Speech at Palestine Rally in Downtown St. Catharines, City Hall

I am Saleh Waziruddin, organizer of the Eric Blair club of the Communist Party here in Niagara, on the traditional territories of the Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples, under the Dish with One Spoon wampum agreement.

Let's not forget where these latest round of massive annexations in the West Bank, against international law, are coming from: they were announced together with Trump's “Deal of the Century.” This was a deal which offered Palestinians a non-viable state sometime in the future if they gave up all signs of resistance, in exchange for immediate legitimacy for all the violations of Israel.

Just like other Donald Trump deals this was never a “deal” but a mugging, a stick up job, saying give me everything for nothing not even your life.

The “deal” was so extreme hardly anyone supported it. Marzouq al-Ghanim, the speaker of Kuwait's parliament, said the so-called “Deal of the Century” belongs in the garbage bin of history, it is the garbage of the century.

So why are they pressing with it now? Why now did they offer a rotten deal?

I remember 20 years ago when Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions was first being talked about I thought it was only a dream and would never work. But it has put Zionism on the run. There are so many BDS campaigns that have had success, so many people all around the world are dedicating their lives to Palestine and even being martyred side by side with Palestinians.

Let's not forgot that BDS was part of what worked in South Africa and made the apartheid rulers realize they could not continue.

Let's also not forget that in the 1940s South Africans came here to Canada to study how Indigenous people were oppressed and used that as the basis of their system. Except that apartheid is over in South Africa but the apartheid it was based on here still continues against the Indigenous.

And it still continues in Palestine. But no matter how strong and unstoppable they might seem, the Israelis themselves know their days are numbered which is why they put so many resources into fighting the BDS campaign, trying to make it illegal to even talk about it here in Canada.

This is why we must get involved in Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, from the campuses to the grocery stores. Go to bdsmovement.net and show that Israel can never annex justice and truth from those who are still fighting for their rights.

Just like Algeria is no longer French and South Africa is no longer minority rule, from the river to the sea, ALL of Palestine will be free.

Speech at Demonstration In Support of Black Lives Matter as Chair of the City of St. Catharines Anti-Racism Advisory Committee

 I am Saleh Waziruddin, chair of the City of St. Catharines Anti-Racism Advisory Committee, on traditional Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee territory under the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Agreement.

The city government has a role in being part of the solution against racism, it's not just going to stand at the sidelines.

We are proud of our association with Harriet Tubman but we should remember that she was never afraid to be a pioneer in fighting against what was wrong around her. We in St. Catharines should never feel that we are too small or too immune from racism to be among the first to push for big solutions.

One of the steps in our anti-racism committee workplan is to advise the

City on employment equity, breaking down the barriers that keep racialized and other marginalized people out of the good jobs around us. The City adopting employment equity policies can lead the way for the private sector to follow.

We are also seeing how the City can fill in the gaps in federal and provincial anti-hate crime and anti-hate speech laws with bylaws at the municipal level. No level of government is too small to deal with racism.

We're also going to advise the city on how to setup a reporting mechanism for racist incidents so we can keep track of them and respond to them with a basic standard.

So we should keep on marching, and in between marching keep on demanding real changes that will make a difference in our lives!

Build the resistance, break the chain (People's Voice interview)

(was at http://peoplesvoice.ca/2020/06/11/build-the-resistance-break-the-chain/ moved to https://pvonline.ca/2020/06/11/build-the-resistance-break-the-chain/)

Build the resistance, break the chain

 PV  June 11, 2020 in Canada Tagged Black Lives Matter, Labour-community solidarity, Police, Racism - 5 Minutes

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The massive uprising in response to the racist police murder of George Floyd has sparked huge protests across Canada. To look at what this means for building the movement against racism and police brutality, People’s Voice editor Dave McKee spoke with long-time anti-racist activist Saleh Waziruddin. Saleh is a member of the Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association, and chair of the recently established City of St. Catharines Anti-Racism Advisory Committee.

PV: What is the impact on racialized communities here, of George Floyd’s murder and other acts of racist police violence? What about the impact of the uprising that we currently see?

SW: Contrary to self-serving assurances we hear that policing is different in Canada than the US, every incident of police violence in either country (and Canada is not lagging) puts a chill of fear into racialized communities who know this could quickly happen to us at any time. The uprisings and demonstrations strengthen our communities as they give us a voice and political power for change.

