Check Out National Aboriginal History Month Happening Throughout June!

Public Talk on Local Michi Sagiik Anishinaabe History and Contemporary Realities with Rick Beaver 
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
7-9pm
Peterborough Public Library – Auditorium 

Rick Beaver is an internationally-recognized Mississauga Ojibway artist and trained biologist from Alderville First Nation in Ontario. He has been painting professionally for more than 30 years and is an avid conservationist. His passion for nature, combined with his native heritage, is exemplified in his unique celebrations of its flora and fauna. He is the proprietor of Sweetgrass Studios located at his birthplace on the Alderville First Nation in Ontario. His diverse involvements include consultations in aboriginal tourism, the arts, cultural history and environmental management. He has been a tour guide and host for “Spirit Walks”, an aboriginal tourism initiative for First Nation communities and partners where his artistic and communication skills have helped establish these venues. He has served as a member of the design team for the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ontario and was awarded the Governor General’s commemorative medal for community service in 1993. Rick Beaver has appeared as a personality on television and radio, has been an illustrator for many publications and has been a strong promotor of cultural history and environmental management. Currently Mr. Beaver serves on the board of the natural heritage site the Alderville Black Oak Savanna and is involved in design work for a number of Canadian manufacturers. Rick Beaver is a 2011 Honorary Degree Recipient from Trent University.


Language Nest - Wii-Kendimiing Nishinaabemowin Saswaansing
June 12, 11-12pm
Ernie and Florence Benedict Gathering Space
First Peoples House of Learning, Gzowski College, Trent University

Culture-grounded Ojibwe language playgroup
email: nishsawin@gmail.com
facebook page: Nishinaabemowin Saswaansing


Club Native Film Screening
Thursday, June 23, 7-9pm
The Cannery Art Centre (168 Hunter St W)

A film by Tracey Deer, Produced by Rezolution Pictures & National Film Board of Canada, 2008

On the Mohawk reserve of Kahnawake, located just outside the city of Montreal, Canada, there are two firm but unspoken rules drummed into every member of the community: Do not marry a white person and do not have a child with a white person. The potential consequences of ignoring these rules―loss of membership on the reserve, for yourself and your child―are clear, and for those who incur them, devastating. Break the rules, and you also risk being perceived as having betrayed the Mohawk Nation by diluting the “purity” of the bloodline.

In Club Native, filmmaker Tracey Deer uses Kahnawake, her hometown, as a lens to probe deeply into the history and present-day reality of aboriginal identity. Following the stories of four women, she reveals the exclusionary attitudes that divide the community and many others like it across Canada. Deer traces the roots of the problem, from the advent of the highly discriminatory Indian Act through the controversy of Bill C31, up to the present day, where membership on the reserve is determined by a council of Mohawk elders, whose rulings often appear inconsistent. And with her own home as a poignant case study, she raises a difficult question faced by people of many ethnicities across the world: What roles do bloodline and culture play in determining identity?

Club Native is a candid and deeply moving look at the pain, confusion and frustration suffered by many First Nations people as they struggle for the most important right of all: the right to belong.

Winner of BEST Canadian documentary at DOXA Documentary Festival 2008, Vancouver

Winner of BEST Canadian documentary at Terres En Vues Media Arts Festival, Montreal

Trailer available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rPi1RG3m1Q
Clip available at: http://www.nfb.ca/film/club_native_excerpt/
Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28533718952


Tour and Talk on Indigenous Studies/SAGE Community Garden
Monday, June 27, 6:30-7:30pm
Next to the Tipi – First People’s House of Learning, East Bank, Trent University

Join us for a talk and tour of the Indigenous Studies/ Supporting Aboriginal Graduate Education (SAGE) gardens at Trent with Christine Sy.


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CRRC at Ode’min Giizis!

Arts Activities for Families with Ode'min Giizis Festival Artist-in-Residence Mel McCall
Saturday, June 4, 10-1pm
Cannery Arts Centre (168 Hunter St W)

CRRC warmly invites you to participate in the Community Arts workshop in partnership with Ode'min Giizis. Please feel free to come out and make materials for your organization and/or your family and friends to participate in the Community Procession!

Fun and Free for all ages!
for full schedule, artist bio's, how to get involved and more visit us at okw-arts.ca

Cross Cultural Musical Collaboration at IndieGenius Outdoor Concert
Saturday, June 18
Hunter Street Café District

Musical collaboration and residency between the Indigenous Nations of Zimbabwe, Mohawk and Yaqui. Musicians Chaka Chikodzi (marimba), David R Maracle (flute and percussion) and Gabriel Ayala (classical guitar).


