting world peace.

August 6, 2014

Matsui Kazumi, Mayor
The City of Hiroshima

More Information: About Hiroshima Peace Declarations

A view of a house destroyed in an air strike carried out by Ukrainian armed forces in the village of Stanitsa Luganskaya , on July 2, 2014. (AFP Photo) RT

OPINION: Civil Society Calls For Impartial Inquiry on Air Crash and Catastrophe in Ukraine

By Alice Slater

NEW YORK, Sep 2 2014 (IPS) – It is ironic that at this moment in history when so many people and nations around the world are acknowledging the 100th anniversary of our planet’s hapless stumble into World War I, great powers and their allies are once again provoking new dangers where governments appear to be sleepwalking towards a restoration of old Cold War battles.

A barrage of conflicting information is broadcast in the various national and nationalistic media with alternative versions of reality that provoke and stoke new enmities and rivalries across national borders.

Moreover, NATO’s new disturbing saber-rattling, with its chief, Anders Rasmussen, announcing that NATO will deploy its troops for the first time in Eastern Europe since the Cold War ended, building a “readiness action plan”, boosting Ukraine’s military capacity so that, “ In the future you will see a more visible NATO presence in the east”, while disinviting Russia from the upcoming NATO meeting in Wales, opens new possibilities for endless war and hostilities.

With the U.S. and Russia in possession of over 15,000 of the world’s 16,400 nuclear weapons, humanity can ill-afford to stand by and permit these conflicting views of history and opposing assessments of the facts on the ground lead to a 21st Century military confrontation between the great powers and their allies.

While sadly acknowledging the trauma suffered by the countries of Eastern Europe from years of Soviet occupation, and understanding their desire for the protection of the NATO military alliance, we must remember that Russia lost 20 million people during WWII to the Nazi onslaught and are understandably wary of NATO expansion to their borders in a hostile environment.

This despite a promise to Gorbachev, when the wall came down peacefully and the Soviet Union ended its post-WWII occupation of Eastern Europe, that NATO would not be expanded eastward, beyond the incorporation of East Germany into that rusty Cold War alliance.

Russia has lost the protection of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which the U.S. abandoned in 2001, and warily observes missile bases metastasizing ever closer to its borders, in new NATO member states, while the U.S. rejects repeated Russian efforts for negotiations on a treaty to ban weapons in space, or Russia’s prior application for membership in NATO.

Why do we still have NATO anyway? This Cold War relic is being used to fire up new hostilities and divisions between Russia and the rest of Europe.

Civil Society demands that an independent international inquiry be commissioned to review events in Ukraine leading up to the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 and of the procedures being used to review the catastrophic aftermath, including this latest outbreak of hostile actions from NATO.

Indeed, Russia has already called for an investigation of the facts surrounding the Malaysian airplane crash. The international investigation should factually determine the cause of the accident and hold responsible parties accountable to the families of the victims and the citizens of the world who fervently desire peace and peaceful settlements of any existing conflicts.

More importantly, it should include a fair and balanced presentation of what led to the deterioration of U.S.–Russian relations since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the new hostile and polarized posture that the U.S. and Russia with their allies find themselves in today with NATO now threatening greater militarisation and provocations against Russia in Eastern Europe.

The United Nations Security Council, with U.S. and Russian agreement, has already passed Resolution 2166 addressing the Malaysian jet crash, demanding accountability, full access to the site and a halt to military activity, which has been painfully disregarded at various times since the incident.

One of the provisions of Resolution 2166 notes that the Council “[s]upports efforts to establish a full, thorough and independent international investigation into the incident in accordance with international civil aviation guidelines.”

Further, the 1909 revised Convention on the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes adopted at the 1899 Hague International Peace Conference has been used successfully to resolve issues between states so that war was avoided in the past.

Regardless of the forum where the evidence is gathered and fairly evaluated, all the facts and circumstances should be made known to the world as to how we got to this unfortunate state of affairs on our planet today and what might be the solutions.

All the members of NATO together with Russia and Ukraine are urged to end the endless arms race, which only feeds the military-industrial complex that U.S. President Eisenhower warned against.

They must engage in diplomacy and negotiations, not war and hostile alienating actions.

The world can little afford the trillions of dollars in military spending and trillions and trillions of brain cells wasted on war when our very Earth is under stress and needs the critical attention of our best minds and thinking, and the abundance of resources mindlessly diverted to war to be made available for the challenges confronting us to create a livable future for life on earth.

Alice Slater is New York Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and serves on the Coordinating Committee of Abolition 2000.

© Inter Press Service News Agency

by Paul S. Graham

In April 2014, the government that had come into power two months earlier in Ukraine launched what it termed an “anti-terrorist operation” against the people of Eastern Ukraine.

The easterners were opposed to the government’s plans for economic association with Western Europe and were demanding a greater voice in central government decisions.

That political conflict, NATO’s backing of Kyiv against Moscow, and the large-scale humanitarian crisis created by the war have shaken the political foundations of Europe and ushered in a new Cold War.

Roger Annis is a Vancouver-based writer who attended an antiwar conference in Yalta, Crimea on July 6th and 7th. Conference delegates included Ukrainians, Russians and antiwar activists from Europe and North America.

Roger talks in depth about the origins of the conflict, the anti-Russian propaganda offensive in the West, the rise of neo-fascism and other recent developments in Ukraine, and what must be done to bring peace to this part of the world.

The evening was sponsored by Peace Alliance Winnipeg. Roger’s web site, which contains several excellent articles on the Ukrainian situation, is http://www.rogerannis.com/.

From the video “Dancing Tragedies and Dreams.” Photo: Paul S. Graham

by Paul S. Graham

Art, culture, dance and politics blended seamlessly in Winnipeg on September 21, 2014, with the performance of Dancing Tragedies and Dreams, a production of the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba,  at Prairie Theatre Exchange.

Dancing Tragedies and Dreams featured dances from Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt as well as an exciting performance of Poi dance from New Zealand, propelled by the music of El Funon Popular Dance Troupe of Palestine. Talk about fusion!

Eleven months in the making, Dancing Tragedies and Dreams was the brain child of Rana Abdulla and involved dozens of volunteers working evenings and weekends to bring it to fruition. In preparing this event, Rana’s dream was to bridge the divide between Western and Arabic worlds and to amplify the cry of Palestinians for peace, human rights and social justice.

Sixty-six years ago, the people of Palestine were forcibly driven from their homeland. Confined to parcels of land that are a fraction of their traditional territory and vilified by the the people who drove them out, their history shows some similarity to that of the indigenous people of this country.

Unlike the government of Israel, the government of Canada does not bomb indigenous people (in this country, anyway), but for decades in Canada, indigenous people needed permission from the local Indian Agent to leave their reserves, a parallel that would be immediately familiar to any resident of Gaza or the West Bank. And hence, at Dancing Tragedies and Dreams, Said Hamad, Palestine’s representative in Canada, referred to their “solidarity with the aboriginal people in Canada.”

