Aftershocks (9/11)

Also:

Homeless youth

Restorative justice

FORUM

youth action

Policing or brutality?

Winter 2002

action jeunesse

9/11:

Aftershocks

Editorial Editorial

In Memoriam Clara Chow Clara Chow is a UTS student, and a new Board member of Youth Action Network.

T

WE SAT IN OUR LIVING ROOMS AND numbly watched the images flicker across the screen - the grim-faced world leaders, the exhausted aid workers, the weeping civilians. Again and again, the World Trade Centre’s twin towers crumbling, and with these symbols of might and prosperity, our notions of freedom, of security, and of our world.

Promising lives, cut short by a cruel and twisted act of inhumanity.

Loving people, torn from their families and friends. Unthinkable, unspeakable carnage and horror. The Apocalypse. An abomination. A tragedy.

It’s a funny word, tragedy. As we mourned the dead as heroes and martyrs, the plight of countless other victims of terrorism, exploitation and oppression around the world and throughout history somehow slipped our minds.

After all, who created teary tributes and mountains of flowers in remembrance of the victims of American aggression in, for instance, Latin America? Al-Qaeda terrorists committed against innocent Americans atrocities in the name of religion; the American puppet governments of Guatemala and El Salvador committed atrocities against their own people in the name of cheap bananas and coffee for Americans.

Did anyone hold candlelight vigils for Panama in 1989?

When Panamanian nationalism threatened precious American investments in the Canal, the mighty superpower didn’t hesitate to invade the tiny country. Twenty thousand civilians lost their homes, and 2 500 to 4 000 lost their lives under the “sheer, overwhelming use of firepower” (US Attor-

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HE WORLD WAS SHOCKED.

ney Generaly Ramsey Clark) - the mass graves are on US territory, and all figures have been concealed.

Maybe we were until now too comfortable and safely ensconced in our splendidly isolated world of malls and movies that we could not see what was happening on a daily basis all over the world. And maybe we gasped and cried on September 11 because, in part, we had believed ourselves too rich and powerful to ever be anything but the bullies in the global schoolyard.

Either way, perhaps we would not be so enthusiastic in tooting the horn of ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ if we took a closer look at exactly what this ‘freedom’ entailed.

As the bombs rain down on Afghanistan, America’s allies tote its humanitarian causes: dropping food - too little, too late - and liberating the women oppressed under the Taliban, whose plight was desperately communicated years ago.

Again, the pain and suffering of underprivileged people living elsewhere is overlooked, inconsidArt by Emma Jenkin erable.

Says Fatuna Gailani, president of the Afghan Women’s Council, “it’s a tragedy ... it’s the common people who are suffering most. The whole of Afghanistan is being made into a battlefield, when it’s only a small number of people in a few places who are the cause of terrorism.”

That’s the bottom line, then: somehow, the lives of the victims of the September 11th air attacks were more important than the lives of the oppressed Panamanians in 1989, the lives of struggling Guatemalan and Salvadoran campesinos, and Afghan civilians. It seems a life is worth more if it is lived in a country with the economic power, media power and fire power to decide who we will overlook, forget or ignore.

Yes, it is a tragedy.

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

F notes FORUM notes ORUM

Thanks for reading FORUM magazine. This page is reserved for notes about the projects and happenings involving Youth Action Network. If you would like to get involved, please contact us. Straight submissions can be sent directly to the office at 51 Wolseley Street, 2nd Floor, Toronto Ontario, M5T 1A4 e-mail us at forum@youthactionnetwork.org; visit our website at www.youthactionnetwork.org fax us at (416) 368-8354; phone us at (416) 368-2277 or toll-free at 1-800-718-LINK

A Message Youth Action Network continues to seek to build upon the spirit of 2000; to constantly improve and grow Youth Week as an international amalgam of events bringing together young peoples from different backgrounds to share and to exchange ideas because we believe that only through the free exchange of ideas can hate and intolerance be truly exterminated. Democracy and freedom are our core values, but let’s remember that democracy means that everyone has a voice and a right to express their opinions, regardless of what we may think. And freedom means the ability to associate, to criticize, to share ideas. Let’s remember that in these extraordinary times, we must strive not only to be tolerant, but to allow other opinions to be voiced and debated because only when issues are raised can they be effectively dealt with.

Youth Action Network Board of Directors Youth Action Network would like to welcome our new board members. Joining the YAN family in August 2001 are: Farrah Byckalo-Khan,Clara Chow, Janet Kwok, James Kwok, Andrea Tsang and Marie-Jolie Rwigema. We also extend warm welcomes to regional board members Angely Pacis and Erika Fenner.

If you are interested in becoming a regional member, or applying to become a board member, please contact us for more information!

Youth Week 2002 Preparations for Youth Week 2002 are underway, but it’s not too late to get involved! Check out the information on page 29 and the back cover. The Youth Week website at www.youthweek.org is constantly updated. You can read about past weeks, the history of Youth Week, and register your event for 2002!

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

Next Issue The next issue of Forum will feature a special section on the changing face of activism. How has activism changed?

What are the consequences? Has it become more mainstream? What effects have Seattle, Quebec City, and Genoa had? Is this change for the better? Has activism changed at all?

Submit articles, rants, poetry, or artwork to Youth Action Forum at the above address/email/fax. Contact us if you want to bouce ideas off our editors.

Bilingual Forum Youth Action Forum constantly seeks to ensure that we are fulfilling our mandate of being a medium through which young people from all over Canada can express their views, concerns, and opinions. Because of financial considerations, a decision was made in the past to discontinue the use of French translators.

We are now making an effort to return to a fully bilingual publication. This will be a gradual process, beginning with this issue in which one article has been translated.

Youth Action Forum depends on volunteers to be published, and we need you to participate. We need volunteers to translate material as well as Francophone writers in order to obtain our goal of bilingualism.

Volunteer!

Youth Action Forum is run fully by young volunteers.

We need people to write, edit, create artwork, design layout, translate articles, develop a website, and raise funds!

Contact our office for more information about YAN (or visit the website) and the opportunities for volunteering with Forum or other YAN projects!

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FORUM

Y OUTH A CTION

Action Jeunesse

Editors-in-Chief Tia Dafnos, Wei-Jia Zhou

ContexT

Editing Crew Wei-Jia Zhou, Vinca Chow, Stephanie Siu, Adrienne Lee, Clara Chow, Clarisse Siu, Caitlin St. John, Meme Kasa, Andrea Tsang, Samantha Wu

Policing or brutality?

Melissa 31

Art Adrienne Lee, Stephanie Siu, Janice Wong

Protecting whom?

Tyson Hay 32-33

Design Tia Dafnos, Adrienne Lee, Andrew Chau

Restorative justice Bryan Phelan 34-35

Funding Michelle Chan, Andrew Chau, Jenny Yeung

Homeless youth Amen Jafri 30

Distribution and Outreach Wei-JIa Zhou, Clara Chow, Andrea Tsang

Maquila Solidarity Network 35

Contributors Michael Albert, Sarah Beamish, Amy Gajaria, Tyson Hay, Amen Jafri, Anthony James, Melissa, Bryan Phelan, Vanessa Rodriguez, Starhawk, Richard Sanders, Sou, Clara Chow, Jean Francois Roi, MSN, Natasha Yang, Emma Jenkin, Precy Kwan Thanks Don & Mary Lucy McGregor (Delta Bingo) Mae Yoon

Rant: personal space Sou 38

Youth Action Network 200-51 Woseley Street, Toronto Ontario, Canada M5T 1A4 telephone 416.368.2277 fax 416.368.8354 email general@youthactionnetwork.org charitable registration 136303195RR0002 ISSN 1188-6870

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Submission guidelines Share your articles, artwork, photographs, poetry, and letters. All original art and photographs will be returned.

Articles should be accompanied by art or photographs, as well as some very brief information about the author. Send your submissions to “FORUM Submissions” at YOUTH ACTION NETWORK .

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

Good vs. evil Anthony James 11-13

Noam Chomsky Michael Albert 18-21

Viewpoint Amy Gajaria 17

Bill C-36 Tia Dafnos 16

War in a multicultural society Vanessa Rodriguez english 7-8 francais 9-10

No to NATO Richard Sanders 22-24

Aftershocks

Special section:

Afghanistan CESR 14-15

After Genoa YOUTH ACTION NETWORK is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing to youth the resources and information they need to take action on issues important to them. Views and opinions expressed in YOUTH A CTION FORUM are not necessarily those of its editors nor of the Board of Directors of YOUTH ACTION N ETWORK . Every effort will be made to preserve the content and style of all submissions to FORUM. However, the editors reserve the right to edit articles for clarity or length.

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

Starhawk 26-28

Prelude to a war Tia Dafnos 25

Map: aftershocks 39

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Aftershocks

Aftershocks To the people of my country I will not die for you.

And I will not be died for in the name of something I do not believe in.

I love my country.

I do not love its government, its politics, its dependence, its hypocrisy, its elitism, it’s indirectness, its history, or its strength.

If we had strength, we would know what made us weak.

I am not French or English. I am subtext in a schoolbook.

(Perhaps I did not fit into the mosaic just right.)

I know that enlightenment is the few leading the many.

It is the only thing that ever has been.

Other way around, we could call it progress.

Embracing our future.

Our future.

I have seen men dressed in red killing the Red men.

I have seen my country hate entire races of people.

I have seen my country turn its back on the weak.

Don’t you tell me I have not seen these things.

You will see them too, if you look between the trees.

I do not give a damn about our future while we are still failing our past.

I am a guilty woman.

I love my country, and I say these words in sadness.

I am a democratic woman, but I know who counts the most.

I am a condescending woman, because my country has taught me to feel superior.

My country does not pull the trigger (though if you pay us right, we may load the gun).

My country.

I say this in bitterness because nothing in it belongs to me.

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Do not misunderstand me now.

I love my country’s land; I hate its borders.

I hate the lines that make it all right to kill, pollute, rape, and pillage my country’s land.

I live by this land, and I know that it is a river which flows into itself without regard for man’s mistakes.

(Yes, I say man’s. As a woman, my country has not given me the chance to make its mistakes.)

My country prides itself on democracy.

What place do the killings have in this democracy?

Do not tell me I am overreacting.

My country has killed its people.

Assassinations and slow starvation have the same endings.

Nothing is justified.

My country has the opinion that money holds more promise than life.

My country censors our lives, because protest is a crime.

This democracy burns my eyes and makes my loved ones ache.

The dollar is the only citizen in my country.

I will not die for my country because my people are nobler than that.

In my country we do not need heroes, though if you look, they exist in happy abundance.

I will die for my freedom.

I will die for the freedom of others.

I will not die for my country that would sell my freedom and claim me as its daughter.

Sarah Beamish Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

The challenge of war in a multicultural society The implications of war for a diverse society

Art by Emma Jenkin

Vanessa Rodriguez

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HE WORD “WAR” HAS BEEN ROLLING OFF OUR TONGUES SINCE the infamous terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the fervency of our desire to bring to justice those responsible has been plastered on newspaper headlines and television broadcasts alike. Yet, in our passion to aid our fellow Americans, we seem to be overlooking the multicultural nature of our country and the effects that our multicultural characteristics might have in a war setting.

Over the years, much of our country’s richness has come from the diversity of many immigrants who consider Canada their home. We are learning to use diversity to our advantage and at the same time we have been working to promote tolerance among different races.

Many high schools now run programs and/or clubs either to battle racism or to meet the specific needs of their growing multicultural student populations. For York Mills Collegiate Institute, it is the International Issues Club, a means by which students battle racism within their school and come together for an annual Multicultural Assembly.

The assembly aims to celebrate student diversity as students from different ethnic backgrounds perform many of their native songs or dances. In this way, many schools

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

have managed to increase compassion and empathy among students and teachers alike, all contributing to a safe and tolerant environment.

James Stevens of Faze Teen magazine expresses that although many Canadian immigrants have been looked upon skeptically, they have indeed contributed much to our nation: “Critics argue that immigrants and refugees take jobs away from Canadians. They’re wrong. According to a 1994 study published in International Migration Review, the economy typically grows during periods of high immigration.

That’s because many immigrants start companies and invest money into our economy. Others feel immigrants and refugees are responsible for higher levels of crime, however, less than 12% of our prison population is foreign born.”

Others argue that immigrants and refugees dilute our sense of national pride, not realizing that the majority of immigrants speak one of our national languages before arriving or learn one soon after, and more than 80 percent become Canadian citizens.

Numerous other Canadians echo Stevens’ words.

Paul Zarnke, Executive Director of the Family Service Association of Toronto writes: “The unique quality of

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Canada’s policy of multiculturalism is that it seeks to support the inclusion of different groups while valuing and promoting the diversity of each group.”

As Canadians, we have chosen to embrace the wonderful diversity within our country rather than subscribing to the melting-pot notion that we must all adapt to that which is ‘normal.’ Multiculturalism necessitates offering communities support for the expression of our multiple identities.

Yet despite these encouraging changes, the battle against racism has not yet been won. Instead, the obstacles have now become greater as we are being forced into a new mindset of war, one in which multiculturalism has a whole different effect.

We raise the question of loyalty. Because Canadian opinions, viewpoints, and loyalties vary as drastically as the nations from which we originate, will Canadians of Middle Eastern descent fight wholeheartedly against their own people?