We are seeing a lot of politicians and people in media state that racism is not just a problem in the US, and that it exists in Canada as well. While this is good, there seems to also be an avoidance (by politicians and mainstream media) of the issue of racist police brutality in Canada. Are you seeing that?

Many politicians and police officials (chiefs, board members) are taking a public stand against racism only as a public relations maneuver to disavow any connection to the racist brutality in the US. They don’t want to be held accountable for racist abuse and misconduct in their own organizations and would prefer to pretend racism in Canada is something only for the history books.

Protests are happening in communities across Canada, and there have been some really impressive turnouts, including in smaller cities – we heard reports that 3000 people rallied in Antigonish and a similar number in Thunder Bay. I’m wondering if you can you comment on the nature (political, organizational) of those protests?

Many are being organized by first-time activists who bring a lot of creativity and imagination – which has helped make many of the events successful in terms of mass participation – but don’t necessarily have the political experience or background to always distinguish allies from obstacles. At the same time many white people who now want to take action in any kind of way are looking to simply demonstrate without having to do the other work to take away power from white supremacy. This makes it easier for the police and politicians to ingratiate and position themselves to get cover for not doing anything. But there will soon be opportunities to make these distinctions clear.

Some on the political left have described the uprising in the US as the beginning of a revolutionary situation. In response, some Black activists have warned that this is opportunist and narrow thinking that actually endangers Black people, and they have tried to clarify that the uprising is about some immediate changes that are badly needed. Does the current situation offer some insight into the role of allies in a community’s struggle for immediate reforms, and how we connect that to the struggle for longer-term change?

Those who thought that contemporary capitalism is too well-organized and too robust to face any kind of disintegration should take a clue from what we’re seeing. Marx’s writing about the instability of capitalism still applies, and this has led to sights many of us did not think we would see so soon. These include a police precinct being abandoned to protesters and city councillors pledging to disband their police force. The economic crisis is a necessary ingredient for why the current movement has so much power.

Although the movement and demands which have momentum now can make a real difference in power between white supremacy and racialized communities, and are necessary, the underlying power in society comes from the ownership of wealth. When there begin to be forays into challenging the power of private property, that can be a real basis of fundamental change where wealth is used for the common interest: socialism and then communism.

Some on the left are counterposing big structural changes such as defunding the police against smaller but easier reforms such as body cameras. But there is no reason we can’t have both, and it would be a mistake to forsake small gains in the name of bigger ones. Every gain is the future wresting power, in degrees, from the present until it overwhelms it and builds the new on top of what was. This is how Hegel put it. The most important reforms may be the ones which can give a knock-out blow, but until that is assured even small reforms can make real progress easier.

This situation has amplified demands for stricter civilian control and oversight of police. In concrete terms, what would that look like/involve?

There are already at least three types of civilian oversight in Ontario: police boards (with elected officials and appointees), the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, and the Ontario Civilian Police Commission which deals with higher-level administrative issues. None of these really have the “teeth” of discipline and enforcement powers in local cases. Even the Ontario police chiefs are looking for permission to suspend officers without pay. What’s missing is a purely civilian local body, with representation from equity-seeking communities, that has the power to discipline officers and refer prosecutions when police management fails to do so.

Similarly, there have been increased calls for defunding the police, or transferring significant portions of police budgets toward other, socially useful, programs. What do think will be necessary to achieve this kind of shift in political priorities, especially in Ontario where the premier has recently denied that any systemic racism exists?

Defunding the police, even in phases, has quickly become a mainstream idea with masses of people contacting their local governments to do this. The availability of money for different purposes is ultimately decided provincially and federally, so these demands will need to be shifted to higher levels of politics to break through funding restraints. For example, when cannabis was legalized the provincial government gave additional money to police for cannabis-related policing; this money can only be displaced so far, before the province and federal government say we are going to fund mental health care adequately instead.

How prevalent is racism in the Niagara region? (Niagara This Week)

Interview with Niagara This Week on behalf of the Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association on racism in the Niagara Region https://www.niagarathisweek.com/community-story/10015804-how-prevalent-is-racism-in-the-niagara-region-/

COMMUNITY

How prevalent is racism in the Niagara region?