Like the aboriginal people of Canada, Palestinians have been “ethnically cleansed” and negatively stereotyped by their oppressors. Like Canada’s aboriginal peoples, Palestinians continue to assert their rights and make visible their humanity and their rich culture.

Dancing Tragedies and Dreams makes a stunning contribution to this effort. It’s too bad that the performance was limited to one evening. Fortunately, my friend Ken Harasym and I recorded the evening. So, get comfortable for the next 90 minutes. Enjoy, and share widely, please.

By Roger Annis

Following several months of preparatory work, a new website providing information and analysis of the war and political crisis in Ukraine is now online. The website is titled The New Cold War: Ukraine and beyond . You can read it, subscribe to it and like it on Facebook at this weblink .

The New Cold War: Ukraine and beyond is a project of the international delegates who attended the antiwar, anti-fascist conference that took place in Yalta, Crimea on July 6 and 7, 2014. That conference adopted an antiwar declaration that serves as a guide to the information assembled and presented on the new website.

The website already contains a vast storehouse of information and analysis. The content is expanding daily. One feature designed to assist readers is ‘Editors’ picks’, a selection by our editors of the items posted to the website that are varied and that we consider particularly informative.

The information on the website is sorted by category for ease of access. There are 14 subject categories—from the obvious—‘Ukraine’, ‘Russia’, ‘News’, and’ Analysis’—to ‘Eastern Europe and Caucasus,’ and ‘Malaysian Airlines Crash’.

We are open to reports from all sources, provided that they are relevant and contain verifiable factual claims, not unsupported opinion. To send reports, questions, or comments write to newcoldwareditors@gmail.ca. If you would like to contribute to our blog or become a regular author, please contact our editorial team.

Please inform your friends and associates of this new website. Please like us on Facebook. You can sign up to receive website postings by e-mail in a frequency of your choosing.

If you are in the Ottawa area , please note this announcement of a half-day conference on Ukraine to take place at the University of Ottawa, Thursday, Dec. 4.

By Peace Alliance Winnipeg

This Sunday marks the beginning of Let Them Stay Week, a national campaign dedicated to securing the safety of American war resisters who have sought refuge in Canada. As the War Resisters Support Campaign notes in a recent post, “In the last four months of 2014, an alarming number of U.S. Iraq war resisters in Canada received negative decisions in their immigration cases. Several of them have received, or are about to receive, removal orders from Canada.”

The federal government has consistently ignored public opinion and two Parliamentary resolutions calling for sanctuary for American war resisters. Peace Alliance Winnipeg joins with the War Resisters Support Campaign in demanding an end to the deportations and that war resisters be permitted to remain in Canada.

The War Resisters Support Campaign is asking for our help. Please do everything you can.

Sunday Jan 25 – Profile Picture Day: Change your profile picture on Facebook in support of US war resisters, for the duration of Let Them Stay Week (Tip: you can use the graphic in story.)

Monday Jan 26 – Media Outreach Day: Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper

Tuesday Jan 27 – Email/phone Blitz: Call or email Minister of Immigration Chris Alexander (cc to party leaders, immigration critics, and your MP) – Click here to send your email.

Wednesday Jan 28 – Mail-in Letters Day: Write and mail a letter to the Minister of Immigration (Hon. Chris Alexander, Minister of Citizenship & Immigration, House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario Canada, K1A 0A6)

Thurs Jan 29 – Social Media Day: Share, post, disseminate information on war resisters on social media

Friday Jan 30 – Community Outreach Day: Call your local MPs office to express your concern (Contact Information here: http://www.parl.gc.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members); circulate the US war resister petition; make a donation to the War Resisters defence fund; post a window-sign at your home, workplace or community organization

In Winnipeg, we have been supporting the struggle of war resister Joshua Key to remain in Canada. Please read the Joshua Key Fact Sheet for more information about Joshua and share it with your friends. You can also watch a video of Joshua speaking at McNally Robinson Bookstore in 2011.

Finally, please share this message with friends and family. The situation of war resisters in Canada is becoming increasingly dangerous. We must act now to defend their rights to refuse to participate in criminal wars.

By Justin Raimondo
Global Research, February 12, 2015

When Ukrainian army officers came to the Ukrainian village of Velikaya Znamenka to tell the men to prepare to be drafted, they weren’t prepared for what happened next. As the commanding officer was speaking, a woman seized the microphone and proceeded to tell him off: “We’re sick of this war! Our husbands and sons aren’t going anywhere!” She then launched into a passionate speech, denouncing the war, and the coup leaders in Kiev, to the cheers of the crowd.

What she did is now a crime in Ukraine: the only reason she wasn’t arrested on the spot is that the villagers wouldn’t have permitted it. But in Ukrainian Transcarpathia, well-known journalist for Ukrainian Channel 112 Ruslan Kotsaba has been arrested and charged with “treason” and “espionage” for making a video in which he declared: “I would rather sit in jail for three to five years than go to the east to kill my Ukrainian brothers. This fear-mongering must be stopped.” Kotsaba may sit in jail for twenty-three years, the prescribed term for the charges filed against him.

Kotsaba’s arrest is part of a desperate effort by the Ukrainian government to intimidate the growing antiwar and anti-draft movement, which threatens to upend Kiev’s dreams of conquering the rebellious eastern provinces. Kotsaba’s particular crime, according to prosecutors, was in describing the conflict as a civil war rather than a Russian “invasion.” This is a point the authorities cannot tolerate: the same meme being relentlessly broadcast by the Western media – that an indigenous rebellion with substantial support is really a Russian plot to “subvert” Ukraine and reestablish the Warsaw Pact – now has the force of law in Ukraine. Anyone who contradicts it is subject to arrest.

Also subject to arrest, and worse: the thousands who are fleeing the country in order to avoid being conscripted into the military. In a Facebook post that was quickly deleted, Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak wrote: “According to unofficial sources, hostels and motels in border regions of neighboring Romania are completely filled with draft dodgers.” President Petro Poroshenko, the Chocolate Oligarch, is readying a decree imposing possible restrictions on foreign travel for those of draft age – which means anyone from age 25 to 60. Ukrainians may soon be prisoners in their own country – but they aren’t taking it lying down.

Draft resistance is at an all-time high: a mere 6 percent of those called up have reported voluntarily. This has forced the Kiev authorities to go knocking on doors – where they are met either with a mass of angry villagers, who refuse to let them take anyone, or else ghost towns where virtually everyone has fled. In the Transcarpathia region of western Ukraine, entire villages have been emptied, the inhabitants fleeing to Russia to wait out the war – or the fall of the Kiev regime, whichever comes first. “It may seem a paradox,” says Transcarpathia’s chief recruitment officer, “but from the western Ukrainian region of Ternopyl people have fled to Russia in order to escape army conscription.” The frantic Ukrainian regime is now contemplatingconscripting women over 20.