One of the most important characteristics between a soldier and his enemy is a lack of relationship. In order to bring someone to destruction, there must exist a certain degree of distance between the two opposing parties. Over the years, many Canadians have had the benefit of befriending individuals from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.

The barrier between nations has, in many situations, been overthrown. Would I feel comfortable going to war knowing that I would be fighting against family members of my Middle Eastern friends?

Canada has brought the world to our doorstep.

Undoubtedly, this has the potential to bring not only tremendous tension, but violence within our own borders.

Within the past month,we have witnessed and continue to witness, the fact that the American situation has triggered Arab and Muslim persecution in Canada.

On September 14, the Mirror reported their most serious Muslim backlash incident, which occurred the day after the terrorist attacks. A Muslim man was slashed in the chest after getting into an argument with another man regarding the events at the World Trade Centre. At the same time, the number of death threats and hate crimes being reported by Muslims has increased significantly.

On a much smaller scale, Catherine Porter of the Toronto Star writes about Zine, who has a son named Osama: “ ‘It’s a beautiful name in the Muslim religion,’ she said, explaining that Osama was a contemporary of the prophet Mohammed. ‘Now it’s equated with terrorism.’ ” When her son came home from school for lunch on September 11, she told him to expect a backlash in the schoolyard because of his name. And that has happened.

York University professor David Mutiner voices his concern: “What we’ve seen is tremendously damaging and it has the potential to be extraordinarily damaging because we already live in a racist society.”

Whether it is through schoolyard bullying or homicides, our fight for tolerance has been further complicated.

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For some, the media is to blame. Rev. Jacob Birch of Erin, Ontario, feels that the lack of religious tolerance on our part stems from the media’s failures. In a letter to the Toronto Star, Birch writes: “San Grewal’s searching article on the plight of North American Sikhs and the unjust backlash ignorantly visited upon their persons, temples and public persona highlights for me the failure not of multiculturalism due to ignorance, but the failure of newspapers to give religion a place on the page equal to its importance in people’s everyday lives . . . Never is the real difference…explored in ways that would prophylactically deal with the ignorance so brutally visited upon visible minorities since Sept. 11.”

Race and ethnic relations professor Jeffrey Reitz disagrees: “This isn’t created by the media, it was already there, only galvanized to action.”

Ultimately, the responsibility lies with each individual. While further media coverage would help raise

the battle. .. the battle against racism has not yet been won

awareness, that coverage will only come with the public’s increased interest and concern of the matter. Building relationships and expressing empathy to Middle Eastern Canadians might lead us to discover that many of them, like us, are torn by the tragedy of terrorism.

At a public forum of Canadian Muslims, AbdullRehman Malick expressed, “I am a Canadian Muslim. That is becoming more obvious to me as I see the reaction of my extreme co-religionists abroad, and the reaction of my community at home.”

Saleha Kahn, coordinator of the Canadian Association for Islamic Relations, shared his feeling: “I feel very distressed. I’m unable to sleep at night . . . I’m unable to enjoy life.” Many other Muslims also shared their grief and frustrations.

Chances are that you know somebody who would be fearful of approaching a visible minority of Middle Eastern descent here in Canada. Perhaps that is your fear. And it is such fear that drives us from a nation of peaceful diversity to one of chaos and hate.

This threat is one that demands the attention of Canadian leaders and citizens alike. Because it is a conflict within our nation’s borders, it poses a greater threat to us than any external army does. Without proper attention, it has the power to destroy our country from the inside out.

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

Le défi de la guerre pour une société multiculturelle Vanessa Rodriguez Translation: Jean Francois Roi

L

E MOT «GUERRE» EST SUR TOUTES LES LÈVRES DEPUIS LES

attaques terroristes infâmes du 11 septembre 2001, et le fervent désir d’emmener en justice ceux responsables est affiché autant sur les manchettes de journaux que dans les reportages de télévision. Toutefois, voulant passionnément aider nos amis américains, nous semblons oublier le caractère multiculturel de notre pays et les conséquences que ce caractère pourrait avoir dans un contexte de guerre. À travers les années, une large part de la richesse de notre pays fut créée par la variété d’origine des nombreux immigrants qui considère le Canada comme étant leur domicile. Nous avons appris à profiter de cette diversité et avons tenté en même temps de promouvoir la tolérance entre les différentes races.

Plusieurs écoles secondaires ont mis sur pied des programmes et/ou des associations visant à combattre le racisme ou à répondre aux besoins spécifiques de leur population étudiante multiculturelle en croissance. Un exemple provenant de l’Institut Collégial York Mills est le Club des Questions Internationales qui permet aux étudiants de combattre le racisme à l’intérieur de leur école et de se réunir lors d’une assemblée multiculturelle à chaque année. L’assemblée vise à célébrer la diversité de la communauté étudiante en permettant aux étudiants de différentes origines ethniques de partager leurs chansons et danses folkloriques. Plusieurs écoles développent ainsi un sentiment de compassion et de communauté parmi les étudiants et les professeurs, favorisant le maintien d’un environnement sécure et tolérant.

James Stevens du magazine Faze Teen mentionne que, bien que plusieurs immigrants canadiens sont vus d’un oeil sceptique, ceux-ci ont en fait contribué beaucoup à notre pays: «Les critiques prétendent que les immigrants et les réfugiés entraînent les autres canadiens au chômage; ils ont tort. Selon une étude de l’»International Migration Review» publiée en 1994, en général, l’économie croît lorsqu’il y a beaucoup d’immigration. C’est parce que plusieurs immigrants démarrent des entreprises et investissent leur argent dans notre économie. D’autres croient que les immigrants et les réfugiés sont responsables du niveau élevé de criminalité; en fait, moins de 12% des prisonniers sont nés à l’étranger.»

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

Art by Janice Wong

D’autres prétendent q[ue les immigrants et les réfugiés diluent notre sentiment de fierté nationale. Ils ne réalisent pas que la majorité des immigrants parlent une de nos langues officielles avant d’arriver ou en apprennent une peu après, et que plus de 80 pour cent de ceux-ci deviennent des citoyens canadiens.

Plusieurs autres canadiens sont d’accord avec M. Stevens. Paul Zarnke, directeur exécutif de l’Association pour les Services Familiaux de Toronto, écrit: «La politique multiculturelle du Canada est unique car elle cherche à favoriser l’inclusion de différents groupes tout en visant à valoriser et à promouvoir la diversité de chaque groupe.»

En tant que canadiens, nous avons choisi d’accepter la merveilleuse diversité de notre pays plutôt que d’adhérer à un modèle d’assimilation qui suggère que tous s’adaptent à ce qui est «normal». Le multiculturalisme exige que l’on supporte nos nombreuses communautés afin d’exprimer nos différentes personnalités.

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Mais malgré ces changements encourageants, le combat contre le racisme n’est toujours pas victorieux. Les obstacles sont maintenant plus grands car nous faisons face à un état d’esprit guerrier qui donne au multiculturalisme un sens totalement différent.

Nous soulevons le dilemme de la loyauté. Puisque les opinions, points de vue et loyautés des canadiens varient aussi drastiquement que les nations desquelles ils proviennent, les canadiens de descendance du Moyen-Orient devront-ils se défendre à plein coeur contre leur propre pays?

L’absence de rapport entre le soldat et son ennemi est une caractéristique généralement importante d’un conflit.

Si l’on désire vaincre quelqu’un, il doit y avoir un certain écart entre les deux parties qui s’opposent. À travers les années, plusieurs canadiens ont bénéficié de relations amicales établies avec des individus de différentes origines ethniques.

Les murs séparant les nations ont souvent été abattus.

Serai-je à l’aise à aller à la guerre, sachant que je combattrai des membres de familles de mes amis du Moyen-Orient?

Le Canada a amené le monde au seuil de sa porte. Il n’y a aucun doute que ceci risque non seulement de créer enormément de tension, mais également de créer de la violence à l’intérieur de nos propres frontières. Nous avons été témoins ce mois dernier, et continuons de constater, que la situation américaine a entraîné des actes de persécutions au Canada contre des arabes et des musulmans.

Le 14 septembre, le journal «The Mirror» rapportait leur incident le plus sérieux de représailles contre des musulmans. L’incident eut lieu le jour suivant les attaques terroristes, lorsqu’un homme musulman fut tranché à la poitrine après une dispute avec un autre homme concernant les événements du World Trade Centre. Durant la même période, le nombre de menaces de mort et de crimes à caractère raciale déclarés par des musulmans a augmenté de façon significative. À une échelle plus locale, Catherine Porter du «Toronto Star» écrit à propos de Zine, qui a un fils prénommé Osama: «C’est un beau nom dans la religion musulmane,» dit-elle, expliquant qu’Osama était un contemporain du prophète Mahomet. «Maintenant, le nom est un synonyme de terrorisme.»

Quand son fils est revenu de l’école pour dîner le 11 septembre, elle l’avertit de s’attendre à de l’intimidation dans la cour d’école à cause de son prénom. L’intimidation eut effectivement lieu.

David Mutiner, professeur à l’université York, exprime son souci: «Ce que nous avons vu crée beaucoup de dommages et pourrait créer énormément de dommages car nous vivons toujours dans une société raciste.»

Que ce soit dans des cas d’intimidation dans la cour

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de l’école ou d’homicides, notre combat pour la tolérance est maintenant plus compliqué.

Pour certains, les médias sont responsables. Le révérend Jacob Birch d’Erin en Ontario croit que notre absence de tolérance face à d’autres religions provient d’échecs au niveau des médias. Dans une lettre au «Toronto Star», Birch écrit: «San Grewal nous offre un article étoffé sur l’état des sikhs en Amérique du Nord et sur les injustices qui ont visité ces individus, leurs temples et leur image publique. L’article me démontre clairement que l’échec ne provient pas du multiculturalisme à cause de l’ignorance, mais plutôt des journaux qui ne donnent pas à la religion l’espace de publication qu’elle mérite compte tenu de son importance dans notre vie de tous les jours… Ils n’explorent jamais les vrais différences de façon à définitivement vaincre l’ignorance qui visite brutalement les minorités visibles depuis le 11 septembre.»

Jeffrey Reitz, professeur en relations raciales et ethniques, n’est pas d’accord: «Cette situation ne fût pas créée pas les médias; elle existait déjà et ces actes lui ont donné un coup de fouet.»

Mais ultimement, chaque individu a sa part de responsabilité. Bien qu’une couverture médiatique additionnelle aurait aider à sensibiliser les gens, une telle couverture ne vient que lorsque le public est plus intéressé et inquiet face à ces questions. Si nous établissons des liens et un esprit de communauté avec les canadiens de descendance du Moyen-Orient, nous découvririons peut-être que plusieurs d’entre eux, comme nous, sont déchirés par la tragédie du terrorisme.

Lors d’un forum public des musulmans canadiens, Abdull-Rehman Malick s’exprima: «Je suis un musulman canadien. Ceci m’est devenu très évident en observant la réaction des musulmans extrémistes à l’étranger, et la réaction de ma communauté ici.»

Saleha Kahn, coordonnatrice de l’Association Canadienne pour les Relations Islamiques, partage ce sentiment: «Je ressens beaucoup de peine. Je suis incapable de dormir la nuit … Je suis incapable de jouir de la vie.»

Plusieurs autres musulmans partagent leur chagrin et leurs frustrations.

Vous connaissez probablement quelqu’un qui aurait peur d’approcher une minorité visible de descendance du Moyen-Orient ici au Canada. C’est peut-être votre propre peur. C’est cette peur qui nous amène d’une nation vivant paisiblement dans la diversité à une nation de chaos et de haine.

Cette menace exige l’attention autant de nos dirigeants canadiens que de ses citoyens. Puisque ce conflit existe à l’intérieur de nos frontières, il nous menace plus que toute armée étrangère. Sans une attention adéquate, le conflit pourrait détruire notre pays de l’intérieur.

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

The lie of good versus evil A path to peace away from the terrorism of militaristic governments Anthony James Art by Adrienne Lee

T

HOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DIED IN WASHINGTON AND NEW YORK

recently. The terrorist attack responsible has broken our hearts and shocked the world. The tragedy is undeniable, the suffering overwhelming, but the shock is misguided.

The horrific events of this week were as predictable as any attack on any nation in history has ever been. Worse still, and equally predictable, has been the response of the United States (US) and allied governments, and much of the media.

We are faced with the challenge of trying to make sense of senseless violence committed by those we do not understand.

In order to do so, we need to first understand how our own governments have committed countless acts of horrific terrorism, and then lie to us about them.

Secondly, we need to understand that we bring our governments to power and then sanction their actions. More importantly, we form the culture from which their politics are derived.

There are clear reasons for the violent acts of our governments. They are no mystery. However, there is a way to peace, with the truth to guide us through the open doorway of the compassion and love we feel for those who suffer.

TRUTH AS GUIDE OUR PART IN THE TERROR IN LATIN AMERICA , THE US government (with the support of its allies) has murdered and massacred its way to protecting financial investments and political ideology.

Torture, rape, fear and death have been unleashed upon Latin America by Washington decree for decades. The US has funded right wing military dictatorships, trained their armies, supplied their arms, planned assassinations, and in some cases invaded directly.

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

Millions have also suffered and died from similar US activity throughout South East Asian nations such as Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Then there is the man who has become the customary prime suspect for terrorist acts against the US. Osama bin Laden was armed and funded by the US government during the 1980s while part of the guerilla army in Afghanistan, fighting to expel the Soviet Union.