While current protests are against anti-Black racism in America, it exists in Niagara as well

Satbir Singh

Niagara This Week - St. Catharines

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Anti-Black racism protests that continue in the United States following the recent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery – but also including those before them and those who may come after them – have begun to spread across Canada, including here in Niagara.

The protests happening across the region can be identified as locals wanting to stand up and stand with those impacted down south, but in reality, it has to recognize the systemic racism issues right here in Niagara as well. From policing, education, housing, hiring discrimination and more.

“Niagara has an issue with racism in the sense that a lot of folks in the region think they’re not racist and think that there’s no history here,” said Kattawe Henry, human rights and anti-racism advisor at Brock University.

“That fails to acknowledge the history that St. Catharines, specifically, and Niagara Region more broadly, have had with the Black community. It ignores the ways in which Niagara occupies Indigenous land.”

Henry said it starts with the comments and jokes that some people think they can laugh off, but “it really speaks to a deeper issue (as to how) racialized folks are seen in greater Western society and disenfranchised.”

Saleh Waziruddin, with the Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association, said people need to recognize that what’s happening in the U.S. could happen here.

“We’ve seen already in other parts of Ontario that there is deep systemic racism,” he said. “We know there’s a long history of racism right here in Canada, including anti-Black racism specifically.”

In the present day, Henry said, people are racialized through areas such as less job opportunities, the educational system and the way Black and Indigenous history is taught in the classroom – if there is Black history being taught, it usually comes in February, which is the coldest and shortest month of the year.

While some say kids are too young to learn about racism, Henry said “if you’re young enough to experience racism, you’re old enough to learn about it.”

When discussing less job opportunities, Henry referred to an experiment conducted with a white friend in which they both applied to the same job at the same time, and the friend received the job without an interview minutes after applying and Henry never got a call back, despite Henry having work experience and the friend having never held a job. That could be attributed to the look and spelling of their names, Henry said.

While the verbal jokes are easily identified as racist, there are also the nonverbal cues that racialized people notice but white people don’t.

“It’s clutching your purse when you go into an elevator, it’s following someone around in the store, it’s dismissing people's history, it’s implying that their culture is subpar,” Henry said, adding that body language, tone of voice and looks are examples of microaggressions, which articulate a narrative a person of colour will pick up on but a white person might not.

“I always say that the microaggressions of racism are the things that allow racism to have a heartbeat for another day,” Henry said.

Henry said being passed up for a job because of your name, teachers treating persons of colour differently and those non-verbal cues are examples of microagression.

At the policing level, Waziruddin said, there’s a lack of information that exists from carding and police checks to reported hate crimes.

Currently, through the Niagara Regional Police Service (NRPS) website, you can get redirected to cityprotect.com, which shows a map of NRPS-submitted incidents, including each crime as well as the date and type of crime. The map shows violent crimes, such as assaults and sexual offenses, property and theft, disorder and disturbance incidents and more, but not hate crimes or crimes motivated by hate.

“The NRPS should also designate hate crimes in its submission so we know when and where they took place, which protected group was attacked, and what the crime was,” Waziruddin said. “All we know is there were 17 hate crimes last year, but not where, when, who and what.”

He added that the St. Catharines Anti-Racism Advisory Committee has been working toward setting up reporting and monitoring channels to help better understand the extent of hate crimes. The work plan can be seen on page 32 of the city's Social Sustainability Committee meeting from Jan. 16.

While racism is prevalent in today's society and more data is needed to understand crime that exists, it’s also important to acknowledge the deep-rooted history of racism, said Henry.

“I think people like to deny colonial history because they don’t want to think out loud about the fact that this country’s very foundation is based on genocide and forced assimilation,” Henry said. “That would mean they have to acknowledge that there is systemic racism here and that we are not better than the United States.”

While there are a lot of layers that need to be fixed around the issue of racism that exists around the world and in Niagara, getting to the root of some problems could be a start.

Henry suggested that mental health resources in schools and in the community need to recognize racism in their programming, specifically including programs for people of colour by people of colour, but also that the curriculum collectively rectifies that it is foundationally racist.

Waziruddin added that the economic aspect needs fixing, as a recent study showed Black households are more than 3.5 times likely to be food insecure than white households, and twice more likely when adjusting for income, home ownership, education and immigration status.

Henry added that hiring practices must improve as well.