Bimaadiziwin: the Art of Living in a Good Way
Guided tour of Robert Houle’s multi-media installation “Paris/Ojibwa

Friday June 17, 9:30am-2pm
Art Gallery of Peterborough

We will enjoy a guided tour provided by CRRC of Robert Houle’s multi-media installation “Paris/Ojibwa”. In this exciting work, the artist re-imagines a grand 1845 Parisian room in which two different cultures, Ojibwa and Parisian, make contact....what could happen?


Please join us at the Community Procession on Saturday, June 18 at 10:00am!


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Many thanks to our generous co-sponsors: Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG), Kawartha World Issues Centre (KWIC), the Centre for Gender and Social Justice (CGSJ), Department of Indigenous Studies – Trent University, Trent Central Student Association

For more information on National Aboriginal History Month programming, please visitwww.racerelationspeterborough.org/

For more information about Ode’min Giizis, please visit okw-arts.ca/festival/

Trent Queer Collective (TQC) open letter on Queerlines

Hello all,

We'd like to know what you thought about Queerlines.

As you may have seen there were a few letters in the Arthur this week speaking against some of the content, and some people have taken to chalking and postering campus about it as well. Some controversy is not unexpected (it happens every year), and the anonymity of is is understandable to avoid attacks, but that breaks down the opportunity for dialogue. �We (the TQC hub) would like to foster some dialogue, however, so that we can address what people liked or didn't, and perhaps make some changes for next year.

So, how did you feel about Queerlines this year? �Did you love it? �Did you hate it? �Did you even read it? �Do you feel at all unsafe because of the backlash? �Queerlines is meant to be representative of our queer student body, but of course being a submission-based supplement it will never really be able to represent everyone (unless everyone submits, but I don't think we'd have the budget to print that tome); do you feel Queerlines does a good job of representing a piece of the community? �If you didn't feel represented, did something stop you from submitting something yourself? �Do you have any thoughts on how we can work to represent a broader range of the community?

If you have an opinion, either critical or commending, we'd love to hear it. �Rest assured all responses will be kept anonymous unless permission to identify you in any capacity is explicitly given.

Sincerely,
The TQC Hub

NOURISH PETERBOROUGH

You're invited to:

YWCA Peterborough, Victoria and Haliburton presents

Nourish Peterborough:

A celebration of community, food security, and social justice 

at the newly renovated 

Market Hall of Performing Arts (336 George Street North)

Wednesday April 13th, 2011

starting at 6:00 pm, and ending at 9:00 pm 

Come out for an evening of local food, music, theater and documentary film! Dinner provided by Food Not Bombs and Come Cook with Us. Enjoy a community meal to the sounds of Newmarket based traditional folk musician Roseanne Speckert, and Toronto based folk/indie artist Abigail Lapell. Local legend Gillian Turnham presents her all new theatrical performance exploring the themes of frontier, seeds, development and fertile spaces. The evening will conclude with a presentation of the much anticipated Nourish Peterborough, a documentary film that follows ten unique community groups from Peterborough who are advocating for food security and sovereignty. These are programs that have a substantial influence on many people’s lives, though many of them go overlooked and/or underfunded. Nourish Peterborough provides a platform for these organizations, giving members, participants, volunteers and staff, a louder voice in our community. This is community member Emily Blondin-Doan’s first film.

Check out the blog at 

www.nourishpeterborough.ca

for more information

this is a FREE non-profit event, donations accepted

Funding for this event has been generously provided by the YWCA of Peterborough, Victoria and Haliburton; the Market Hall Innovation Fund; the Centre for Gender and Social Justice. Thank you!

RESIST Featured in The Arthur

RESIST!

Karolyn Givogue

On March 21, 1960, approximately 300 Black Africans gathered peacefully, chanting “Izwe

Lethu” (our land) and “Afrika,” in a rally against the pass laws and the apartheid regime of South

Africa. Robert Subukwe, leader of the Pan African Congress (PAC) – a Black African liberation

movement -- informed the commissioner of police that PAC was embarking on a non-violent

campaign. When protestors approached the police station, officers opened fire on the crowd of

demonstrators. At least 180 Black Africans were injured and 69 were killed in the township of

Sharpeville. Despite investigations, none of the police involved in the killings were convicted.

The Sharpeville Massacre, as this struggle and the brutal response of police is known,

prompted international condemnation of the apartheid system in South Africa. It also led to the

proclamation of the March 21 International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Oftentimes, on this commemorative day, we are reminded that every person has the right to be

free from racial discrimination and harassment and that these rights are enshrined under human

rights legislation in Canada.