Saddam Hussein, too, was the recipient of US arms and funds, during the Iran-Iraq war.

Today, the US government proclaims itself to be negotiating for peace in the Middle East. However, as Suzie Larsen of the Mojo Wire reports, “Israel has since 1986 received an annual US allotment of $1.8 billion in foreign military financing, dedicated to weapon procurement.”

As a result, Israel now ranks as one of the most prolific suppliers of arms to the world in its own right, to a list of countries that include China.

Highlighting the US government’s contradictory prose towards fostering peace is the economic windfall found in selling arms to both sides of various conflicts. These conflicts include that within Angola, and that which persists between Greece and Turkey. Ms Larsen explains: “… in 1997 the U.S. sold (or allowed American corporations to sell) more than $270 million worth of weapons to Greece and nearly $750 million worth to Turkey. Now if there’s a war, the two NATO allies can blast away at one another with far greater efficiency, thanks to the U.S. defense industry.”

On a global level, she goes on to say: “From 1993 to 1997, the U.S. government sold, approved, or gave away $190 billion in weapons to virtually every nation on earth.”

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President Bush believes in preventing wars before they have a chance to happen. His method, however, betrays his rhetoric.

He continues with the method that has brought the US and the world to this current situation. Abandoning international weapon control agreements, pursuing its National Missile Defense System, while simultaneously militarising the world, paints a clear picture of the contradiction and inevitable violence of his policies.

RECOGNISING TRUTH AND CONTEXT IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND THE POINT IS NOT TO MAKE AN ENEMY OF THE US FOR US ALL. That would represent adopting the same conflict-enhancing response we are trying to address here.

Rather, it is to recognise that the US: a)has provided many justified reasons for the illfeeling towards it; b)continues to militarise the world more than any other nation; c)continues to abandon international agreements on weapon controls; d)profits enormously from the production and sale of arms; and e)has been responsible for terrorism in many nations for decades.

In recognising these facts, we can begin to identify and disregard the mass propaganda that places the US as the bastion of freedom, democracy and justice.

You cannot equip the world for war, profit from it, commit the terrorist acts yourself on occasions as per your interests at the time, and then claim to be striving for peace.

Much less, could you reasonably be surprised when the inevitable return fire occurs.

Recognising the context of the problem is essential in being able to understand why the threat to national security exists and so how to effectively deal with it.

This is not a battle of good versus evil; freedom versus oppression; god versus satan. Both sides to this conflict have, and continue to, employ terrorism to serve their respective interests, with disastrous repercussions no more or less horrific than the other.

As such, the situation may be seen as two sides to a conflict, equally responsible for that conflict, feeling equally justified, diving blindly and self-righteously into the destructive feast of hatred.

Meanwhile, it is the people that suffer and die; those that wish for none of this insanity from those that claim to represent them.

The self-righteous propaganda of the US government and media twists the beauty of a compassionate, aching population, bonding in a way that only disasters seem to be able to get us to do, into vengeance and yet more hate.

This is the deeper tragedy.

World “leaders” including President Bush, Prime Ministers Chretien of Canada, Blair of the United Kingdom, and Howard of Australia, herald the death of thousands, perhaps millions, more people in an endless cycle of war and violence.

Their policies represent the true threat to “national security”, and that of the world.

THE DELUSION OF NATIONAL SECURITY IF WE CHOOSE TO THINK AND ACT UPON THE WORLD WITH HATE and vengeance,this is the world we choose to create for ourselves. There is no magic solution through the clouds of pain and insanity.

In the wake of mass destruction, we will one day see that militarisation was no defense after all, the simple macho rhetoric was hollow, and the profits are spilled like blood over us all.

CONFUSING THE CAUSE FOR THE SOLUTION THE TALK OF THE governments of the Western world is of vengeance, retaliation, and defeating the evil enemy in the defense of freedom and democracy. This is not talk that moves to prevent more attacks, and it is not the truth.

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Perhaps the younger generation is more insightful.

CULTURAL BASE OF CONFLICT NATURE, AND HUMANIty’s part within it, is complex and interconnected.

There are endless explanations and justifications for every situation,and no absolute decrees.

Moreover, none of us has developed in isolation. We are all part of everybody and everything else.

This is particularly evident in the development of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, in that their terrorist capability is so clearly traced to the US government.

It is also evident in the development of our militaristic governments,

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

in that our societies are imploding on their own, due to our individualist culture of conflict enhancement.

The current mistaken notion of security that our governments seek is borne of a culture that we form. In every way, we are all part of the problem, which emphasises that we each have the opportunity to change the situation and bring about peace and genuine security.

We embody this false security in many ways. Amongst the more obvious, our society is increasingly turning to the use of locks, alarms, fences, barricades, police, armies and insurance policies.

This tendency is towards fear, in no way aiming at bridging the divides between people and their different perspectives on a given situation. In fact, it does the opposite; the barriers to communication, tolerance, and understanding grow so wide that the “other side” seems like unfounded pure evil.

This is exactly how the US appears to an increasing number of people and nations in the world, just as others appear this way to some people in the US. All believe in their “fight for freedom and justice”.

While we watch our governments saturate streets, borders and airports with yet more arms, more vengeance, more “security” forces, we may more accurately see these forces as a lack of security and, while arguably of some value within society, must be understood as such.

We embody more subtle nests of division, conflict and insecurity. Our culture has determined within us such a strong individualist attitude that we commonly view the self as justified by some absolute gauge of what constitutes “right” in our own minds.

“The other” then becomes viewed as responsible for conflict and that which must change (or be changed) for resolution to occur. We act this out in our daily lives, with precisely the delusion employed by our governments and other entities committing terrorism around the globe: ours is the “just cause”.

The way to peace and security is not to be examining what we may see as absolute wrongs and rights, but what part the individual (person or State) has played in the development of conflict.

We are then in a position to be able to better analyse the attitudes towards us in relation to what we do and who we are.

It is not an issue of what is good or evil within us either, but what it is about us that gives rise to the behaviour of others.

The issue is not absolute resolution, but to head in the direction of understanding and genuine security. To the ex-

tent that this is not achievable, is often a reflection of how far short introspective analysis falls.

The crucial measure is that which lies at the edge of preconceived limits of understanding.

Our role as individuals is clear: to adopt a model of conflict resolution for personal security and peace as a tool for altering the culture that gives birth to our militaristic governments.

we each have the opportunity to change the situation

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

PREDICTABLE PATTERN AND PROSPECTS FOR PEACE THIS ATTACK SHOULD NOT COME AS A SURPRISE, NOR SHOULD others that may follow, while we refuse to alter the source of the conflict. It is a distinct pattern that leads directly to this outcome. The pattern requires changing.

The US government and its allies continue to systematically lead the world to self-destruction. It is a quest to crush the enemy, but the enemy lies within.

There is no strength in failing to recognise this, and there is no success. Mohandas Gandhi advised that “We must be what we wish to see in the world”. He was not merely proclaiming spiritual redemption, but citing the real “battlefront” in the attainment of personal peace.

As nothing in nature operates linearly, personal peace represents an exponential force towards cultural renewal and peace on a broader scale.

Create peace for self, watch the effect on those around you, then demand it of your government. The social construction of our society has only ever come about by the cumulative effect of our actions, and so will change with the change in us.

The US government, and those of its allies, are representative of the culture we have been conditioned to perpetuate. They are not representative of our wish for genuine national security and world peace.

THERE IS HOPE FOR PEACE, IF WE CHOOSE IT NOW, BY SCULPTING our culture anew with the thoughts, words and actions of our daily lives. The path is lined with communication, trust, humility, tolerance, and understanding; embodying true strength and the only platform for peace. ______________________________________________________________________________ Anthony James is a freelance writer, based in Guatemala, specialising in issues of social and environmental justice relating to globalisation and international development.

If you are interested in learning about various projects in Guatemala, and how you can get involved, please contact Anthony at sharedparadise@yahoo.com. se einmail the author at: sharedparadise@yahoo.com.

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Reprinted with permission from the Centre for Economic and Social Rights

www.cesr.org

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Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

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The Anti-terrorism Act C-36: Tia Dafnos In the aftermath of September 11th, countries all over the world have reacted by introducing measures to prevent, and more severely punish those involved in, terrorism. Canada is no exception. Bill C-36 has received much criticism from the community. The government has insisted that the process has been open to public suggestions and concerns.

Despite heavy opposition from civil rights groups and concerned citizens, the Bill was fast-tracked through the legislative process, and the AntiTerrorism Act has received Senate approval, and royal assent, making it law. Opponents view the provisions of the Act as violations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Other new legislation related to C-36: Bill C-24 exempts law enforcement officials and their agents from criminal charges, essentially placing them above the law.

Bill C-35 extends the defnintion of ‘‘internationally protect persons’’ to members of international organizations from foreign states. Members attending any conference (including WTO or G8 summits) are now granted diplomatic immunity. Combined with C-36, interfering (or threatening to) with one of these ‘‘protected persons’’ could be considered an act of terrorism.

list every 2 years by the Solicitor General. * One of the revisions is a provision that allows someone on the list to apply for judicial review after the 2-year review. * The Cabinet has already begun creating this list.

Preventative Detention

Bill C-42, The Public Safety Act amends many other Canadian Acts, such as the Food and Drug Act, to give ministers powers to give interim orders. For example, the minister of transport could order the establishment of military zones for up to one year.

Bill C-36 makes amendments to the Canadian Criminal Code allowing people (“suspects”) to be arrested without warrant. This gives law enforcement officials the power to take anyone into custody without giving justification/reason. Police officers can arrest if they have “reasonable” grounds to think terrorist activity might take place.

A person could be taken into custody and interrogated.

Some of the controversial sections/provisions of this bill: Definitions of Terrorist Activity The definition of terrorist activity is twofold. Firstly, it encompasses the United Nations definitions of terrorism. But it is the second part that has raised concerns and controversy.

According to this, terrorism is action taken (or threatened) for political, ideological or religious reasons that threaten public safety or national security by killing, harming, or endangering a person or: “to cause serious interference with or serious disruption of an essential service, facility or system, whether public or private, other than as a result of lawful advocacy, protest, dissent or stoppage of work . . “ Under this definition, unlawful elements of protest such as occupations, resisting arrest or trespassing would be considered terrorist activity.

* If he/she refuses to answer questions he/she could be subject to an investigative hearing in which he/she is brought before a judge and compelled to give evidence, which could be used to incriminate that person. * A “suspect” can be detained for 24 hours, which could be extended to 72 hours, without probable cause for detention.

Sunset Provisions * Bill C-36 initially lacked so-called “sunset provisions” that would limit the life of the bill to a certain term after which it must be reviewed. Even the legislation in the US contains a sunset clause.

* The revised Bill now contains a sunset clause for the * Parliament stresses that legitimate political activism will not be provisions dealing with arrest powers, and investigative targeted by this legislation. The revisions to the Bill include hearings. After five years, the parliament will decide whether removing the word “lawful” in or not to extend these designating acceptable activist provisions for another 5 years. activities. However, this could leave All measures of Bill C-36 will From an Ipsos Reid Poll of Canadians any legitimate activity, lawful or be up for review in 3 years by on September 21st: unlawful, vulnerable to Parliamentary committees. criminalization. ‘’I would be prepared to see our police and List of Terrorists * Anyone whom CSIS deems to be subversive, and therefore, a terrorist, can be added to this list, and essentially be blacklisted. There are provisions for removal, judicial review and other measures to deal with “mistakes.” One of these “safeguards” is the review of the

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security services get more power to fight terrorism, even if it means that they might tap my phone, open my mail or read my personal e- mail.’’

Agree: 53% Disagree: 46% Bill C-36 includes measures to make the use of wiretapping more available to law enforcement.

Although amendments have been added, most opponents view them as merely superficial additions in an attempt to satisfy critics. There are many more issues with this Act that have not been discussed here.

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

Amy Gajaria

The only way we were able to understand the events of September 11th was to equate them with pop media. We told ourselves that it was like a bad action movie or a made-for-television event. We tried to say it was just like that unbelievable book we read, you know, “the one with the plot too surreal to believe.”

We don’t have the vocabulary to understand or describe what happened because we are a generation that has never known war. The closest I ever came to war was a protest against the Gulf War with my dad. It was an event, which I can only vaguely remember. What I do remember are the feelings of being scared and shocked at the anger of the police, the protestors, and the politicians; “big people” to my eight-year-old brain.

The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington were something else entirely. These were, as consistently defined by U.S. officials, acts of war. The images of a commercial airliner smashing into the World Trade Centre kept us up at night; they haunted our waking moments.

Extra-curricular activities, part-time jobs, and university applications were suddenly behind us. Events that previously defined our lives became, in an instant, frivolous.

We now have a “defining moment,” one of those times that a generation is known for. We were previously the tech, or the “Y” generation. Our biggest worry was choosing between IBM or Macintosh? Laptop or PC? We used the Internet as a toy, seldom as an information source. We were inundated with news, and it washed over most of us without leaving a drop behind. Vulnerability meant not having a firewall installed or getting a virus in our computers. Now, as the young people who will grow up shaped by “America’s New War,” we have a new definition of vulnerability.

The Internet feeds us news from every perspective (even Afghanistan’s views, which are sorely lacking in Western mainstream media). Cable news feeds us comforting rhetoric about “collateral damage.” Our worries now involve being the generation of youth who will never again feel safe in an airport or tall office tower.