Poroshenko’s military mobilization is due not only to numerous setbacks in the east – Ukrainian troops are being pushed back on all fronts by highly motivated rebels defending their own towns and villages – but also because thousands are deserting, throwing down their arms and fleeing to Russia. In response, the Ukrainian parliament has passed a law authorizing local commanders to shoot deserters on the spot.

With Poroshenko’s war looking like a major disaster, one that could easily topple his EU/US-installed regime, the War Party in the US is turning up the heat, demanding that Washington provide Kiev with arms. Sen. John McCain is – naturally – leading the charge, but prominent liberals are also in the front ranks, with leading scholars of the Brookings Institution recently calling for heavy weapons to be sent. That provoked a response from a dissident within Brookings, former State Department official Jeremy Shapiro, who argues that the Ukrainian conflict is a civil war that cannot have a military solution, and is more than likely to provoke a dangerous military confrontation with Russia.

The Obama administration is under considerable pressure from within the President’s own party to start arming the Ukrainian army, but America’s European allies are reluctant to let this war go on much longer, especially now that their sock puppet Poroshenko is increasingly unpopular. With protests erupting all over western Ukraine, Germany’s Angela Merkel is openly opposing escalation of the war. She made that clear at a recent conference in Munich, where Merkel spoke after returning from talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and French President Francois Hollande. Meanwhile, on the sidelines, McCain was telling reporters: “If we had provided Ukraine with weapons they wouldn’t have had to use cluster bombs.”

They don’t call him “Mad John” for nothing.

The United States is providing the Kiev regime with military training, and we already have American boots on the ground there, ostensibly to “strengthen the rule of law.” What that means in practice is that we are bolstering a government that has declared war on its own people, and is rapidly closing off all legal means of dissent – charging political opponents with “treason,” banning political parties, and unleashing ultra-nationalist mobs on anyone who dares dissent. While the US State Department regularly canoodles with Russian “dissidents” who defile Orthodox churches and bare their breasts for the Western cameras, you won’t hear Marie Harf so much as mention Ruslan Kotsaba’s name. As far as I know, the Global Post is the only Western media outlet that has noted his existence – and I’ve not seen a single mention in English about his arrest.

Ukraine is a tripwire that could easily set off World War III – and US provocations are edging closer to that by the day. The crisis was initiated by Washington’s regime-change campaign which succeeded in violently overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych, whose electoral victory was made possible by the criminal incompetence and outright thievery of his predecessor, US-supported Viktor Yushchenko. The so-called “Orange Revolution” led to economic chaos, rampant corruption, and the unleashing of a virulent nationalist current that has culminated in the rise of open neo-Nazis taking seats in the Ukrainian parliament. We are seeing its openly fascistic culmination in the current gang lording over Kiev.

All this was done in the name of sticking a finger in Vladimir Putin’s eye, whose great sin has been kicking out thieving oligarchs and opposing US pretensions to global hegemony. Washington’s ultimate goal is regime-change in the Kremlin, and the reinstallation of a Yeltsin-like sock puppet who, when Washington says “Jump!”, will answer: “How high?”

That they’re willing to risk World War III in order to achieve their goal underscores the sheer craziness of US foreign policy. The latest official US “National Security Strategy” puts the new cold war at the center of Washington’s military-diplomatic vision – an emphasis so monstrously misplaced that it’s hard to believe they’re serious. Yet you had better believe it: this is what we can expect from a future Democratic administration, if one should come to pass, with Hillary Clinton taking her husband’s Slavophobia – remember the Kosovo war? – to new heights of unreason.

The US has no business interfering in Ukraine’s civil war, and no legitimate security interest in the question of who gets to administer Crimea – which has been Russian since the days of Catherine the Great. The idea that we are going to confront Russia over this issue is dangerous nonsense – and, unfortunately, it is just the sort of nonsense politicians of both parties find hard to resist.

There are even some ostensible “libertarians” who can’t resist the temptation to refight the cold war, notably the voluble and well-placed NATO-tarian faction of “Students for Liberty” (SFL), who denounced Ron Paul for his supposedly “pro-Putin” (i.e. anti-interventionist) statements on Ukraine. Ron is appearing at their upcoming “International Conference,” with several of the loudest NATO-tarians in attendance: one hopes he’ll give them a good talking to, although perhaps a spanking is more appropriate for these noisy brats. These juvenile blatherskites claim “Compelling arguments can be made for both advocates of globalist and noninterventionist foreign policy positions,” but aver that “Ron Paul has crossed the line.” It is they who have crossed the line: no libertarian is or can be an advocate of a “globalist” foreign policy – because conquering the globe is, you know, a statist thing.

Of course now that Ukraine – where SFL held a conference – is jailing draft-resisters and clamping down on all dissent, we don’t hear a peep from these adolescent cold warriors. They talk a lot about “liberty,” but not in places where it can get them into trouble.

The main danger to liberty and peace in the world isn’t in the Kremlin, or Peking, or North Korea – it’s right here in these United States of America, in the global epicenter of evil otherwise known as Washington, D.C. This, our “libertarian internationalists” claim, is vulgar “anti-Americanism,” but these foreigners have little conception of what true Americanism is all about. The Founding Fathers of this country are rolling in their graves as the usurpers in Washington sully the good name of America with the blood of innocents worldwide and defile the Constitution in the process. True Americanism means opposing these monsters as they rampage over the earth and destroy our civil liberties at home – not dutifully echoing their rationalizations for endless wars of aggression.

Important Addendum: If you’ve been to our front page, instead of coming directly to this space, you’ll note that we are in the midst of an emergency fundraising campaign – with emphasis on the word emergency. No, I won’t bore you with the usual give-us-money-now boilerplate: I just want to point out one important and quite pertinent fact.

The case of the above-mentioned Ruslan Kotsaba is being reported exactly nowhere in the Western major media. I repeat: nowhere. The German media has picked up on it, and the Japan Times has a story about it. This somewhat obscure news service, which seems to be centered on overseas news, is carrying a brief story. A very teeny tiny item mentions it on Radio Free Europe, the US government funded propaganda mill, but naturally gives zero details. And that’s about it. You probably won’t read much about it in the “mainstream” media – even though Kotsaba is himself a journalist, and you’d expect other journalists to pay attention.

Except when we’re in the midst of a new cold war with Russia and the propaganda mill is furiously turning.

You’ll only read about it right here, at Antiwar.com – and that, I’m afraid, is the horrible truth. Yes, it’s depressing, especially if you read the transcript of the “court” hearing, which has all the judicial credibility of a Stalinist show trial. A government that we are giving billions to, and which may shortly be armed by our rotten government, is jailing journalists for the “crime” of engaging in forbidden speech. And it’s being done in the dark, behind a curtain of silence – a silence maintained by the English-speaking “Fourth Estate.”

