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International Conference in Toronto Calls on South Asians to Unite to Oppose War in South Asia

     Honorable Jack Lyton NDP leader and a member

      of Canadian Parliament adresssing Faiz Mela

A four-day long international gathering of academics, activists and concerned individuals from India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, as well as from Canada, the UK and the US, concluded on April 26^th at the University of Toronto after resolving to whole-heartedly work to eliminate the threat of war in South Asia. The movement to stop the war and military intervention in South Asia also echoed through the Second Annual Faiz Peace Festival and the First International Festival of Poetry of Resistance which were being held concurrently in Toronto during these days, attended by hundreds of participants.  

The conference to “Build the Unity of the People to Secure South Asia for the Peoples of South Asia” was jointly organized by the South Asian Peoples’ Forum, the Ghadar Heritage Organization and the Association of Indian Progressive Study Groups to discuss and develop an action plan against the escalating war and foreign military intervention in South Asia, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan. On behalf of the Organizing Committee, Sara Abraham opened the conference and presented the keynote paper on Aril 23^rd evening in a festive social-political event, inviting the participants to openly voice their analysis of events and expound their views on solutions to the problems plaguing the peoples of South Asia. The opening session also included welcome remarks by representatives of the sponsoring organizations as well as remarks by Douglas Sanderson, Professor of Law at the University of Toronto, Prof. Sherene Razack of the Ontario Institute of Secondary Education, and Mr. Abid Hassan Minto, Senior Advocate of Pakistan’s Supreme Court and President of the National Workers’ Party, Pakistan.

The sessions of the conference were organized as panel discussions. A total of five panel discussions were organized to explore the themes of the military crisis in Sri Lanka, the sources of war in South Asia, violence and terrorism in South Asia, left politics and people’s unity in South Asia and the resistance struggles of the people against neoliberal economic reforms. K. Ahilan, Syed Azeem, Hamid Bashani, Shonali Bose, Horace Campbell, K. Chattopadhyay, Vivek Chibber, P. Dhakal, G. Hashmi, Hassan, Rohini Hensman, S. Kanavi, Soma Marik, Naeem Malik, B. Pain, Rajan Philips, Ahmad Salim, Gurdev Singh, Ijaz Syed, Amrit Wilson and Sima Zerehi served as panelists in these sessions. Amongst these panelists were professors, journalists, lawyers, communists, workers, students, film makers, activists and community organizers who came from far and near - from Calcutta, Mumbai, Islamabad, Delhi, Birmingham, London, Los Angeles, New York, Syracuse, San Francisco, Toronto and Ottawa. Different opinions and views were presented and debated for hours as the panelists and the participants labored to hear and be heard on the key problems of the peoples and the different visions for taking the struggles forward to victory. The feature film Amu was screened during the conference.

 The conference concluded after adopting the following resolutions:

      i.        The Conference condemns all foreign intervention in the region and demands the immediate withdrawal of US, NATO, ISAF and other foreign troops from the region;

     ii.        The Conference opposes militarization and war preparations by our individual governments, and stands against nuclearization;

    iii.        The Conference condemns all acts of state terror and repression against our peoples and against all social and political movements under any pretext such as the war on terror, democracy, development, secularism, national unity and territorial integrity and others;

    iv.        The Conference condemns political violence and acts of terror by non-state actors against civilians in the name of religion, ethnicity and nationalism;

     v.        The Conference holds that neo-liberal offensives have weakened the security of all ordinary people of South Asia and other parts of the world, and supports all struggles in defence of livelihood, economic rights, well-being and social security; and

    vi.        The Conference resolves to disseminate the proceedings of the conference and to organize similar conferences in future.

The Key to Ending War and War Preparations in South Asia is for the People of the Region to Unite and to Become Decision-Makers

Remarks by the AIPSG Representative at SAPF Conference,

April 23, 2009 Toronto

It is my honour and privilege to welcome all the guests, speakers and participants in this historic international conference to build people’s unity to stop war and war preparations in South Asia.
The threat of war in South Asia is higher than ever today and the international balance of forces is such that any war in South Asia will inevitably acquire global dimensions.

South Asia is home to two nuclear armed states. The region is located where the spheres of influence of other nuclear powers collide. The old arrangements between China, the US, the former Soviet Union, the European powers and the countries of South Asia are ripe for realignment.

War occurs when other peaceful means to re-divide the zones of influence fails. AIPSG’s view is that the peoples of South Asia cannot look up to their governments to avert war because many of these governments themselves are factors for war. Unless the people of the region become the decision-makers to determine the destinies of their countries and nations, the powers-that-be will not hesitate to go to war to carve out their spheres of influence.

The AIPSG considers the issue of people becoming decision-makers in their own countries and nations as the most important ingredient for shaping the 21st century to a century of progress rather than a century of wars. Within the current economic-political conditions, people do not make decisions – big business houses make decisions through the governments in the name of the people, if at all.

The Westminster style or any other style multiparty election is the main mechanism that reduces people from being decision-makers to being a tool to legitimize the decision-making by the big business houses. For example, the government that will arise out of the general elections going on in India right now will not make the people decision-makers. The new government will pursue the aims of the Indian business houses to compete globally and make India a global power with its sphere of influence, even by going to war.

Nevertheless, it will claim legitimacy to those decisions in the name of the people. In the opinion of the AIPSG, a thorough overhaul of the multi-party political process can weaken the stranglehold of the monopolies and big business houses on political power and enable people to control decision-making so that their country will not participate in a war of aggression.