Perhaps this event will fade with time. Perhaps I’ll wake up tomorrow and not be frightened by the sound of a plane taking off. Or perhaps it’s all just a part of growing up – a rite of passage, if you will.

More likely, however, our young adult lives will forever be influenced by the events of an early fall Tuesday.

Where this will lead us, no one knows. All we can be certain of is that it will never be the same.

Amy Gajaria is an 18-year-old whose main purpose in life is to escape from the suburbs. She used to make blissful daily trips into Toronto to intern for eye Weekly, but now she’s back in the super-exciting world of OAC math, science and living, breathing and eating Algebra and Geometry.

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

Viewpoint

I

T WAS THE DAY THAT OUR GENERATION CHANGED FOREVER.

It was the day that our generation changed forever.

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Albert Interviews Chomsky...

Michael Albert, Z Magazine Forum Note: This interview has been edited for length 1. There has been an immense movement of troops and extreme use of military rhetoric, up to comments about terminating governments, etc. Yet, to many people there appears to be considerable restraint...what happened? implemented. On Sept. 27, the same N.Y.T. correspondent From the first days after the attack, the Bush adminreported that officials in Pakistan said «they would not reistration has been warned by NATO leaders, specialists on lent in their decision to seal off the country’s 1,400-mile borthe region, and presumably its own intelligence agencies that der with Afghanistan, a move requested by the Bush adminif they react with a massive assault killing many innocent istration because they wanted to be sure that none of Mr. people, it will be answering bin Laden’s most fervent prayers. bin Laden’s men were hiding among the huge tide of refuThey will be falling into a «diabolical trap,» as the French gees» (John Burns, Islamabad). According to the world’s leadforeign minister put it. That would be true — perhaps even ing newspaper, then, Washington demanded that Pakistan more so — if they happen to kill bin Laden, still without slaughter massive numbers of Afghans, millions of them having provided credible evidence of his involvement in the already on the brink of starvation, by cutting off the limited crimes of Sept. 11. He would then be perceived as a martyr sustenance that was keeping them alive. Almost all aid miseven among the enormous majority of Muslims who deplore sions withdrew or were expelled under the threat of bombthose crimes. bin Laden himself has, for what it is worth, ing. Huge numbers of miserable people have been fleeing to denied any involvement in the crimes or even knowledge of the borders in terror, after Washington’s threat to bomb the them, and condemned «the killing of innocent women, chilshreds of existence remaining in Afghanistan, and to condren, and other humans» as an act that «Islam strictly vert the Northern Alliance into a heavily armed military force forbids...even in the course of a battle» (BBC, Sept. 29). His that will, perhaps, be unleashed to renew the atrocities that voice will continue to resound on tens of thousands of castore the country apart and led much of the population to welsettes already circulating throughout the Muslim world, and come the Taliban when they drove out the murderous warin many interviews. An assault that kills innocent Afghans ring factions that Washington and Moscow now hope to ex— not the Taliban but their terrorized victims — would be ploit for their own purposes. When they reach the sealed borvirtually a call for new recruits to the horrendous cause of ders, refugees are trapped to die in silence. Only a trickle the bin Laden network, and other graduates of terrorist netcan escape through remote mountain passes.... Within a few works set up by the CIA and its associates 20 years ago to weeks the harsh winter will arrive. There are some reportfight a Holy War against the Russians. Meanwhile, the CIA ers and aid workers in the refugee were following their own agenda from the camps across the borders. What time they assassinated President Sadat of they describe is horrifying enough, Egypt in 1981, murdering one of the most but they know, and we know, that enthusiastic creators of the «Afghanis» — they are seeing the lucky ones, the mostly recruits from extremist radical Isfew who were able to escape — and lamist elements around the world who were who express their hopes that ‘’even recruited to fight in Afghanistan. the cruel Americans must feel After a little while, the message apsome pity for our ruined country,’’ parently got through to the Bush adminisand relent in this savage silent tration, which has — wisely from their point genocide (Boston Globe, Sept. 27, of view — chosen to follow a different course. p. 1). Perhaps the most apt descripHowever, «restraint» seems to me a tion was given by the wonderful questionable word. On Sept. 16, the New and courageous Indian writer and York Times reported that «Washington has activist Arundhati Roy, referring to also demanded [from Pakistan] a cutoff of Operation Infinite Justice profuel supplies,...and the elimination of truck claimed by the Bush Administraconvoys that provide much of the food and tion: «Witness the infinite justice other supplies to Afghanistan’s civilian of the new century. Civilians starvpopulation.» Astonishingly, that report elicing to death while they’re waiting ited no detectable reaction in the West....

In the following days, those demands were Is is really a choice that needs to be made? to be killed» (Guardian, Sept. 29).

Art by Adrienne Lee

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Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

2. The UN has indicated that the threat of starvation in Afghanistan is enormous. International criticism on this score has grown and now the U.S. and Britain are talking about providing food aid to ward off hunger. Are they caving in to dissent in fact, or only in appearance? What do you think is their motivation? What will be the scale and impact of their efforts?

The UN estimates that some 7-8 million are at risk of imminent starvation.

The NY Times reports in a small item (Sept. 25) that nearly six million Afghans depend on food aid from the UN, as well as 3.5 million in refugee camps outside, many of whom fled just before the borders were sealed.... If people in Washington and the editorial offices have even a single gray cell functioning, they realize that they must present themselves as humanitarians seeking to avert the awesome tragedy that followed at once from the threat of bombing and military attack and the sealing of the borders they demanded. «Experts also urge the United States to improve its image by increasing aid to

Afghan refugees, as well as by helping to rebuild the economy» (Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 28). Even without PR specialists to instruct them, administration officials must comprehend that they should send some food to the refugees who made it across the border, and at least talk about air drop of food to starving people within, in order «to save lives» but also to «help the effort to find terror groups inside Afghanistan» (Boston Globe, Sept. 27, quoting a Pentagon official). The New York Times editors picked up the same theme the following day, 12 days after the journal reported that the murderous operation is being put into effect.

On the scale of aid, one can only

hope that it is enormous, or the human tragedy may be immense in a few weeks. But we should also bear in mind that there has been nothing to stop massive food drops from the beginning, and we cannot even guess how many have already died, or soon will. If the government is sensible, there will be at least a show of the «massive air drops» that officials mention.

3. International legal institutions would likely ratify efforts to arrest and try bin Laden and others, supposing guilt could be shown, including the use of force. Why does the U.S. avoid this recourse?

Is it only a matter of not wishing to legitimate an approach that could be used, as well, against our acts of terrorism, or are other factors at play?

Much of the world has been asking the US to provide some evidence to link bin Laden to the crime. And if such evidence could be provided, it would not be difficult to rally enormous support for an international effort, under the rubric of the UN, to apprehend and try him and his collaborators. However, that is no simple matter. Even if bin Laden and his network are involved in the crimes of Sept. 11, it may be quite hard to produce credible evidence. As the CIA surely knows very well, having nurtured these organizations and monitored them very closely for 20 years, they are diffuse, decentralized, non-hierarchic structures, probably with little communication or direct guidance. And for all we know, most of the perpetrators may have killed themselves in their awful missions.

There are further problems in the background. To quote Roy again, «The Taliban’s response to US demands for the extradition of Bin Laden has been uncharacteristically reasonable: produce the evidence, then we’ll hand him over. President Bush’s response is that the demand is non-negotiable’.» She

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

also adds one of the many reasons why this framework is unacceptable to Washington: «While talks are on for the extradition of CEOs can India put in a side request for the extradition of Warren Anderson of the US? He was the chairman of Union Carbide, responsible for the Bhopal gas leak that killed 16,000 people in 1984. We have collated the necessary evidence. It’s all in the files. Could we have him, please?»

Such comparisons elicit frenzied tantrums at the extremist fringes of Western opinion, some of them called «the left.» But for Westerners who have retained their sanity and moral integrity, and for great numbers among the usual victims, they are quite meaningful.

And the single example that Roy mentions is only the beginning, of course, and one of the lesser examples, not only because of the scale of the atrocity, but because it was not explicitly a crime of state. Suppose Iran were to request the extradition of high officials of the Carter and Reagan administrations, refusing to present the am-

ple evidence of the crimes they were implementing — and it surely exists.

Or suppose Nicaragua were to demand the extradition of the US ambassador to the UN, newly appointed to lead the «war against terror,» a man whose record includes his service as «proconsul» in the virtual fiefdom of Honduras, where he surely was aware of the atrocities of the state terrorists he was supporting, and was also overseeing the terrorist war for which the US was condemned by the World Court and the Security Council (in a resolution the US vetoed). Or many others. Would the US even dream of responding to such demands presented without evidence, or even if the ample evidence were presented? ...There are established procedures for dealing with crimes, however horrendous. They require evidence, and adherence to the principle that “those who are guilty of these acts” is held accountable once evidence is produced, but not others (Pope John Paul II, N.Y.T. Sept. 24).

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4. The war on terror was first undertaken by Reagan, as a substitute for the cold war — that is, as a vehicle for scaring the public and thus marshalling support for programs contrary to the public’s interest — foreign campaigns, war spending in general, surveillance, and so on. Now we are seeing a larger and more aggressive attempt to move in the same direction. Does the problem that we are the world’s foremost source of attacks on civilians auger complications for carrying through this effort? Can the effort be sustained without, in fact, a shooting war?

The Reagan administration came into office 20 years ago declaring that its leading concern would be to eradicate the plague of international terrorism, a cancer that is destroying civilization.

They cured the plague by establishing an international terrorist network of extraordinary scale, with consequences that are — or should be — well-known in Central America, the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere — while using the pretexts to carry out programs that were of considerable harm to the domestic population, and

even threaten human survival. Did they carry out a “shooting war”? The number of corpses they left in their wake around the world is impressive. But technically, they did not usually fire the guns, apart from transparent PR exercises like the bombing of Libya, the first crime of war in history that was timed precisely for prime time television, no small trick considering the complexity of the operation and the refusal of continental European countries to collaborate. The torture, mutilation, rape, and massacre were carried out through intermediaries.

Even if we exclude the huge but unmentionable component of terrorism that traces back to terrorist states, our own surely included, the terrorist plague is very real, very dangerous, and truly terrifying. There are ways to react that are likely to escalate the threats to others and ourselves; there are ample precedents for more sane and honorable methods, which we’ve discussed before, and are not in the least obscure, but are scarcely discussed.

Those are the basic choices.

5. If the Taliban falls and bin Laden or someone they claim is responsible is captured or killed, what next? What happens to Afghanistan? What happens more broadly in other regions?

The sensible administration plan would be to pursue the ongoing program of silent genocide, combined with humanitarian gestures to arouse the applause of the usual chorus who are called upon to sing the praises of the noble leaders committed to “principles and values” and leading the world to a “new era” of “ending inhumanity.” The administration might also try to convert the Northern Alliance into a viable force, perhaps to bring in other warlords hostile to it, like Gulbudin Hekmatyar, now in Iran. Presumably they will use British and US commandos for missions within Afghanistan, and perhaps resort to selective bombing, but scaled down so as not to answer bin Laden’s prayers. A US assault should not be compared to the failed Russian invasion of the 80s. The Russians were facing a major army of perhaps 100,000 men or more, organized, trained and heavily armed by the CIA and its associates. The US is facing a ragtag force in a country that has already been virtually destroyed by 20 years of horror, for which we bear no slight share of responsibility.

The Taliban forces, such as they are, might quickly collapse except for a small hard core. And one would expect that the sur-

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viving population would welcome an invading force if it is not too visibly associated with the murderous gangs that tore the country to shreds before the Taliban takeover. At this point, most people would be likely to welcome Genghis Khan.

What next? Expatriate Afghans and some internal elements who are not part of the Taliban inner circle have been calling for a UN effort to establish some kind of transition government. This could be a process that might succeed in reconstructing something viable from the wreckage, if provided with very substantial reconstruc-

Art by Natasha Yang

tion aid channeled through independent sources like the UN or credible NGOs. That much should be the minimal responsibility of those who have turned this impoverished country into a land of terror, desperation, corpses, and mutilated victims. That could happen, but not without very substantial popular efforts in the rich and powerful societies. For the present, any such course has been ruled out by the Bush administration, which has announced that it will not be engaged in “nation building.” Or, it seems an effort that would be more honorable and humane: substantial support, without interference, for “nation building” by others who might actually achieve some success in the enterprise.

But current refusal to consider this decent course is not graven in stone.

What happens in other regions depends on internal factors, on the policies of foreign actors (the US dominant among them, for obvious reasons), and the way matters proceed in Afghanistan.

One can hardly be confident, but for many of the possible courses reasonable assessments can be made about the outcome — and there are a great many possibilities, too many to try to review in brief comments.

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

6. What do you believe should be the role and priority of social activists concerned about justice at this time? Should we curb our criticisms, as some have claimed, or is this, instead, a time for renewed and enlarged efforts, not only because it is a crisis regarding which we can attempt to have a very important positive impact. But also because large sectors of the public are actually far more receptive than usual to discussion and exploration, even if other sectors are intransigently hostile?

It depends on what these social activists are trying to achieve. If their goal is to escalate the cycle of violence and to increase the likelihood of further atrocities like that of Sept. 11 — and, regrettably, even worse ones with which much of the world is all too familiar — then they should certainly curb their analysis and criticisms, refuse to think, and cut back their involvement in the very serious issues in which they have been engaged. The same advice is warranted if they want to help the most reactionary and regressive elements of the political-economic power system to implement plans that will be of great harm to the general population here and in much of the world, and may even

threaten human survival.