Help us keep the truth in front of the American people – don’t let Antiwar.com go. Because it’s needed now more than ever. Make that tax-deductible donation right now. Because the truth matters.

Notes in the margin:

You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out loud.

I’ve written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book, Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert andDavid Gordon (ISI Books, 2008).

You can buy An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.

Reposted from Global Research.

April 17, 2015: Jason Kenney, the minister of National Defence, General Tom Lawson, the chief of defence staff at a news conference detailing Canada’s growing military intervention in Ukraine. Photo: Canadian Forces

By Glenn Michalchuk

The decision of the Canadian government to send 200 troops to train the Ukrainian army will only intensify the divisions that have erupted in Ukraine since the installation of the Poroshenko government.

Harper is pursuing his “new” cold war ideology and confrontation with Russia at the expense of the Ukrainian people. To its shame Canada has supported and encouraged the Kyiv government’s war against the eastern regions.
The resistance of the east Ukraine is to the policies of the Kyiv government. Poroshenko has pursued the integration of Ukraine economically and politically with the EU, militarily with NATO; and the elimination of the rights of national and ethnic minorities in a grand scheme to “homogenize” Ukraine.

As the restructuring demanded by the EU hits home with austerity, erosion of social services, deprivation of livelihood and destruction of agriculture the discontent in all of Ukraine grows. The war, in particular, has spawned an anti-war movement.

Contrary to the “blame Russia” narrative, it was the regular forces of the Kyiv government and the irregular militia of right wing groups which entered the eastern regions with violence a year ago. The full horror of that violence came to the attention of the world when 40 people were burned alive in the trade union headquarters in Odessa. To date the conflict has resulted in the death of more than 6000 civilians and the displacement of more than 1.5 million people.

The actions of the Canadian government are contrary to securing peace in Ukraine or democratic values. Canada is turning a blind eye to the dark history of right-wing Ukraine nationalism in its support for the Kyiv government. On April 9 the Ukraine Parliament extended official recognition to a nationalist militia that collaborated with the Germans during the Second World War.

A dialogue is emerging in Ukraine (and the diaspora) against the war and in favour of reconciliation and peace. Harper and Poroshenko, however, seem bent on stopping this by aligning themselves with the darkest forces from the past and fanning the flames of conflict within Ukraine and, more broadly, Russia.

Glenn Michalchuk is chair of Peace Alliance Winnipeg. A version of this article was published in the Letters Section of the Winnipeg Fee Press on April 17, 2015.

Kazumi Matsui, Mayor of Hiroshima. Photo: Wikipedia

In our town, we had the warmth of family life, the deep human bonds of community, festivals heralding each season, traditional culture and buildings passed down through history, as well as riversides where children played. At 8:15 a.m., August 6, 1945, all of that was destroyed by a single atomic bomb. Below the mushroom cloud, a charred mother and child embraced, countless corpses floated in rivers, and buildings burned to the ground. Tens of thousands were burned in those flames. By year’s end, 140,000 irreplaceable lives had been taken, that number including Koreans, Chinese, Southeast Asians, and American prisoners of war.

Those who managed to survive, their lives grotesquely distorted, were left to suffer serious physical and emotional aftereffects compounded by discrimination and prejudice. Children stole or fought routinely to survive. A young boy rendered an A-bomb orphan still lives alone; a wife was divorced when her exposure was discovered. The suffering continues.

“Madotekure!” This is the heartbroken cry of hibakusha who want Hiroshima—their hometown, their families, their own minds and bodies—put back the way it was.

One hundred years after opening as the Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition Hall and 70 years after the atomic bombing, the A-bomb Dome still watches over Hiroshima. In front of this witness to history, I want us all, once again, to face squarely what the A-bomb did and embrace fully the spirit of the hibakusha.

Meanwhile, our world still bristles with more than 15,000 nuclear weapons, and policymakers in the nuclear-armed states remain trapped in provincial thinking, repeating by word and deed their nuclear intimidation. We now know about the many incidents and accidents that have taken us to the brink of nuclear war or nuclear explosions. Today, we worry as well about nuclear terrorism.

As long as nuclear weapons exist, anyone could become a hibakusha at any time. If that happens, the damage will reach indiscriminately beyond national borders. People of the world, please listen carefully to the words of the hibakusha and, profoundly accepting the spirit of Hiroshima, contemplate the nuclear problem as your own.

A woman who was 16 at the time appeals, “Expanding ever wider the circle of harmony that includes your family, friends, and neighbors links directly to world peace. Empathy, kindness, solidarity—these are not just intellectual concepts; we have to feel them in our bones.” A man who was 12 emphasizes, “War means tragedy for adults and children alike. Empathy, caring, loving others and oneself—this is where peace comes from.”

These heartrending messages, forged in a cauldron of suffering and sorrow, transcend hatred and rejection. Their spirit is generosity and love for humanity; their focus is the future of humankind.

Human beings transcend differences of nationality, race, religion, and language to live out our one-time-only lives on the planet we share. To coexist we must abolish the absolute evil and ultimate inhumanity that is nuclear weapons. Now is the time to start taking action. Young people are already starting petition drives, posting messages, organizing marches and launching a variety of efforts. Let’s all work together to build an enormous ground swell.

In this milestone 70th year, the average hibakusha is now over 80 years old. The city of Hiroshima will work even harder to preserve the facts of the bombing, disseminate them to the world, and convey them to coming generations. At the same time, as president of Mayors for Peace, now with more than 6,700 member cities, Hiroshima will act with determination, doing everything in our power to accelerate the international trend toward negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention and abolition of nuclear weapons by 2020.

Is it not the policymakers’ proper role to pursue happiness for their own people based on generosity and love of humanity? Policymakers meeting tirelessly to talk—this is the first step toward nuclear weapons abolition. The next step is to create, through the trust thus won, broadly versatile security systems that do not depend on military might. Working with patience and perseverance to achieve those systems will be vital, and will require that we promote throughout the world the path to true peace revealed by the pacifism of the Japanese Constitution.

The summit meeting to be held in Japan’s Ise-Shima next year and the foreign ministers’ meeting to be held in Hiroshima prior to that summit are perfect opportunities to deliver a message about the abolition of nuclear weapons. President Obama and other policymakers, please come to the A-bombed cities, hear the hibakusha with your own ears, and encounter the reality of the atomic bombings. Surely, you will be impelled to start discussing a legal framework, including a nuclear weapons convention.

We call on the Japanese government, in its role as bridge between the nuclear- and non-nuclear-weapon states, to guide all states toward these discussions, and we offer Hiroshima as the venue for dialogue and outreach. In addition, we ask that greater compassion for our elderly hibakusha and the many others who now suffer the effects of radiation be expressed through stronger support measures. In particular, we demand expansion of the “black rain areas.”