As a society, it’s acknowledging that racism exists right in your own home and that there is a need to call your friends and family out for racist behaviour.

“When you keep your mouth shut and don’t acknowledge it, and you turn your face away from issues of racism, you're condoning that behaviour, you're acting as a bystander and saying, 'I’m going to allow this to continue,'” Henry said. “What good is that, if someone else is being harmed in the process?”

Henry added that conversations about racism may not be comfortable for some, but nothing worth doing is.

If people want to learn more and be provided resources on anti-racism, Henry can be contacted at khenry@brocku.ca.

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STORY BEHIND THE STORY

As Niagara communities begin to host their own anti-Black racism protests, following the events occurring in the U.S., reporter Satbir Singh looked into what racism in the region may look like.

Satbir Singh is a reporter and photographer covering the communities of north Niagara for Niagara This Week.

'Painful' response to U.S. protests inspires Niagara action (St. Catharines Standard)

(https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/news/niagara-region/2020/06/03/painful-response-to-u-s-protests-inspires-niagara-action.html)

'Painful' response to U.S. protests inspires Niagara action

By Allan BennerStandard Reporter
The St. Catharines Standard

Wed., June 3, 2020timer3 min. read

updateArticle was updated Jun. 16, 2020

Saleh Waziruddin has been paying close attention to the mayhem south of the border.

"Every hour it seems like there's a new development. It's not easy to get a handle on it," he said.

"A lot of people have had enough. There has been incident after incident without much being done and a lot of people are very eager to show that they don't agree with the brutality that is going on and they want to find ways to take a stand that they're against it."

Although protests on the U.S. side of the border have led to violent confrontations with armoured police officers firing rubber bullets and tear gas into crowds, while the federal government is threatening to bring in the U.S. military, Canada is by no means immune to the racism that has sparked the unrest.

Waziruddin, whose parents emigrated from Pakistan and India, has personally experienced racism in Niagara too many times.

He said he spent more than a decade living in the U.S. prior to moving to St. Catharines about 13 years ago.

"It seems to me that racism is equally prevalent in the U.S. and Canada," he said. "In some ways, it's worse in Canada from my experience. Even thought it may be less aggressive than in the U.S., it's definitely as widely prevalent and people may be more oblivious to it here than in the U.S."

But Waziruddin, chair of the Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association, said he has also been encouraged by the outpouring of support in local communities in response to the issues.

"We've been getting a lot of messages from people who are organizing, on their own," he said.

One event is planned for Niagara-on-the-Lake at noon Friday.

Participants — they are asked to wear masks and observe physical distancing — are to meet at Voices of Freedom Park and participate in a co-ordinated walk around the Old Town in a show of solidarity against racism.

Yvonne Bredow, one of several speakers who will be participating in that event, called the response to the U.S. protests "painful to watch."

She described herself watching the footage "with my mouth open, thinking what have we come to?"

Bredow said she was honoured to be asked to take part in the rally.

"I'm going to do what I feel is right," she said.

After growing up in Toronto, Bredow, who is half-Black, said she was surprised by the level of racism she has experienced since moving to NOTL.

"I've never gone through this before in my life and I never thought it would exist the way it does here," she said.

Bredow said "everybody should be treated equally."

"People need to learn how to be empathetic. They need to be able to put themselves in other people's shoes, because not everybody has the privilege if being raised the way they did. You should not be judged by your hair, your hair texture, the colour of your skin, your nose, your lips, anything like that.

"We're all equal. We all contribute to this world.

"You should not be killed, hurt, shot, discriminated against or followed around in stores or anything like that, just because of the colour of your skin."

Another rally is planned for noon Saturday in Niagara Falls. Participants will meet on Victoria Avenue near the entrance to Highway 420, followed by a march to the Whirpool Bridge at 2 p.m.

"There will be people on either side of the border as well," Waziruddin said.

Allan.Benner@niagaradailies.com

905-225-1629 | @abenner1

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Interview with Matt Holmes of CKTB 610AM on Anti-Racism Protests in Canada and the US

 Clip of the radio interview https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/4809bc8a-e41a-405c-93da-a8cf011df2f4/a9d6d364-a8cb-44f1-b837-aa14010af355/7f0579fd-a5a8-4556-8eef-abcd00ee2470/audio.mp3