If, on the contrary, the goal of social activists is to reduce the likelihood of further atrocities, and to advance hopes for freedom, human rights, and democracy, then they should follow the opposite course. They should intensify their efforts to inquire into the background factors that lie behind these and other crimes and devote themselves with even more energy to the just causes to which they have already been committed. The opportunities are surely there. The shock of the horrendous crimes has already opened even elite sectors to reflection of a kind that would have been hard to imagine not long ago, and among the general public

that is even more true. Of course, there will be those who demand silent obedience. We expect that from the ultraright, and anyone with a little familiarity with history will expect it from some left intellectuals as well, perhaps in an even more virulent form. But it is important not to be intimidated by hysterical ranting and lies and to keep as closely as one can to the course of truth and honesty and concern for the human consequences of what one does, or fails to do. All truisms, but worth bearing in mind.

Beyond the truisms, we turn to specific questions, for inquiry and for action.

Resource ActionCentre is youth’s first stop for action.

The RAC is an extensive resource library which aims to promote constructive, informed youth action by providing information that represents and helps all Canada’s diverse youth to achieve their goals.

1-800-718-LINK 416-368-2277

RAC’s toll free number is accessible to youth across Canada.

Call or e-mail us with your request and we will call you back, fax, or mail you the information you require.

A project of Youth Action Network Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

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COAT is a national network of individuals and organizations in Canada that began in late 1988 to organize opposition to ARMX ’89, which was the country’s largest weapons bazaar. COAT has continued to expose and oppose Canada’s role in the international arms trade, particularly where there is trade to governments which are engaged in war or which violate human rights.

1. NATO is a creature of the Cold War and should be abolished, not expanded.

2. NATO’s official military doctrine reserves for itself the right to use nuclear weapons despite the fact that in 1996 the World Court made such use, or threat, illegal. NATO’s “first use” nuclear weapons policy means it is willing to use nuclear weapons even when none have been used against them. The use of nuclear weapons contravenes International Humanitarian Law because civilian deaths would be massive and indiscriminate. NATO’s nuclear weapons also pose the risk of en-

4. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, about 80% of the world’s total military equipment was produced by NATO members in 1996. The following NATO members are among the world’s top ten military producers: the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Canada. The U.S., U.K. and France alone contributed about 70% of world’s total arms production for that year.

5. After the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, NATO became increasingly irrelevant and needed a reason for its continued existence. NATO therefore escalated its efforts to foment ethnic wars in the Balkans in order to create excuses for its own military interventions in the region. NATO’s interventions — so-called “humanitarian

Reasons to oppose NATO Richard Sanders Coalition to Oppose Arms Trade

vironmental catastrophe, including the global holocaust of “nuclear winter.” NATO’s nuclear weapons policy also contravenes the Nonproliferation Treaty (to which all NATO members are signatories) that requires all states to press quickly to abolish nuclear weapons.

NATO member states (US, UK and France) now have more than 9,000 nuclear warheads in active service, about 60% of the world’s nuclear arsenal. These three NATO states have committed some of their nuclear weapons to NATO for its use in war. NATO itself maintains between 60 and 200 nuclear weapons at airbases in Western Europe. NATO’s nuclear weapons and the threat of their use are a means of coercion and intimidation, especially against states that do not possess these weapons.

3. NATO’s powerful core members (the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Holland, Belgium and Spain) have a long history of controlling vast empires. Former colonies of these NATO countries — today’s Third World — still suffer from tragic economic inequalities resulting from hundreds of years of imperialism imposed by nations that are now members of NATO. Transnational corporations controlled by economic interests in NATO countries continue to dominate these former colonies under a neoliberal economic system now labeled “corporate globalization.”

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wars” — were then sold to the public as a means of settling conflicts between ethnic groups.

NATO’s real purpose is to expand the colonial spheres of influence of its member states and their corporate allies.

6. NATO waged a war of aggression against Yugoslavia that was illegal under its own Charter and various international laws.

7. NATO forces used 1,200 warplanes and helicopters to fly 35,000 combat missions against Yugoslavia. It dropped 20,000 bombs and missiles containing 80,000 tons of explosives on that country. Contrary to international law, NATO targeted civilian infrastructure, including over 1,000 targets of no military significance, such as: schools, hospitals, farms, bridges, roads, railways, waterlines, media stations, historic and cultural monuments, museums, factories, oil refineries and petrochemical plants.

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

8. NATO’s illegal bombing campaign severely impacted the health of Yugoslavia’s civilian population. Thousands of civilians were killed, at least 6,000 were injured and countless others, especially children, suffered severe psychological trauma.

9. According to the UN Environmental Program, NATO’s bombing campaign triggered an ecological catastrophe in Yugoslavia 10. In its war against Yugoslavia, NATO used weapons that are prohibited by the Hague and Geneva Conventions and the Nuremburg Charter, such as depleted uranium missiles that are radioactive and highly toxic weapons with long-term, life-threatening health and environmental consequences, and anti-personnel cluster bombs designed to kill and maim (that contravene the “Ottawa Process on Landmines” because many “bomblets” do not explode during initial impact). NATO continues to stockpile these prohibited weapons for use against civilian populations in future wars.

11. After its bombing of Yugoslavia, NATO refused to disarm the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as required by United Nations resolution 1244. Instead, NATO converted the KLA into the Kosovo Protection Force supposedly to maintain peace and order in NATO-controlled Kosovo. Under the watchful eye of 40,000 NATO troops, the revamped KLA terrorists ethnically cleansed the area of 250,000 people who were not of Albanian heritage (as well as some ethnic Albanians loyal to Yugoslavia). During NATO’s occupation, 1,300 citizens have been killed and another 1,300 have been reported missing. Kosovo’s remaining minorities have no freedom of movement, live in ghettoes and face frequent terrorist attacks and property destruction.

15. NATO has been a prime source of destabilization in Macedonia by giving military assistance to Albanian terrorists there. The London Times (June 10, 2001) reported that NATO’s appointee to the Kosovo Protection Force, Agim Ceku, sent 800 KLA troops to Macedonia to aid the nascent Albanian insurgency there. This June, NATO troops intervened to evacuate KLA fighters when Macedonian forces closed in on the rebels near Aracinovo. German media reports state that NATO’s evacuation was ordered because 17 former U.S. military personnel — hardened by years of Balkan fighting and working for a private U.S. mercenary group — were among the KLA terrorists. NATO has also used diplomatic means to pressure the Macedonian government to succumb to Albanian demands.

16. NATO’s aggressive policy of expansion into Eastern Europe severely threatens international stability. With NATO’s annexation of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland now complete, Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia have declared an interest in joining the NATO juggernaut. NATO has also set its sights on penetrating even further into former Soviet spheres of influence by trying to encompass Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and the Ukraine. NATO’s intention to press beyond the former borders of the Soviet Union is dangerously confrontational and risks provoking war with Russia.

17. NATO’s expansion into Central and Eastern Europe is a means of integrating the military forces within those countries under NATO (and largely U.S.) control. As military units within NATO, the armed forces of new NATO member states must submit to demands for standardization of military training, weapons and other military equipment. Requirements that new members standardize their military

12. NATO appointed Agim Ceku, an alleged war criminal, as commander of the Kosovo Protection Force. Ceku, an Albanian Kosovar, led the Croatian army’s “Operation Storm” that ethnically cleansed the Serbian population from their ancestral lands in Croatia. If the Hague were to pursue an indictment of Ceku, and other such terrorists, it would be a major embarrassment to their NATO bosses.

13. As an occupying colonial power, NATO forces helped to enforce the cancellation of election results in Bosnia, shut down the offices and transmission towers of media stations that were critical of NATO’s presence and seized the assets of political parties that refused to cooperate with them.

14. The exploitative behavior rampant in military culture is exemplified by the actions of NATO troops based in the Balkans. For example, NATO troops fuel the demand for prostitution in both Bosnia and Kosovo. The women who service NATO troops live in deplorable conditions and are frequently held against their will by local captors. When evidence of UN or NATO involvement in this trade has surfaced, implicated officers have been discharged and sent home but no criminal proceedings have ever been initiated against them.

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

Placard from the COAT vigil in Ottawa on October 6, 2001.

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equipment to NATO’s exacting specifications is a tremendous boon to U.S. and European military industries that profit greatly from these expanded export market.

18. New NATO member states may also lose sovereignty over other important aspects of their armed forces, such as the command, control, communications and intelligence functions, which also risk being subsumed under the auspices of NATO standardization.

19. The reasons for NATO’s expansion eastward are largely economic. For instance, NATO’s military access and control over Eastern Europe helps Western European corporations to secure strategic energy resources such as oil from the Caspian Sea and Central Asia. The U.S. and Western European corporations will greatly benefit from NATO’s control of the oil corridor through the Caucasus mountains.

NATO wants its troops to patrol this pipeline and to dominate the Armenian/Russian route to the Caspian Sea. The Caucasus also link the Adriatic-Ceyhan-Baku pipeline with oil-rich countries even farther east, in the former Soviet Central Asia republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Billions of dollars in oil may someday flow through these corridors to Western Europe for the benefit of Western-based oil companies.

20. NATO’s growth is not only a provocation to Russia, it also threatens the security of China and other Asian states that may respond in kind by increasing their military spending, thus diverting resources from the essential needs of their citizens. NATO’s expansion may eventually provoke an antiNATO alliance in Asia, further destabilizing peace and leading to possible future wars.

21. As part of the “NATO Defence Capabilities Initiative,” NATO member states have committed themselves to increase their military abilities for “power projection, mobility and increased interoperability.” This will require significant additional military expenditures. European NATO countries have already increased their expenditures for military equipment by 11% in real terms since 1995. Meanwhile, military budgets in the U.S. and Canada have also increased over the past two years. The military budgets of NATO coun-

tries amounted to about 60% of the world’s total military spending (US$798 billion) for the year 2000. Rather than focusing on such genuinely humanitarian priorities as providing food, housing, health care, education, environmental protection and public transportation for their populations and the rest of the world, NATO is intent on increasing their military budgets for future interventions even farther afield.

22. The testing and training conducted by NATO to prepare for war, also has numerous negative impacts on people and the environment. NATO’s war preparations include military exercises, the training of pilots and the testing of weapons and warplanes. For instance, low level flight training areas and bombing ranges in Nitassinan threaten the traditional lifestyle of many in the Innu Nation. Their unceded territory in Quebec and Labrador is being turned into a military wasteland by NATO test flights. NATO nations also carry out dangerous bombing practices on Vieques Island, off Puerto Rico.

23. In the late 1940s-early 1950s, at the bidding of the CIA, NATO helped to set up secret paramilitary, anti-communist cells in at least 16 European states. Originally called Operation “Stay Behind,” this network of guerrilla armies was created to fight behind the lines in case of a Soviet invasion.

It was codified under the umbrella of the Clandestine Coordinating Committee of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (which became NATO). These clandestine armies were condemned by the European Union in a resolution (Dec. 22, 1990) that blamed the CIA and NATO for their 40 year role in overseeing this covert operation. Widely known by the code name for the Italian campaign (i.e., “Operation Gladio”) these organizations, which the EU feared may still have been operating in 1990, were accused of illegal interference in political affairs, conducting terrorist attacks, jeopardizing democractic structures and other serious crimes.

24. Key NATO representatives have interfered with internal electoral/political developments in Europe. Although recent elections in Albania were fraught with irregularities and fraud (ballot box stuffing, ghost voters, selective disenfranchisement) NATO General Secretary George Robertson pronounced the election fair and legitimate. Earlier this year, another NATO spokesperson openly threatened that if the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (the party of former premier Vladimir Meciar) entered a coalition government, Slonakia would not be welcomed into NATO or allowed early European Union membership.

Press for Conversion! is the quarterly publication of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade. Each issue of the magazine brings together material from a wide variety of international sources on different peace-related subjects. In the last few years, we have published issues focusing on the following themes: NATO’s War against Yugoslavia Health and Environmental Effects of War Ridding the World of Nuclear Weapons Canada’s Arms Trade and InternationalHuman Rights Building a Culture of Peace Nonviolent Resistance to War and Injustice A People’s History of the CIA: The Subversion of Democracy from Australia to Zaire Canada’s Military Exports: Fuelling wars and abusing internationalHuman/labour rights Taking Over the World: Militarism and Globalisation

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Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

Prelude to a war The COAT vigil for non-violence happened on October 6, 2001 -- the day before the war on terrorism began.

Tia Dafnos

C

ings.” The end of his speech was in met by a rousing standing ovathe chilly wind - the grey tion. skies mirrored the seriousJen Anthony of the Cananess of the impending world dian Federation of Students events that we were there in solispoke of the changes that were darity against the looming “war on happening on campuses across terrorism.” the country. The occurrences of On October 6, people from racially based harassment and all over the country gathered in attacks, and a general clamp on Ottawa for an event organized by free speech have created a tenthe Coalition to Oppose Arms sion at school. She touched on Trade (COAT) to oppose NATO’s an issue has since become a war on terrorism. In place of the major concern for people everyoriginally scheduled festival for where: “If we relinquish freecreative non-violence, speakers dom in the name of safety, and workshops followed a solemn what are we safe from?” vigil. Organizers decided to change Arun Gandhi, grandson the events because of the tragedies - Richard Sanders, COAT of Mahatma Gandhi and coof September 11th, feeling that it founder of the M.K. Gandhi Inwould be inappropriate to hold a stitute for Non-violence also joined us by speakerphone from festive event against a backdrop of tragedy and impending India.