Offering our heartfelt prayers for the peaceful repose of the A-bomb victims, we express as well our gratitude to the hibakusha and all our predecessors who worked so hard throughout their lives to rebuild Hiroshima and abolish nuclear weapons. Finally, we appeal to the people of the world: renew your determination. Let us work together with all our might for the abolition of nuclear weapons and the realization of lasting world peace.

MATSUI Kazumi
Mayor
The City of Hiroshima
August 6, 2015

by Shahina Siddiqui
The horrific and cowardly attacks by IS in Turkey, Beirut and Paris are a reminder that violence begets violence. French President François Hollande, by declaring war on IS, has unleashed air strikes against IS “headquarters” — a heavily populated area where undoubtedly there will be civilian casualties in the hundreds.

The difference is there will be no vigils, no memorials or images on our TV screens of grieving families. Furthermore, we will delude ourselves into thinking there will be no retaliation.

When war is declared, as it was by former U.S. president George Bush after 9/11, it only perpetuates the cycle of violence. In war there are two sides and each side has the right to defend, attack and retaliate. We may couch this ugly reality by demonizing the victims (as IS does), by calling them the crusaders and apostates and — as we do — by ignoring the human cost to our actions by turning the women, men and children killed by our bombs into collateral damage.

When I spoke to 1,200 Muslim women in Calgary this weekend and called for a moment of silence for the victims of the Paris attacks, a young girl asked, “What about my people, what about their suffering?” Her pain was real, her anger palpable.

How do you respond when the sheer contrast in media coverage of the deaths of western victims is far greater, more sympathetic and more frequent than that of the victims of terrorism and war in the rest of the world? When world leaders stand and march in solidarity after civilians in North America and Europe are targeted, but are silent when the same terrorists target civilian populations in non-western countries. How do I explain to this young girl that all lives matter when our war planes target hospitals, schools and civilian dwellings?

How do you explain this discriminating approach to human suffering?

I reminded the audience that in Islam, all life is sacred, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or religion. I explained we have a common enemy and we should not give in to our hurt and our anger, or adopt the duplicity of the global leadership. However, my heart was crying and my words seemed hollow — is this the reality?

Do we really value all lives the same? Must we live two world visions — equally violent, equally vicious, one of war and one of terrorism — as the only solution?

Why did the attacks in Paris immediately make us turn on the Syrian refugees who are fleeing IS and Bashar Assad’s brutal regime? Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall asked for the suspension of the Syrian refugee program. What evidence does he have to call for such an action?

Social media has lit up with anti-refugee, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant hate. And Canadian Muslims are once again afraid for their children and their well-being.

IS has found our Achilles heel. IS knows fear and hate linger just below the surface in our societies and we very quickly turn on our fellow citizens because of the colour of their skin, their ethnicity and their faith. IS knows our commitment to values of compassion and human rights are fragile and we will take our frustrations and anger out on the most vulnerable, in this case the Syrian refugees.

Let us not prove them right. Let us come together. Let us honour every life lost to war and to terrorism, the way our humanity compels us to.

Shahina Siddiqui is the president of the Islamic Social Services Association. This article originally appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press and is reproduced here with the permission of the author.

Joshua Key in 2011. Photo: Paul S. Graham

By Peace Alliance Winnipeg
As many of you know, rather than continue to be a part of the illegal invasion of Iraq, Joshua Key deserted the US military in 2004 and sought refugee status in Canada. After a decade in Canada, Joshua has finally been told he is eligible for health care and permitted to work. While the health card has yet to arrive, this is all good news for Joshua and his family. He is actively seeking work and is cautiously optimistic about the future.

Because Joshua has been unable to work, he and his wife and four children depend on the kindness of extended family and friends for basic necessities. Peace Alliance Winnipeg is once again asking for your help in lending support to Josh and his family. Here are some of the ways you can help.

1. Make a donation. You can do this online at our website. Go to http://peacealliancewinnipeg.ca and click on the “donate” icon on the upper right hand side of the page. Follow the directions. Be sure to write “For Joshua Key” or similar language in the “special instructions to the seller” dialogue box.

2. Help Joshua find work in or near Winnipeg. He’s trained as a welder and a machinist and is skilled as a home handyman. He hopes to work construction or making home repairs. If you have work for him or know someone who might, you can message him on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/joshua.key.357) or send him an email at joshuanalexina@gmail.com.

3. The threat of deportation has not been lifted by the new Liberal government. Contact your Member of Parliament. Remind your MP that the House of Commons voted for a non-binding resolutions in 2008 to “allow conscientious objectors…to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations…to…remain in Canada…” – a resolution that was supported by all parties (except the Conservatives). Tell him/her that Joshua and all other war resisters must be welcomed to stay in Canada as we would any immigrant or refugee. If you don’t know how to contact your MP, look here: http://www.parl.gc.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members.

You can learn more about American war resisters in Canada at http://resisters.ca. Please share this message widely.

June 11, 2016: Mary Elizabeth Stanley speaking at the 35th annual Winnipeg Walk for Peace on the parallels between First Nations and Palestinian struggles. Photo: Paul S. Graham

by Mary Elizabeth Stanley

Good afternoon! And welcome to everyone here and thank you all for showing support in this year’s Walk for Peace. It is truly an honor to be asked to give a few opening statements as a First Nations Educator and from an Indigenous perspective. I would like to thank the organizers of this event, the Peace Alliance of Winnipeg and the Winnipeg Chapter Council of Canadians, for offering me an opportunity to do so.

The 2016 Walk for Peace is raising the issue of “Freedom for Palestine” and states that ‘there can be no peace without justice’ on the discussion of what is (and has been) happening between the State of Israel and the people of Palestine since the end of the 2nd World War. It also states that the basis of this 70 year conflict has been and continues to be one which concerns not only the ‘question of land, but of nationhood, democratic rights and justice’.

In reading the open letter of support that was distributed by the organizing groups of this event, it was truly remarkable to read about the similarities of both the historical and present-day developments between the People of Palestine and our country’s Indigenous peoples.

In fact, one would be hard-pressed to deny the fact that the historical premise of the lot of Indigenous peoples across Canada today is one directly resultant of not only the Canadian state’s representatives – both in the past and present-day – of their outright refusal to address not only Indigenous peoples ‘land question, but equally important, the denial by the Canadian state of the right of nations to self-determination, the denial of their basic human and democratic rights as well as justice on all fronts’.

To highlight in brief just a couple of these historical and present-day similarities existing between Canada’s Indigenous populations and the Indigenous people of Palestine, let’s take as an example, the land question….

In Manitoba alone, there are numerous accounts (both in the past and today) of ‘relocations’ of whole groups of Indigenous peoples, either under threats of violence – such as what occurred in the 1930’s at Clear Lake, Manitoba – just to make way for the creation of a National Park –wherein members of that Anishinabe/Ojibway Nation were forcibly removed, at gun-point, to a less desirable location while their homes were literally being burnt to the ground!