In honour of IDERD this year, the Community and Race Relations Committee of Peterborough

(CRRC) took up the complexities of human rights legislation by hosting a public talk at the

Benedict Gathering Space in the First People’s house of Learning entitled Beyond “Rights

Talk” and Inclusion Campaigns: Grounding equality struggles in Indigenous peoples liberation

movements. The talk was given by Trent Alumni Paula Madden, author of African Nova Scotian-

Mi’kmaw Relations – the first book written on African/Indigenous relations in Canada. Paula

shared words about her current research on Rights Legislation in Canada and the United States

from 1945-1985.

While I can’t recreate Paula’s sophisticated argument here, I can say that I get the gist of it:

human rights talk ultimately works to pacify social unrest and to divert political energies

into controlled arenas where the outcomes are inconsistent and difficult to enforce. Human

rights have been used as a means to dispirit people from taking up direct action organizing, by

presenting itself as the rightful and infallible avenue for seeking justice. This pathway also leads

people to rely on those in power to define, uphold and enforce human rights.

An excellent example of how some of this work was shared by a participant in the circle

at the talk: The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) of Ontario, Canada. The SIU emerged in

response to the pervasive lack of public confidence in the policing system and the integrity of

a process where police officers investigated other police officers when citizens are injured or

killed. The public outcry escalated in 1988 when two Black men were shot and killed, one in

August and one in December, by Toronto and Peel Region police forces. In response to mass

mobilizations in protest of discrimination and lack of accountability the SIU was formed. The

SIU is responsible for investigating injuries, deaths and sexual assaults experienced by citizens

at the hands of police. The ineffectiveness of the SIU is widely known, with reports hitting

mainstream media detailing bias, complacency and lack of due process. And rather than taking to

the streets, people continue to rely on a system of reporting and investigation that is inadequate,

with no opportunity for appeal or recourse.

So what does it mean to address injustices through state sanctioned avenues where those with

power continue to call the shots, and through the very institutions that systemically oppress

marginalized groups? Ultimately, human rights are enshrined by the state because they protect

the state, contribute to the pretence of benevolence, and close down pathways towards mass

mobilizations and struggles for decolonization. And what does that mean when oppressed groups

themselves are struggling for equity? Paula made no pretence of having solutions, but the first

step is one of grounding struggles in Indigenous liberation movements.

So Paula’s work begs the question, are you engaging in struggles for social justice that are really

about upward mobility? On who’s back? The Civil Rights movement was one where people

of colour, particularly African Americans, sought civic recognition and rights – including land

rights. This struggle engaged the state, thereby reproducing the legitimacy of the state’s terms

of engagement. The movement then became complicit and engrained in settlerhood because,

rather than seeking out negotiations and building solidarity with Indigenous communities, the

supremacy of the colonial state was maintained. When one fights for rights and protections that

serve and bolster the colonial state, then you become complicit as a settler.

So, if IDERD is a reminder to everyone to make active efforts to challenge and eliminate all

forms of racial discrimination in our daily lives and in our communities, then we must take

responsibility to think critically about human rights and the ways in which they are mobilized

while focusing our energies on grounding our struggles in decolonization movements in

solidarity with Indigenous peoples.

Israeli Apartheid Week 2011

Peterborough Coalition for Palestinian Solidarity Presents:

Israeli Apartheid Week 2011

Monday, March 21^st

One session, two speakers:

Why is there no peace in Palestine? Feyzi Baban

Olive Oil Activism in Palestine and Beyond. Anne Meneley

LEC Pit 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Israeli Apartheid Wall & Checkpoints 

Trent Faryon Bridge 4:30 pm

Tuesday, March 22^nd

Film Screening -- Leila Khaled: Hijacker

GCS 115 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Wednesday, March 23^rd

A Passage of a Jewish Boat to Gaza: Two Peoples-One Future. If Not Now, When?

Presenters: Glyn Secker and Lillian Rosengaarten

LEC Pit 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Thursday, March 24^th

One session, two speakers:

Egypt’s Revolution and the Middle East. Gavin Fridell

An Introduction to the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Campaign. Suha Jarrar

2:30 pm – 4:30 pm CCN M2

Friday, March 25^th

No Fiddler on the Roof: Queer, Feminist, Jewish Arts and Activism of Palestinian Solidarity 

Presenters: Zach Ruiter

5:00 pm – 7:00 pm location TBA

Saturday, March 26^th

Cultural Night

The Recipe & Poetry

10:00 pm at Sapphire Room --137 Hunter St West.

Full schedule and more information will be available soon at

www.peterboroughcps.blogspot.com

www.peterborough.apartheidweek.org

If you have any questions or would like to make a DONATION to PCPS or IAW, please contact peterboroughcps@gmail.com