He encouraged the assembled group to continue to war. To the steady beat of a drum, hundreds of people walked work towards peace.

He told two stories that his grandfaon Bank Street from Parliament Hill towards the First ther used to tell him.

One was about a king and a grain of United Church. wheat and the other about a man saving starfish from dying Members of NATO were also meeting in the city that in the hot sun. day. As they discussed military action, we discussed peace The end of the speeches signalled the beginning of workaction. shops on issues: America at War, Non-violence in Action, OpThe list of speakers was impressive. A variety of repposing the new Cold War, Global Non-violent Peace Force, resentatives of the activist community spoke on several isSolidarity in Vieques, and Theatre in Resistance. sues, but all related back to the US tragedies and the imA recurring question throughout the day was “what can pending retaliation. we do?”

There was no one answer. But the consensus seemed Richard Sanders, the coordinator of COAT spoke first, to be that we all leave this gathand put it simply: “War is terrorering and work to inform and ism.” educate people about the issues Perhaps the most emotional supporting peace and not war. delivery came from Archbishop We must work efficiently, Lazar Puhalo of the Ukrainian Orquickly, collectively, because of thodox church. He pleaded with the limited timeframe. the audience to “don’t listen to The following morning, as these speeches and do nothing,” I looked over my notes from Otand that we must first have an imtawa, the radio announced that pact on ourselves. In reference to the US had launched air strikes politicians, before asking anyon Afghanistan. thing else of them, we must “make parliamentarians into human beOn October 7, the United States began a war.

OLOURFUL BANNERS FLAPPED

“War is terrorism.”

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

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After Genoa:

Asking the right questions Starhawk Photos from BBC

G

ENOA WAS A WATERSHED FOR THE ANTIGLOBALIZATION move

ment. It’s clear now that this is a life or death strug gle in the first world as it has always been in the third world. How we respond will determine whether repression destroys us or strengthens us. To come back stronger, we have to understand what actually happened there.

The media are telling one story about Genoa: a small group of violent protestors got out of hand and the police overreacted. I’ve heard variations on this from within the movement: the Black Bloc was allowed to get out of hand to justify police violence. But that’s not what happened in Genoa, and framing the problem that way will keep us focused on the wrong questions.

Let’s be clear: In Genoa we encountered a carefully orchestrated political campaign of state terrorism. The campaign included disinformation, the use of infiltrators and provocateurs, collusion with avowed Fascist groups (Fascist as in ‘direct inheritors of the traditions of Mussolini and Hitler’), the deliberate targeting of nonviolent groups for tear gas and beating, endemic police brutality, the torture of prisoners, the political persecution of the organizers, and a terrorist night raid on sleeping people by special forces wearing “Polizia” T-shirts under black sweatshirts, who broke bones, smashed teeth, and bashed in the skulls of nonresistant protestors. They did all this openly, in a way that indicates they had no fear of repercussions and expected political protection from the highest sources. That expectation implicates not only the proto-Fascist Berlusconi regime of Italy, but by association the rest of the G8, especially the U.S. since it now appears that L.A. County Sheriffs helped train the most brutal of the special forces.

Italy has a history of the employment of such tactics, going back to the ‘strategy of tension’ used against the left in the nineteen seventies. In fact, even further back to the ‘twenties and ‘thirties where prisoners describe being tortured in rooms with pictures of Mussolini on the walls. Maybe even

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back to the Renaissance, if not the ancient Romans. The same tactics have, of course, been used extensively by U.S. agencies and other countries. Italy also has a political culture of highly confrontational actions and streetfighting with the police, as well as strong pacifist groups and groups like the Tute Biancha who are exploring new political territory that goes beyond the traditional definitions of violence and nonviolence. All of this set the stage upon which the events of the G8 protest were played.

The police used the Black Bloc, or more accurately, the myth and image of the Black bloc, very effectively in Genoa, for their ends, not ours. Some aspects of Black Bloc tactics made that easy: the anonymity, the masks and easily identifiable dress code, the willingness to engage in more confrontational tactics and in property damage, and perhaps most significant, the lack of connection with the rest of the action and the organizers.

But the Black Bloc was not the source of the problem in Genoa. The problem was state, police and Fascist violence.

Acts were done in Genoa, attributed to protestors, that were irresponsible and wrong by anyone’s standards-but it seems likely now that most of them were done by police. Or if not, police provocateurs were so endemic that it’s impossible to tell what people in our movement might have done or to hold anyone accountable. So the issue Genoa presents us with is not ‘How do we control the violent elements among us?’, although that conceivably might be an issue someday. It’s ‘How do we forestall another campaign of lies, police-instigated violence, and retaliation?” There’s no easy answer to that question. The simplest strategy would be to go back to a strict form of nonviolence, which many people are proposing. I don’t know why I find myself in resistance to that answer. I’m a longtime advocate of nonviolence, I have no intention of ever throwing a brick through a window or lobbing a rock at a cop myself, and in general I think breaking windows and fighting cops in a mass action is counterproductive at best and suicidal at worst.

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

One reason might be that I can no longer use the same word to describe what I’ve seen even the most unruly elements of our movement do in actions and what the cops did in Genoa. If breaking windows and fighting back when the cops attack is ‘violence’, then give me a new word, a word a thousand times stronger, to use when the cops are beating nonresistant people into comas. Another might be just that I like the Black Bloc. I’ve been in many actions now where the Black Bloc was a strong presence. In Seattle I was royally pissed off at them for what I saw as their unilateral decision to violate agreements everyone else accepted. In Washington in 2000, I saw that they abided by guidelines they disagreed with and had no part in making, and I respected them for it. I’ve sat under the hooves of the police horses with some of them when we stopped a sweep of a crowded street using tactics Gandhi himself could not have criticized. I’ve choked with them in the tear gas in Quebec City and seen them refrain from property damage there when confronted by local people. I’m bonded. Yes, there have been times I’ve been furious with some of them, but they’re my comrades and allies in this struggle and I don’t want to see them excluded or demonized. We need them, or something like them. We need room in the movement for rage, for impatience, for militant fervor, for an attitude that says “we will tear this system down.” If we cut that off, we devitalize ourselves.

We also need the Ghandhian pacifists. We need room for compassion, for faith, for an attitude that says, “My hands will do the works of mercy and not the works of war.” We need those who refuse to engage in violence because they do not want to live in a violent world.

And we need space for those of us who are trying to explore forms of struggle that fall outside the categories. We need radical creativity, space to experiment, to carve out new territory, invent new tactics, make mistakes. There are campaigns being waged now that are defined as clearly and strictly nonviolent: the School of the Americas, Vandenberg, and Vieques, among others. Those guidelines have been respected, and no black-clad brick throwing figures have attempted to impose other tactics.

But the actions directed against the big summits have drawn their strength from a much broader political spectrum, from unions and NGOs to anarchist revolutionaries. All these groups feel a certain ownership of the issue and the fat, juicy targets that the summits represent.

How do we create a political space that can hold these contradictions, and still survive the intense repression directed against us? How do we go where no social movement has ever gone before?

Maybe these are the questions we really need to ask.

In a life or death situation, there’s a great temptation to attempt to exert more control, to set rules, to police each other, to retreat to what seems like safe ground. But all my instincts tell me that going back to what seems safe and tried and true is a mistake. As an anarchist, I’m not interested in doing any kind of police work. I want to call each other to greater, not lesser freedom, knowing that also means greater responsibility and greater risk.

Using provocateurs to instigate violence, which can be blamed on dissenters and used to justify repression is a time tested, generally successful, way of destroying radical movements. But it’s a strategy that thrives on the familiar, the

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

expected. Identifying provocateurs in the midst of an action is like trying to spray for a pest in the garden: the toxicity of the spray, of the suspicion, secrecy and lack of trust, may be as great as that of the pest. But plants can resist pests if they are grown in healthy soil. To forestall infiltration and provocateurs, we need to examine the soil of our movement.

I’d like to suggest three nutrients that can make us more pest resistant: communication, solidarity and creativity.

We have to be in communication. We can no longer afford to wage parallel but disconnected struggles at the same demonstration. We need to clearly state our intentions and goals for each action, and ask others to support them.

We may need to argue and struggle with each, to negotiate, to compromise. Articulating a clear set of agreements about tactics may at times be the best way to forestall provocateurs. But agreements are only agreements when everyone participates in making them. If one wing of the movement attempts to impose them, they are not agreements but decrees, and moreover, decrees that will not be respected and that we have no power to enforce.

That communication involves risk on both sides, but those risks have to be taken, intelligently and thoughtfully, of course. We need to put a higher priority on our communication than on our standing with our funding sources or our security culture. If my tactic of choice makes it impossible for me to talk to you, I need to question whether it’s an appropriate tactic for a mass action. In that dialogue, we actually have to struggle to respect each other. No one gets to claim the moral high ground. None of us get to exclusively set the agenda, determine the form of what we do or decree the politics. Those who advocate nonviolence, a chief tenet of which is to respect your opponent, need to practice it within the movement.. You can’t just dismiss the Black Bloc and other militant groups as ‘negative rebels’ or immature adolescents acting out.

They have a political perspective that is serious, thoughtful, and deserves to be taken seriously.

But it also means that more militant groups need to stop dismissing those who advocate nonviolence as middleclass, passive, and cowardly. The Black Bloc is widely respected for its courage, but it takes another kind of courage to sit down in front of the riot cops without sticks or rocks or Molotovs. It takes courage to have your identity known, to organize in your own city where you can’t disappear but must stand and face the consequences. ‘Nonviolent’ does not equate with ‘non-confrontational’, or with wanting to be safe on the

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Greater freedom demands greater responsibility. sidelines. The essence of nonviolent political struggle is to create intense confrontations that highlight the violence in the system, and then to stand and openly take the consequences. In today’s repressive climate, where 88-year-old nuns are being given yearlong prison sentences for completely pacific pacifist actions, the risks of nonviolence may be much higher than the risks of anonymous street fighting.

We need to communicate clearly with the larger community as well, proactively, not reactively. We have to let people know what our intentions are and what the parameters of the action might be. Imagine the Black bloc putting out a Crime Stopper Leaflet: “If you see a group of masked figures looting small shops, burning private cars, and endangering your children, get their badge numbers! They are the Cops! Because we’re the Black Bloc, and that’s not what we do.”

We need to talk to the not-already-converted, door-to-door, face-toface, not to lecture them, but to ask about their lives and the effects these issues have on them, and to ask them to show support for us.

We need to be in real solidarity with each other. Solidarity is not just about refraining from denouncing each other to the media, or holding vigils for those in jail. It means putting the good of the whole above our immediate individual desires or even safety. It means supporting each other’s intentions and goals, even when we only partially agree with them. Not just by saying, “you do your thing and I’ll do mine,” but by actually taking responsibility for our actions and for the impact they have on others beyond our immediate group or ourselves.

Greater freedom demands greater responsibility.

IN A MASS ACTION INDIVIDUAL DECISIONS HAVE A COLLECTIVE impact. Some tactics are like the loud-voiced guy in the meeting: they take up all the available space and make it impossible for anyone else to be heard. Cops are not creatures of fine distinctions. If one group is throwing Molotov cocktails and smashing shop windows, it may well affect how the police react to the pacifist group a block over. The community, too, may miss the subtle difference between burning the neighborhood bank and burning the neighborhood store. So, just as the loud guy has to learn to step back occasionally and shut up to give others a chance to be heard, high confrontation tactics sometimes need to be restrained just to allow other possibilities to exist.

Solidarity is about what we do on the street. It means protecting each other as best we can, and certainly not deliberately endangering each other. Of course, one group’s idea of protection may be another group’s idea of endangerment.

A barricade may seem protective, but if your strategy is to de-escalate tension, a barricade may actually make your situation more dangerous. We need to respect each other’s choices. Solidarity means that if I’m sitting down in front of a line of riot cops and you’re behind me, I can trust that you’re

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restraining the crowd behind from trampling me, not throwing a rock over my head. And that if you push through a line of cops and I’m behind you, I’m there to support you, not restrain you. We have a right to ask for solidarity from everyone who wants to be out on the street together.

Solidarity is also about holding each other accountable, critiquing what we do together with the purpose of learning from our mistakes and becoming more effective. Critiquing is not attacking: a good critique is a mark of respect.

It’s saying, “I know that you and I share a common interest in making this work better.”

Perhaps most of all, we need to be creative. Maybe, just to stimulate our thinking, we need to mount one action with one simple guideline: No tired, overused tactics allowed.

No cross-the-line symbolic arrests, no bricks through the windows of Starbucks. And please, please, no boring chants that have been recycled since the Vietnam War, if not before. At least this would be a useful thought experiment.