Or in the instances that occurred under the guise of the protection of ‘private property’ (which rules supreme in our society) we have the more recent example in 2011 of the removal of the people of the Lake St. Martin Ojibway Band (members of whom are, literally, walking the streets of Winnipeg today, simply because they are homeless); then there are the Sayisi Dene people in northern Manitoba (as in the people of Lac Brochet and Tadoule Lake) whom were also forced to relocate during the mid-1950’s, all because of the federal government’s concern over the so-called depopulation of the Caribou herds by the Dene people…Caribou as we all know, was the main food source for thousands of years for the Dene people (and it still is to this day);

And there are the Cree people throughout parts of Manitoba, such as the Chemawawin or Easterville Band who also had to be relocated during the early 1960s due to the building of the hydro-electric dam at Grand Rapids by Manitoba Hydro.

For these whole populations, on the question of lands, what we are talking about here is that they had to be removed from their traditional hunting and gathering territories that they’ve known, literally for thousands of years prior to the introduction of private property and the making of maximum profits or to make way for the so-called ‘progress’ of societal demands.

The list goes on about these so-called ‘grievous errors’ by the federal governments, but what really were in fact forcible removals of entire Indigenous populations right across Canada, as if they had no right to be there in the first place, and all of this was done to them after they were condemned to a life of poverty on the reservation system (a system which is akin to the South African system of apartheid one might argue) as well as alienation from the rest of Canadian society, that was formally introduced by the Canadian government in the 1870s.

There are 51 Indigenous languages spoken in Canada, today, a number which is fast receding at an alarming rate as time progresses according to Stats Canada (this was documented over two decades ago, which means that there are probably a much lesser number of Native languages currently in use at this time ).

It is ironic, in a sense, that one of these languages facing extinction, meaning that it has less than 100 fluent speakers, is one which had, as its birthplace here, then known as the ‘Red River Settlement’, and that is the language of the Métis People which came into being well over two centuries prior to Canada’s Confederation – the Metchif language!

This, again, is just to highlight another example of an injustice committed against Indigenous peoples of Canada historically by both the Canadian state and various Churches – that being the cultural genocide of a people’s way of life, their languages, and social well-being – through the residential schools system which had been put into effect both before and after Confederation. The effects of which, one might add, are still prevalent today, especially amongst the youth of Indigenous origins – with regards to their Identity and social well-being!

As we participate in today’s events of the 2016 Walk for Peace, let’s please remember that Indigenous peoples also share sentiments of outrage alongside many Canadian people over what is currently happening in Israel and to the Palestinian people in particular.

Despite the misinformation or the spreading of non-truths, which have no factual basis whatsoever, about the issues underlying the lot of Indigenous peoples throughout Canada today, as it is currently being done also about the plight of the people of Palestine.

Let there be no mistake about one thing: the struggles of poverty-stricken and oppressed peoples in nation-states, such as Indigenous peoples within Canada, or the Indigenous people of Palestine, is (and always has been) a struggle of one against violence, displacement and racism! To put it simply, the struggle for the right of a people to exist as they see fit! Without this guarantee, there simply can be no peace without justice!

This article is the text of a speech by Mary Elizabeth Stanley at the 35th annual Winnipeg Walk for Peace on Sunday, June 11, 2016. You can watch her speech and those of the other speakers in this video.

Winnipeg, June 11, 2016: Human rights activist Rana Abdulla spoke at the Winnipeg Walk for Peace on the history and significance of a traditional Palestinian scarf knows as the keffiyeh. Photo: Paul S. Graham

by Rana Abdulla

We will talk today about the significance of the traditional scarf (keffiyeh as a show of solidarity), the controversy around it, its emergence in fashion and cultural appropriation, and how to wear it.

The keffiyeh is one of Palestine’s most iconic symbols. It is incredibly important; it is Palestinians’ daily reminder of the repression they face on a daily basis and its cultural appropriation. The keffiyeh is the hope that’s been passed down with every worn-out keffiyeh, generation after generation. Keffiyeh reminds all Palestinians of their right to resist. Keffiyeh reminds all Palestinians of their right to live in their land without any occupation. It is important, therefore, that non-Arabs, wear it only out of respect for the wishes of Palestinians themselves.

A statement alright, but not fashion
In late 2000, the keffiyeh became political when the fashion world collided with the political world. All of a sudden, the traditional Arabic head dress became a fashion statement. In 2007, it even made it to the major couture houses including Balenciaga and stores across the US including Urban Outfitters began selling the keffiyeh as a fashion symbol scarf.

A few years ago, a new visitor took over the streets & fashion boutiques across the world.   Imagine my surprise when I saw this visitor, the keffiyeh in Rideau Mall in Ottawa, learning later that it had been sold at Urban Outfitters under the name ”anti-war scarf.” Both of my grandfathers had worn this article of clothing, held in place on their heads by a black rope – the ‘Aqal.’
This fashion accessory wasn’t new or invented in the studio of any designer. In fact, it had been the accessory of choice for Arab men for many, many years. The keffiyeh was not born on the shoulders of hipsters and Urban Outfitters patrons. Instead its common use for so long had been to shield Arab men from the sun. Slowly it transformed from an item of utility to a symbol of Palestinian resistance and now you will be hard pressed not to find a pink version of it in your teenage sister’s closet courtesy of Forever21.

Urban Outfitters stopped selling keffiyah after “a pro-Israel activist… complained about the items”, and the store also issued a statement that “the company had not intended ‘to imply any sympathy for or support of terrorists’ in selling the keffiyehs and was pulling them”. Caroline Glick, deputy editor of the Jerusalem Post, equates the Palestinian keffiyeh with the fascist wearing of brown shirts.

Dunkin Donuts
The keffiyeh has become a symbol steeped in misconceptions over the past years. Some of you may recall the Dunkin’ Donuts/ Rachael Ray “scandal” of 2008, when the popular donut shop pulled an online commercial featuring Ray because she wore a black and white scarf resembling the keffiyeh. Right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin discussed the issue in her blog, and on May 28 commented: “Anti-American fashion designers abroad and at home have mainstreamed and adapted the scarves as generic pro-Palestinian jihad or anti-war statements. Yet many folks out there remain completely oblivious to the apparel’s violent symbolism and anti-Israel overtones.” This reflect the sentiments which many expect I should face. Dunkin Donut did what is actually offensive for no good reason. They labelled a scarf for terrorists and deemed all Palestinians by extension as terrorist .

Israeli Scarf
Not much later, an Israeli scarf version of the keffiyeh appeared, much at the dismay of the Palestinians. Those who believe they understand the true symbolism of the keffiyeh have branded it as “anti-Semitic” and a “political statement supportive of Islamic terrorism against Israel.” Little do they know that the only democracy in the Middle East uses every means of psychological warfare as a weapon to disrupt history and culture, sadly not only affecting the world but the occupied Palestinians, too!

What’s the big deal?
The true reason 90% of the world wearing this “Arab farmer’s uniform” is as a solidarity statement. The keffiyeh symbolizes the Palestinian’s resistance, it is also a cultural garment, in a land where culture became resistance.

It means something different to everyone, even in Palestine. The more correct answer is that this universal “Arabic style” scarf symbolizes your pride in your heritage, and willingness to fight to keep it alive. It’s resistance on the individual level, since no two people define it the same way.

By separating the keffiyeh from its symbolic relationship to the Palestinian national identity, Israeli and the Western World have just disempowered Palestinian nation building.

The black and white keffiyeh as we use it today is merely a traditional Arab head covering. Its importance to the cause came about when it became Yassir Arafat’s trademark. With his being the face of the PLO, the once meaningless head scarf meant to keep the sun out of the eyes and the dirt out of the face was given a meaning.

Perhaps the deeper question is, what does it mean to be a symbol of Palestine? A symbol of Palestine is something much greater, something much deeper than modern Islamic extremism. To represent Palestine is to represent thousands of years of rich history. The keffiyeh ties today to the past, to a deep tradition that is not religious. The keffiyeh has come to represent strength and solidarity, and courage in the face of adversity.

Yes, the keffiyeh is in many ways a symbol of Palestine, but this does not make it a proponent of violence or bloodshed. The keffiyeh is a symbol of freedom, of hope, of a people’s fight against repression.

Why I wear it
I wear the keffiyeh not because it’s a great fashion accessory or because it’s totally in style. I wear it to remind myself and those who recognize it that there is still injustice in the world, and also because I know peace is possible. For me, the keffiyeh is also much more personal than that. The keffiyeh represents my family in Palestine and I wear the keffiyeh for them in support of their struggle.
The history of this scarf was worn by all Arab people, goes back 1000s of years, has little to do with violence; it’s just a headscarf.  We wear it now in a sign of solidarity with the Palestinians against colonial rule and the oppressed people in the Arab world and it is not an association with terrorism

Originality
While it is impossible to deny the popularity of the keffiyeh in the world of fashion, it is always important to understand the history behind symbols. The keffiyeh cannot be separated from its rich history. Even as a young girl I attributed the keffiyeh to the dignity of my grandfathers.

Not to confuse authenticity with novelty, there is a difference between fast fashion costume jewelry and your grandmother’s locket.
Whether placed on the heads of older men, tied around the necks of hipsters, or draped across the shoulders of activists it is always important to understand the meaning of the keffiyeh and why it cannot be just a scarf.

History
Again, the keffiyeh has a long history in the Arab World, it has come to represent Palestinian solidarity specifically. A keffiyeh is an indigenous headpiece of all Semitic people, traditionally worn by men. Black and white keffiyeh are worn by Palestinian men of any rank.  Farmers traditionally wore it to keep out the heavy dust and sand and for farmers to keep their heads cool as they plowed in their fields.

The checkered pattern was said to refer to many things including  a fishing net, a honeycomb, the joining of hands, or the marks of dirt and sweat wiped off a worker’s brow.

During the Palestinian Revolt in the 1930s, Palestinians wore the keffiyeh as a symbol of nationalism and resistance against increasing British rule and Zionist settler-colonialism. It became a symbol of Palestinian nationalism during that time.

So, before the 1930s, the keffiyeh had been commonly used by men like my grandfathers in the villages to protect from the sun while in the fields. Men in the city had very little use for the keffiyeh until a fateful mixing of resistance and unity. In order to protect their fellow Palestinians, townsmen began to wear the keffiyeh in unity with the villagers and peasants. This act of solidarity made it difficult for the British to find their fellow Palestinians.

Its prominence increased during the 1960s with the beginning of the Palestinian resistance movement.  It became tied to Palestinian national identity with the rise of the PLO under the leadership of Yasser Arafat who adopted it. Certain colored keffiyehs would be associated with different political parties.

The keffiyeh became became gender-neutral and continues until this day to be our traditional symbol of resistance, so, our Palestine worn around our necks. It is a symbol of solidarity of the Palestinian cause especially in the Diaspora.  Outside of the Middle East and North Africa, the keffiyeh first gained popularity among activists supporting the Palestinians in the conflict with Israel and is an icon of Palestinian solidarity.

Palestinian Figures
The black-and-white fishnet pattern keffiyeh became Arafat’s iconic symbol and he was rarely seen without it. Arafat would wear his keffiyeh in a semi-traditional way, wrapped around his head via an Agal. He had made it his personal trademark to drape the scarf over his right shoulder only, arranging it in the rough shape of a triangle, to resemble the outlines of the map of Palestine. This way of wearing the keffiyeh became a symbol of Arafat as a person and political leader, and it has not been imitated by other Palestinian leaders.

Another Palestinian figure associated with the keffiyeh is Leila Khaled, a female member of the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Several photographs of Khaled circulated in the Western newspapers included Khaled wearing a keffiyeh in the style of a Muslim woman’s hijab, wrapped around the head and shoulders. This was unusual, as the keffiyeh is associated with Arab masculinity, and many believe this to be something of a fashion statement by Khaled, denoting her equality with men in the Palestinian armed struggle.

Red or White
The first red and white keffiyehs originated in Manchester. They were being ordered for Jordanian army. They wanted red and white as they wanted their army to be distinctive & distinguishable.

People started liking it. So it was then not only being used for military or army purpose but for general purpose as a whole.

They took a new political importance in 1970s battle between Palestinians and Jordan. The author of “War of Words” Yasser Suleiman wrote that the fight between the red and white Jordanian and black & white Palestinian gained popularity after some Jordanian university students wore the red and white keffiyehs as their Jordanian identity and as anti-Palestinian identifications.

The colors of the stitching in a keffiyeh are also vaguely associated with Palestinians’ political sympathies. Traditional black and white keffiyehs became associated with Fatah. Later, red and white keffiyehs were adopted by Palestinian Marxists, such as the PFLP.

Black-and white keffiyeh has been sometimes referred to as the “unofficial” flag of Palestine. Red and white keffiyehs origin can be traced back to military and armed forces headscarves, instead of just political sentiments & affiliations. Countries like Iraq, Saudi Arab and Syria also adopted red and white keffiyehs.

Our Ignorance
I vividly remember walking in Kuwait on the 15th of May (Al Nakba commemoration day) earlier in the 70’s, wearing a keffiyeh. Almost everyone that walked past us would smirk and say sarcastically, “Oh, she wants to liberate Palestine!”

The lack of realization of lives under occupation has made the world careless about what el kuffiyeh means to the world.  This has made it an easy target for our keffiyeh to be worn as a fashion accessory!