We need to think outside the fences and the boxes. We need to do the unexpected, change clothes, change tactics, be where they don’t expect us to be, doing what they don’t expect us to do. If they expect us to trash McDonalds, we’re there disrupting its operations by giving out free food and asking the workers how globalization affects them. If they expect militants to dress in black, then the militants go lavender and the pacifists stage a Funeral for Democracy, surrounding the White House dressed in black mourning and veils. If they expect us to walk up quietly in groups of five to get arrested, we disappear and reappear somewhere else entirely. If the hardcore streetfighters pull down a fence, the 88-year-old nuns are the first through into the red zone. If they block off the meeting and concentrate their defenses on a wall, we claim the rest of the city. If they hide the summits in inaccessible locations, we choose our own turf.

These are hard challenges, but these are hard times, too and they’re not getting easier. I’ve already seen too many movements splinter and fail or grandstand themselves to death in ever more extreme and suicidal acts, or suffocate from self-righteous moralism. I want to win this revolution.

I don’t think we have the ecological and social leeway to mount another one if this fails. And the odds of winning are so slim that we can’t afford to be anything but smart, strategic, and tight with one another. We need to stand shoulder to shoulder, even when we disagree. And if we can do that, if we can hold these differences within our movement, we’ll have taken a step toward meeting the much greater challenges we’ll face when we do win, and come to remake a deeply diverse world.

Starhawk http://www.starhawk.org/ (Thanks to Lisa Fithian, Hilary McQuie ad David Miller for discussions that contributed to this piece.)

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

May 6-12, 2002

let’s kick up some dust.

May 6-12 is International Youth Week 2002, a collaborative event between youths from all over the world.

Why Youth Week ?

International Youth Week 2002 is our chance to celebrate and inspire community youth action, in solidarity with groups worldwide. it’s about collaboration not competition, activity not passivity, and solutions not problems. We want to move from policy to actual practice, from education to direct, decentralized, grassroots action.

We are not just the “leaders of tomorrow”; let’s show the world how youths envision a more just and sustainable future...and what positive changes we CAN and DO acheive...NOW.

who can participate ?

Anyone who is interested in becoming a part of this collaborative youth project... including YOU: individual, student, organizations, clubs, councils, agencies, groups, associations... there are no limits!

For more information, or to register an event, fill out the form below and send to: International Youth Week 2002 51 Wolseley Street, 2nd floor Toronto, Ontario M5T 1A4 Canada 416.368.2277 fax 416.368.8354 youthweek@youthweek.org

It is up to YOU to organize/create/support/mobilize anything and everything that is important to you!

Some event ideas... “days of access” to decision-makers.

Public Service announcments over the radio.

Busking/jam session.

Distribute fact sheets on energy over-consumption.

Conference/forum addressing violence against women.

Street theatre.

Conduct teach-ins and consciousness-raising sessions among youths of colour.

Eco-trail building.

River/field clean-up.

how ?

We’ll make it easy for you to access research, educators, organizing toolkits, event ideas, calendars, funding, inspiring project examples, and each other! All you have to do is join the network...and bring along your creative energy. Take the initiative!

Organize your event, help spread the word within your community!

Consider becoming a Regional Coordinator -- contact us to obtain an information package.

and check out www.youthweek.org

fill it out!!!

snip it out

Form available online at

www.youthweek.org YOUR name:_____________________________________________________________ Organization/group name (if applicable):______________________________________ Address:_________________________________________________________________ City/town:______________________________Province:____________________Postal Code:_____________ Contact number:______________________ Fax:_______________________ E-mail:___________________ Website (if applicable):_____________________________________________________ Project/Event title:________________________________________________________ Project/Event description:

Project/Event aim: Does it follow these working groups? check all that apply.

Race/racism Gender/sexuality Globalisation/ethical

business

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

Environment Aboriginal issues Rural youths/organizing

Youth and governance Youth and media 29

Youth and homelessness

The experiences of neglected youth

Amen Jafri Despite all the complaints and ramblings being listed in the headlines for the need of affordable housing, increased funding for shelters and other social programs, Toronto’s homeless youth need something more. The federal government is trying to find a way to help the homeless, but homeless youth are an entirely different case.

“...just look on the street, people give me dirty looks.”

These youth need opportunity, which is something lacking in our system.

Shelters like Second Base Youth Shelter (located at 702 Kennedy Road near kennedy station), are one step towards progress in providing this opportunity.

Many of the youth residing there, or go there for support, agree.

Quaccy, an eighteen year old high school student in grade twelve, likes the shelter, because he says, “the staff see something inside of me.”

He is a recent immigrant, arriving in Canada two years ago. Like many other homeless youth, he suffers from family problems; he has not spoken to his father close to his arrival here. And yet, he manages to handle high school along with a part-time job at Wal-Mart, in addition to having his own apartment (provided by the federal government through the Metro plan). It is enough to sustain him through three to four days a week.

Unlike the negative stereotype the media portrays for homeless youth, he is a young man who has not given up hope.

He is a firm believer that God is there to guide him, and that “education is key, without, it you can’t make it.”

Quaccy is a sure example that given the right guidance, there is hope for homeless youth.

Michael Ascenzo, nineteen, also experienced many family problems. He ran away from home when his foster parents became too much to handle. As well as being a recovering alcoholic, he is also trying to obtain custody of his three year old daughter. He is a stubborn young man, like many other youth out there. He

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was kicked out of school because of the conflict with his foster parents, but has gone back determined to catch up, and is now presently in grade eleven. He is also part of YMCA’s Youth Substance Abuse Program, receiving counselling. His personal needs are provided by the monthly $375 pension from the government.

Despite these checks, Ascenzo is frustrated with being Art by Precy Kwan treated harshly by society.

“They think we’re all bad kids...just look on the street, people give me dirty looks.” This constant abuse from society simply adds another block towards youths trying to achieve higher aims in life. Society has become accustomed to dehumanizing the homeless, and need to understand they are just people who have had to carry enormous weights on their shoulders.

Statistics show us that the number of homeless youth in Toronto is on the rise, not to mention the number of ‘invisible homeless’ - those who are on the verge of becoming homeless.

Why is this happening? Some say it is due to cutbacks in education, health and recreation programs that are creating anxiety and stress, particularly in our fast-paced society. Today’s youth are not being given the right environment that leads to success, even though many wish to succeed. There is little hope or security, and the doors of opportunity seem to be closing fast. Many new jobs that are available in Toronto’s booming economy do not seem to be accessible to youth. In 1999, unemployment for youth 15-19 was 15.8 percent, whilc for youth between 20 and 24, it was 11.6 percent.

Many of the funds provided by the government seem to only be directed towards improving shelters. This is merely helping the problem after it has occurred. The government has not touched upon any issues concerning why so many youth are homeless. Only if they can reach the root or cause of the problem, will they finally come to the aid of one in need.

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

Community police or police brutality?

Melissa I HAVE OFTEN HEARD THE LOCAL CITIZENS OF NORTH BAY CALL our police force “The biggest street gang in all of the city.”

The accusation is, perhaps, a little harsh but I have witnessed the less than heroic behaviour of our local 911 rescuers.

Generally speaking, like a gang, they work as one. If one has a personal vendetta, the whole force shares that dispute. I give you the example of a man I won’t name due to the fact that his life has already been threatened on multiple occasions by our local police force.

He once made a complaint about an officer, now he has a reputation of being a psychopath. It’s funny; not ‘ha ha’ funny but the kind that sends an unsettling chill up the inner, most sensitive nerves of your spine. He made a complaint about a corrupt cop, and like a circle of wild boars protecting their young, the police attacked him from all directions.

I have heard the angry words played back to me on his little cassette recorder and unless you know him, you get the impression that this person is, as the officer states, “a mean malicious man.”

Yet I describe him as kind, concerned and determined to get the justice he deserves. I have never seen that mean malicious man the officer described. He and I have been working together for justice for his children, for my children and for the children sent to the same day care we have been battling against since November 2000 because of the abuse our children have experienced, and have never resolved. For example, all three of his children were abused in the same day care centre, as well as by other people in their lives. He continues to fight after four years: Social Services, Children’s Aid, the Police, everyone...but like me, he too is weakening.

How is one supposed to deal with the idea of anyone harming his or her children? How can I even cope with the idea of an owner of a day care facility harming my children and getting away with it?

Many years ago he made a complaint about an officer and because of that, he has since been let down by the police each and every time he needed their help. He has been called a “mean malicious man” on cassette, because he asked for his ex-wife to be arrested for not abiding by her child custody agreements. He brought that cassette to the Mayors office and shortly thereafter received a death threat by a man on the bus stating: “Leave the North Bay Police Department alone.”

All of this stems from a messy divorce, an abusive day care, and a whole lot of headaches.

We have no photos, no video, and no justice.... Just countless witnesses with stories that don’t seem to be worth the price of aspirin.

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

I’ve seen officers abusing their powers; I’ve seen them take bribes; I’ve seen them plant drugs; I’ve seen them beat a man on his way to prison only to let him go for the whereabouts of a more important criminal. I’ve heard the story that began with a noise complaint but led to six under-aged girls being strip-searched by three male officers at a party. No female officer was present and no one was arrested for drinking under age. Naivety allows young girls to be taken advantage of like that.

As a child your parents teach you that the police officer is your friend and a safe person to go to when you need help. As a teen he can be your worst enemy, always cracking down on your fun. As an adult you see things in a whole new light, especially when your children are involved.

On several occasions I have desired police assistance to deal with rowdy neighbours, harassing phone calls, etc.

Yet the same horrible words escape all of their lips, “I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do.”

So why do we have a police force? Well, I’ve often heard that this is a “Mafia town.” I’ve never been given a reason to believe it but that’s the story. I suppose if this is true, we needed a form of law enforcement to give the citizens a false sense of security.

What would we do without our police force? Truth be known, we’d destroy ourselves.

We could not handle the responsibility of being kind to one another, being good to one another and most importantly, respecting one another.

We would go back to the dark ages; we’d rape and pillage, and do whatever we wanted with no sense of morals in our selfish minds.

The fact is humanity is inherently evil. We need a symbol of justice to keep us in line with our morals; otherwise society would crumble.

In the future, perhaps we won’t need law enforcement.

Perhaps morals will finally set in and we won’t steal or hurt one another. Or perhaps we will have a new symbol of justice, the grim reaper perhaps.

How many kids would shoplift if the penalty were death? I know I would never have dared.

I can’t say for sure how far we’ve come, and I’ll never know for sure how far we’ll go. All I can say for certain is: “Good cop, bad cop, it doesn’t matter what kind of cop. The police officer is a symbol of justice we need to keep us in line and a corrupt force is better than no force at all, I guess.”

Melissa from North Bay, Ontario, is 22 and married with two children. Her involvement in the government and community police issues was a result of the abuse of her children in two day-care centres. She is a political musician who hopes to make a difference through her music.

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Behind the badge Tyson Hay

How have the interactions between police and community changed?

THERE IS A TREND IN GENERAL POLICING HABITS THAT’S MOVING away from when the local police officer was called ‘sir’ and treated with respect and generally well liked in the community, towards segregation of police and community, and the general hatred by the populace of the police.

This is seen especially in my community. I live in a small town (12000 residents) just outside Kelowna, British Columbia. We have had ‘community police’ for about five years, and I have met many people who believe that the town was better off before the police came.

The local officers, seemingly in want of something to occupy their lives, harass partygoers and late-night swimmers. They have been known to follow groups of people around to find where the party is, and then break it up.

In one of the most ironic cases I’ve heard of, a man whose car was broken into called police when discovering it the following day. It took the better part of that day for a single officer to show up, and then he dismissed ever finding the victim’s stolen possessions.

Later that day, the theft victim was stopped for a traffic offence, to find three police officers and their cars on the side of the road, idle. When he asked angrily why none of them had answered the call at his house earlier that day, they mumbled that they were in the traffic section and had nothing to do with burglary.

That is a small example, and most definitely a coincidence. However, it does reflect the general feeling that the police are too bureaucratic and far too distanced from the community.

made for that reason: to protect pedestrians, passengers, and other motorists from drivers who would otherwise drive as fast as possible all the time. The law itself will not stop most speeders; only the chance of getting caught will make them slow down. Photo radar does absolutely nothing towards slowing people down, because unmarked photo radar vans are made to be hidden. Even if a speeder did get a photoradar ticket, he wouldn’t know until receiving the bill in the mail weeks later. In the meantime, he has not slowed down, has not even known that he had been caught. Police use of photo-radar makes people angry. For instance, a British Columbian man has spent $100,000 in legal costs to fight a $110 photo-radar ticket. The use of photo-radar shows that police are more concerned with punishing people than with truly stopping crime. The example of protests-gone-wrong shows that police are less and less trusting of citizens, and will use any excuse possible to stamp on their rights. Photo radar shows that policing has forgotten its purpose because the objective of photo radar is simply to catch the criminals and punish them.

In my opinion, the most effective way to actually reduce speeding would be to have a clearly marked police car drive up and down highways where speeding is common.

Every driver knows that when one sees a police car on the road, one immediately slows down. Instead, by pursuing the

Why have police become like this?

One example of this is photo radar, which is perhaps the most unjust and ineffective tool that Canadian police forces have ever used. The worst thing about it is that it reflects a growing trend in the way our society is policed and the way our laws are maintained. Police forces in Canada are moving away from ‘community-friendly’ services towards fascist American-style law enforcement.

The reason photo radar is so distasteful is that it directly contravenes one of the basic points of law in Canada and all of Western society. The purpose of law has always been to make society safe from those who would hurt others, whether intentionally or accidentally. For example, the law against speeding was

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Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

photo-radar option, the police and government have shown that they are much more interested with punishing than with trying to reduce the problem.

Examining examples of protests gone awry in both Canada and the United States, one can see greater evidence of this growing trend. It seems that every time there is a protest, or even a large gathering of people on the street, the police become involved. Examples include the “battle in Seattle” in 1999 and the famous pepper-spray incident at the APEC conference in Vancouver, 1998.

However, there have been several other incidents of this nature during the past three or four years and many involve protests against corporations and/or globalization. In every case that I have read about, there was no evident reason to read the Riot Act to the protesters.

Since when has free speech become a crime? These protesters aren’t out to start riots or kill people; they are out to affect change in the most obviously democratic way: with their own bodies and voices. When this expression is suppressed by police, a mockery is made of the words “Canadian democracy.”

Why have police become like this? The most obvious answer is that while police have become less tolerant and more harsh towards offenders and even average citizens, the justice system has gone the other direction - and each have equally gone out of touch with the majority of people in the country. For instance, murderers receive two years in jail, molesters are allowed to walk free completely, and violent assaults are given adequate defense with the statement: “I was drunk at the time.” Police most likely feel frustrated by the justice system’s lack of conviction (no pun intended).

Imagine spending untold amounts of time tracking down a murderer or rapist, being absolutely sure before charging the offender, then watching as he walks away on a technicality or “good behavior.” This is definitely part of the problem.

Another reason is the change in societal values and demographics. Even though the number of violent crimes in Canada have dropped continually in the past few years to levels unseen since the 1950s, an ageing society - fuelled by media sensationalism - believes that burglary, theft, and murder are just around the corner. Young people are constantly seen as threats, to the point where geriatrics cross the road to avoid anyone who looks under twenty-five or has a strange haircut. In this climate, it is easy to see that police would become a little more violent and autocratic.

I’m glad we have police, especially when major crimes occur. That’s when the law-enforcers can serve their real function, which is to keep society safe by arresting criminals and showing would-be felons that anyone who commits a crime will be apprehended. However, I would much appreciate if they stopped intruding into the lives of citizens for no objective reason. It only creates ill will and bad feelings and will surely lead - probably already has led - to incidents where citizens refuse to co-operate with officers of the law. If this trend of increasing segregation and enmity between police and populace continues, the police may learn the hard way that it is not wise to bite the hand that feeds you.

Tyson Hay, 17, is a Grade 12 student from Lake Country, British Columbia. He enjoys playing various sports such as hockey and soccer, listening to music, as well as engaging in political and philosophical discussions and learning other languages.

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Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

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Restorative justice A slap is exchanged between two friends and lands one in court.

Nova Scotia has a solution to deal with these petty cases.

Bryan Phelan THE RECEPTIONIST AT THE PUBLIC PROSECUTION SERVICE of parents would say ‘I can’t control my children. You, criminal Nova Scotia speaks to visitors through a hole in the Plexiglas justice system, do it for me.’” In many cases, problems are shield she sits behind. She pages Crown attorney Catherine better dealt with by a family referral to a social agency than Cogswell, who taps silver buttons that unlock a door leading by criminal prosecution, Cogswell says. from the lobby to offices overlooking Halifax Harbour. PreSimilarly, the Crown Caution project was designed sumably, the security measures protect Crown attorneys to spare young people with minor theft and mischief charges from the dangerous criminals they sometimes proscute. from getting criminal convictions. Some minor assault cases Too often, though, the alleged criminals Crown attorwill also be handled this way. neys face in court aren’t dangerous at all - particularly in Cogswell recalls prosecuting a cases involving young people, case in which a girl at a hockey game says Cogswell, who worked for slapped her best friend, who was cheerthree years as a Halifax youth ing for the opposing team. The victim’s court prosecutor. mother insisted charges be laid, even Cogswell has a keen inthough the girls made up before the case terest in youth justice issues. went to court. In the end, the judge gave As a member of Nova Scotia’s the accused an absolute discharge. implementation committee for ”The girls literally came to court the proposed federal Youth together and the victim spoke on the acCriminal Justice Act, she cused’s behalf,” says Cogswell. “This helped secure funding last year would have been a perfect case for a caufor two pilot programs to keep tion.”

12- to 17-year-olds with “relaFunding for the Pre-charge tively minor behavioral probScreening and Crown Caution pilot lems” out of Halifax courts. projects will come from the federal GovLater this month, the “Preernment’s “youth justice renewal initiacharge Screening” and “Crown tive.”

Caution” projects start up on a The projects are part of a larger six-month trial basis. The Preoverhaul of the youth justice system. The Art by Stephanie Siu charge Screening project allows centerpiece of the changes is the new Crown attorneys to review miYouth Criminal Justice Act, which Justice nor criminal cases - like shoplifting and public mischief - to Minister Anne McLellan re-tabled on February 5. decide whether police should lay formal charges. At present “They’ve said ‘look, we want you to deal with minor, in Nova Scotia, the police make the decision whether or not so-called criminal behavior in more creative ways, and to use to lay charges, and Crown attorneys simply prosecute cases criminal justice resources to deal more comprehensively or once charges have been laid. harshly with serious, violent offences,’” Cogswell says of the Pre-charge Screening is a way to divert some of the new law’s aim. cases that might otherwise come before the courts to deal She says the projects will complement Nova Scotia’s with them in more effective ways. For example, a teen with broader restorative justice initiative, launched in Novemno prior offences who gets into a heated argument with his ber 1999. Advocates of restorative justice say that it reduces parents, slams a door in frustration, and knocks a picture the number of re-offenders by focusing on the underlying off the wall and breaks it, would not necessarily face a charge, causes of criminal behavior and by helping to reintegrate peosays Cogswell. ple into the community. ”You’d be surprised at how often this type of scenario Under the province’s restorative justice guidelines, comes to the police and Crown,” she says. “It was a shocking Halifax Regional Police Service officers have been issuing experience for me in youth court to see the extent to which formal police cautions and making referrals to the city’s

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Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

“I can’t control my children. You, criminal justice system, do it for me.”

Youth Alternative Society (YAS) for “low level” crimes by young people under the age of 18. Of the 1,000 or so young people that Halifax police have investigated for criminal behavior since Nov. 1, 1999, almost half have been diverted from the court system by these alternative measures, says Const. Richard McDonald.

Police cautions are issued in place of charges only when teens accept responsibility for committing an offence, he says. And usually only first-time offenders are eligible.

Cautions are made by letter to parents or guardians, whom McDonald also contacts personally.

Halifax police have issued 228 cautions in the 14 months since their caution program began, and only about 10 young people who’ve been cautioned have re-offended, says McDonald.

Cautions are an updated version of the informal warnings police used to give to mischievous kids, he suggests. “It used to be that just an officer pulling up in a big, ugly police car pretty much scared the (heck) out of you when you were a 12- or 13-year-old. And if that didn’t work, your parents gave you a good talking to.”

Cogswell says the Crown Caution pilot project will draw on the experiences of police caution programs like the one used in Halifax. But instead of overlapping with these kinds of programs, Crown Cautions will “provide for sober second thought by criminal justice officials after tempers have cooled down, and youths have had time to think about their behavior,” she says.

Conversations with parents sometimes convince police to go beyond a caution to refer young people to Youth

Alternative Society, a non-profit organization, says McDonald. “Parents are telling officers, ‘Here’s what is really going on,’” he explains. “They might say their kids are a bit out of control, that they’re having problems with peer pressure, or alcohol and drugs.”

YAS offers programs in drug education, anger management, and self-esteem. McDonald says more than 80 per cent of the young people police send to YAS don’t re-offend.

And if teens are sent to YAS at the pre-charge stage but don’t fulfill their program obligations, they’ll be charged for their original offence, he adds. ”We say, ‘Let’s find out what the problem is,’ instead of just dealing with the offence,” YAS executive director Linda Moxsom says. If a kid has been caught stealing, for example, YAS may find they’re homeless and in need in shelter, or using drugs and in need of rehabilitation. ”I think we’re less lenient than the court system, where a lawyer speaks for you and you don’t have to apologize,” Moxsom adds. “Our programs involve victims, and young people learn to say they’re sorry and to make things right (through restitution).”

The Crown attorney pilot projects seem to fit well with Nova Scotia’s broader restorative justice model, says Moxsom.

Besides, she says, most young people “self-correct” after being caught for minor offences. “How many of us went through our teenage years without breaking some law?

Bryan Phelan is a journalism student at University of King’s College.

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It’s less common to hear the stories of garment workers around the world who are fighting to win decent working conditions and employment with dignity.

The Maquila Solidarity Network works in solidarity with garment workers in Latin America, Asia and Canada who are organizing to improve conditions.

We coordinate Canadian consumer campaigns against sweatshops…pressuring big clothing companies to respect workers rights. We are also urging the government to require companies to give us more information on where our clothes are made. We want companies to stop hiding sweatshop abuses

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

Ever wonder what you can do to support sweatshop workers struggles? Youth across the country are playing a major role in the Stop Sweatshops movement…

- forcing big companies like Nike, Gap and Guess to take notice of their demands to end sweatshop violations; -taking a closer look at where their school uniforms and school clothing are made and pressuring their schools and school boards to pass No Sweat ethical purchasing policies, and;

- helping collect thousands of clothing labels as part of our Cut It Out campaign.

Contact us or check out our website for ideas on how to get involved (http://www.maquilasolidarity.org)

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Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

37

Rant Rant

Give me my space Sou

F OR THE next few minutes you are about to be subjected to my ranting.

Warning this material may not be suitable for all readers.

Welcome to my world.

My name is Sandy and my co columnist Stef, is nowhere to be found the bitch abandoned me to go to Switzerland. Stef hope you are having a good time. You know I love you and I really am just envious. My rant today, ladies and gentlemen is about space. Yes space, my private and personal space that is mine.

One question: why do people (men in particular) and some over privileged people just like to not only claim too much space but invade my space? All I’m asking is that you acknowledge I have space or at least I’m entitled to some and if it’s not too much to ask please please respect it.

Yes I’m bitching. What? I just want my space. I’m not friendly, I don’t want to be nice to you. I don’t want to be popular and I don’t want to smile. Yes, I’m moody and I’m touchy.

You can see that, so why won’t you just give me my space and let me be moody and touchy?

Caribana: a time for dancing and hanging out with friends to have a good time. But wannabe thugs had to spoil it for me. I was walking down the street, coming back from work, thinking of the partying and craziness that’s coming my way tonight when I noticed about nine brothas’ coming towards me. The bunch of girls in front of me crossed the street and foolish me, thinking that I was safe in this civilized, mature and respecting world, didn’t cross the street.

I’m sorry but I thought the sidewalk was made for the general public at all hours of the day. Apparently I was wrong. I kept walking, head held high thinking I was going to get to treat my eyes to some fine looking bunch of brothas. I walked past them and to my horror I was grabbed in all parts of my body: my arms, ass, breast and thighs. I FREAKED. I let out a hair-raising scream that I didn’t realize I was capable of. I

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was terrified and stunned. All kinds of thoughts passed through my mind in that 30 seconds.

I thought of everything from grabbing my exactor knife, calling the police, or launching a fullfledged physical attack on each and every one of them.

In that moment I was hysterical, shocked and afraid for my life.

I could hear my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest. I was also Art by Stephanie Siu seeing red. So what did I do? I smacked the hand on my breast, pulled my arm away and screamed obscenities then started to march home. I was furious. I was so mad, angry and upset and utterly humiliated that I could barely see where I was going. My insults were replied with comments like “relax mama,” “the bitch is overreacting,” “men, fuck that bitch” and “girl ain’t no need to scream like that!”

What? Overreacting? A group of guys have just violated me, invaded my space, terrified me and made me question my safety and completely humiliated me in public simply because I have a vagina, and I’m overreacting?

My space was invaded emotionally, physically and physcologically. I DO NOT NEED THAT KIND OF SHIT IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW AND I DO NOT NEED TO EXPLAIN MYSELF TO ANYONE. That is my issue; I have major issues with brothas’ feeling that they have rights to a sister at all times simply because she is a sister. All I’ve got to say is that men need to respect and give people their space.

PLEASE GIVE ME MY SPACE. I know I was violated that way because I was a woman and I believe I speak for all women when I say it; I do not appreciate this sort of mistreatment, disrespect and debasement. If that makes me an overreacting, unstable and crazed bitch, then let it be known that I am a proclaimed and proud one.

To the women out there, if you feel like space is being threatened please speak out and defend your space. There is no need to take that kind of unnecessary shit from anyone.

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

Map

Map

Aftershocks Gallup Polls International took an opinion poll shortly after the events of September 11th. Here is one of the questions that was asked, and the responses of citizens from countries all over the world.

In your opinion, once the identity of the terrorists is known, should the American government launch a military attack on the country or countries where the terrorists are based or should the American government seek to extradite the terrorists to stand trial?

Germany Israel Attack 77% Extradite 19% Don’t know 4%

Attack 17% Extradite 77% Don’t know 6%

Lithuania Attack 15% Extradite 83% Don’t know 2%

USA Attack 54% Extradite 30% Don’t know 16%

India Attack 72% Extradite 28% Don’t know 0%

Argentina

South Africa

Attack 8% Extradite 84% Don’t know 8%

Attack 18% Extradite 75% Don’t know 7%

Gallup Polls International, September 2001

Youth Action FORUM . Winter 2002

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let’s kick up some dust.

May 6-12, 2002

Be There. www.youthweek.org

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