Many, if not all wearers of this garb for fashion reasons are completely ignorant of a keffiyeh’s true meaning.

Of course, “Israel” has even started to rebrand el keffiyeh as its own, despite referring to it once upon a time as “terrorist” symbolism. Ironically, it fits with “Israel” under that account.

Cultural Appropriation
This is generally defined as: “The taking from a culture that is not one’s own – of intellectual property, cultural expression or artifacts, history and ways of knowledge”

And as Jonathan Hart explains why cultural appropriation is destructive:  (1) members of one cultural group misrepresent other cultural group and thereby harm them. (2) when a majority culture misrepresents a minority culture, it limits the audience the minority can reach in representing itself. (3) when other cultural groups misrepresent cultures, they steal the religious and cultural meaning of those cultures’ stories and pictures.

Western fashion often comes finding about the new and unexplored. Unfortunately, the new and explored are actually culturally appropriated.

Non-Authentic Keffiyeh
The western world culturally appropriated the Palestinian national symbol.  And in the fall of 2007 collection, Balenciaga released the line of clothing that took its inspiration from ethnic line of fabric and one of those fabrics was the Palestinian keffiyeh, not too much later, you would often see celebrities wear them and soon became an accessory. Balenciaga’s version of the keffiyeh was toted the ”must-have accessory” of that year.

Before Urban Outfitters, keffiyehs were hard to find, but one of the places you were always sure to find authentic keffiyehs was the Hirbawi factory, the only keffiyeh factory in Palestine, run by the Hirbawi family for their livelihood. Ironically, Balenciaga certainly made more money off of their keffiyeh than the Hirbawi factory.

Hirbawi Textile Factory
For 50 years, Herbawi had been the only keffiyehs manufacturer, using 100% cotton. Today, this symbol of Palestinian identity is now largely imported from China. Herbawi Factory has 16 machines. In 1990, all 16 machines were functioning, making 750 keffiyehs per day. By 2010, only 2 machines were used, making a mere 300 keffiyehs per week.

Herbawi doesn’t object to the modern commercialism of the keffiyeh, but he stated that “the keffiyeh is a tradition of Palestine and it should be made in Palestine. We should be the ones making it.”
The factory is “the only and the last” to produce the keffiyeh, thanks to a true Palestinian from Hebron, who started a business to ensure that our symbol of resistance, our culture, would continue to exist throughout many years to come. Hopefully the old will die but only after enlightening the young, and may we continue to literally wear our pride around our necks as Palestinians. May we continue to defy the occupiers, who believe that mutating our culture erases us from existence.

From China
When the keffiyeh transformed to a fashion statement, ironically Chinese manufacturers instead of Palestinians profited from its sales. Although it is a bit clear that the Western world took the keffiyeh from Palestinian culture, the Israeli appropriation of the keffiyeh is more complicated.

National Identity Recreated
The State of Israel has a policy of looking back at the traditional Middle Eastern culture as the form of their national identify, and this makes them see they have more claim to the keffiyeh than western fashion’ Since the Israeli State literally has to create its national identity and happy opportunity to pick and choose from Middle Eastern culture to incorporate in its national narrative, a new version of the scarf appeared, much at the dismay of Palestinians across the world.

One of the most ways in which Israeli state did this was through the creation of Israeli National costume. For example, in 1950, the government held a contest to come up with a national dress design and designers took an inspiration from Arab dress like the Abbayah. This comes right after they depopulated all Palestinian villages two years prior.

Keffiyeh with Star of David
It isn’t too far from a stretch to reinvent the keffiyeh as Israeli with distinct with star of David. Israeli society has tried to steal Palestinian culture for a long time now, just look at their attempt to steal food culture.

They don’t only appropriate our culture, Lebanese producers have had issues with traditionally Lebanese dishes. One producer reacted how bizarrely they claim our food its their own said: not enough they steal our land, they steal our civilisation, our culture and our cuisine. This attitude marries what the Palestinians have towards the keffiyeh.

It’s like the white settlers of the Americas, who took in Natives mythology and tried to make it part of their culture.

Both are instances of a nervous settler-colonial population with thin roots in the region who try to cover that fact up with blatant theft of the native culture.  This is sad and disturbing – but entirely expected.

Disempowerment of national identity
We denounce  cultural appropriation of the keffiyeh, defending it as a symbol of Palestinian solidarity, in Shadia Mansour’s song, “al-Kūfīyah ʻArabīyah (‘The keffiyeh is Arab’).“ She performs wearing a Palestinian thawb and proclaims in her song: “This is how we wear the keffiyeh/The Arab keffiyeh” and “I’m like the keffiyeh/However you rock me/Wherever you leave me/I stay true to my origins/Palestinian.”

Onstage in New York, she introduced the song by saying, “You can take my falafel and hummus, but don’t touch my keffiyeh.”

Symbols have meaning, regardless of what one may wish. When the ethnic cleansing of millions of Palestinians throughout the years of occupation imposed by the only democracy in the Middle East, “Israel”, and the inhumane actions of mass killings and rape of land are enough to make your blood boil, one more thing can be added to multiply the amount of steam coming out of your ears: the cleansing of Palestinian culture.

al-Kūfīyah ʻArabīyah – The keffiyeh is Arab

No matter how they design it, no matter how they change its color, the keffiyeh is Arab, and it will stay Arab. The  keffiyeh  is a headdress that has been worn by people in the Arab Peninsula for centuries. However, the keffiyeh and this pattern in particular became symbolic of Palestinian resistance in the 50’s/60’s, embraced by Yasser Arafat.

The scarf, they want it
Our intellect, they want it
Our dignity, they want it
Everything that’s ours, they want it
We won’t be silent, we won’t allow it

How to wear it

While Western protesters wear differing styles and shades of keffiyeh, the most prominent is the black-and-white keffiyeh. This is typically worn around the neck like a neckherchief, simply knotted in the front with the fabric allowed to drape over the back. Other popular styles include rectangular-shaped scarves with the basic black-and-white pattern in the body, with the ends knitted in the form of the Palestinian flag.

Since the Al-Aqsa Intifada, these rectangular scarves have increasingly appeared with a combination of the Palestinian flag and Al-Aqsa Mosque printed on the ends of the fabric.

How to wrap a Keffiyeh
Step 1: Fold it in half
Fold the keffiyeh in half diagonally so you get a big triangle then put it over your head.

Step 2: Pinch, wrap and tuck
Pinch the fabric over your ear and wrap that side in front of your face then around your head and tuck it into itself.

Step 3: The other side
Same thing as before, but instead of going in front of your face go under your chin.

Step 4: Enjoy!
The brilliant thing about the head wrap is the convertible nature of the face section.

This article is the text of a speech by Rana Abdulla at the 35th annual Winnipeg Walk for Peace on Sunday, June 11, 2016. You can watch her speech and those of the other speakers in this video.