The AIPSG’s current fronts of work are on the renewal of the political process in India and the defence of rights. The work on political renewal involves broad study and exposure of the origins and foundations of the Indian state structure that was established by the colonial powers by force. AIPSG is currently elaborating on a new electoral process with candidate selection and election by the people to limit the scope of political parties to field partisan candidates and form partisan government on behalf of their big financial backers.

The AIPSG is carrying out activities in support of the struggles for rights - against state repression, torture and preventive detention, communal violence etc. in India and in defence of the rights of South Asian minorities abroad. AIPSG has argued that rights belong to one by virtue of one’s being. Everyone has right to conscience by virtue of being human and also has other rights by virtue of being part of collectives - as workers, as women, as minorities, as youth, as nations and tribes, as farmers and so on.

Everyone belongs to society and thus has the right to participate in decision-making. The affirmation of individual, collective and societal rights under modern conditions are necessary for social advance to occur in the 21st century. The AIPSG considers that building the unity of the people irrespective of their ideological differences is the tool to carry out the democratic renewal of the political process in each country so that people’s rights can be affirmed and harmonized.

The current rulers use ideological differences to divide the people politically, thus controlling political power and depriving people many of their rights. The AIPSG’s experience suggests that struggle for rights, opposition to state terrorism and repression, defense of minority rights, struggle against war, etc. unites people irrespective of their ideologies and outlook. We are confident this conference will prove once more how opposition to war unites the peoples of the countries of South Asia and all the peoples of the world.

I want to welcome all of you to this conference. We encourage all the speakers and participants to elaborate the issue under discussion from their unique perspective. The organizing committee is here to help you to make your contribution to this movement and wish success in your work. Thank you.

www.geocities.com

 Oppose War and War Preparations in South Asia!

Joint statement by the South Asian People’s Forum, Ghadar Heritage Organization and the Association of Indian Progressive Study Groups (AIPSG)

The question in the first decade of the 21^st century has emerged as how to avert the war that the big powers are preparing in South Asia. The new U.S. administration has articulated a militarist agenda for South Asia. Under the pretext of hunting for terrorists, the Americans plan to mobilize NATO and other allies to deepen their occupation of Afghanistan and enter Pakistan. It is up to the people of the world and the people of South Asia in particular to stop such intervention and bring an end to the current occupation. The times require the building of a movement against war and war-aims to also ensure that war does not become the means for the big powers to emerge out of the current economic, political and military crises engulfing the world.

 An occupation army in Afghanistan is already killing innocent people; and Pakistan’s territory is being bombed everyday by the US. The secret agencies of the US and allied countries are roaming through South Asia under the pretext of capturing terrorists. Their fore-most aim in these countries is to secure a strategic advantage and lay hands on the resources and markets. War will provide them with the best opportunity to accomplish those aims. People in all the countries of South Asia are already waging resistance struggles against the neoliberal offensive and  violation of rights  and they can avert the march to war through their united opposition.

 India and other countries of South Asia have been building their military machines and linking their military with the U.S. and other big powers for some time. Occupation and aggression from abroad can become the occasion for war amongst the countries of South Asia to settle old scores and pursue their own ambitions. We have a duty to support the people’s struggles being waged in the countries of South Asia through our struggles for the same aims, irrespective of where we live.

 South Asian Peoples Unity Conference 2009 – Toronto

Conference Objectives

South Asian Peoples Unity Conference: Unity against the Neoliberal World View (April 23 - 26 2009)

We live in a world whose powerful players promote the doctrine of neoliberalism through the institutions of the IMF, World Bank and the WTO. They offer us a morally empty vision filled with hunger, poverty, environmental destruction, fundamentalism and ethnic division, militarism, and unequal economic development. But there is also a world in the minds and hearts of peoples all over the world which emerges in every struggle to challenge corporate globalism, the neoliberal doctrine, and the war mentality. To strengthen this we need the unity of working people across national borders which now serve to only weaken us in our separation through mutual ignorance, suspicion, and competition. How can we, South Asian people, collectively join to develop and promote an alternate world view within our region? The conference we propose for October 2008, in conjunction with the annual Ghadri Mela of the Greater Toronto Area, will bring together longstanding participants of this struggle to address this question, in part through the lens of the diaspora (those who no longer reside in South Asia) and in part through the necessities of the struggles in South Asia. Here we recognize that the peoples of South Asia include a large number of progressive and Left-leaning people in the diaspora (community-based + university-based as well as activist) who left our countries for political and economic reasons but are deeply concerned with the effects of neo-liberal agenda imposed forcibly on the masses.

The participation in this conference of Left activists, party leaders, and intellectuals of social movements fighting on the front lines against the dominant neoliberal and military agenda will strengthen us in the diaspora to unite and in turn support the struggles in South Asia. The impact that we expect will encourage isolated progressive people to join our movement, create space for further growth of South Asian Left ideas in the diaspora amongst multiple generations, and will strengthen our ability to counteract the existing religious and right wing networks that dominate. Delegates from the US, UK or Europe will add to the consolidation of a space for discussion of diasporic issues as well as those of South Asian struggles.

Hence, this conference will generate a multifaceted dialogue through

1. Providing the space to talk and share across national borders, ideological lines, organizations, and issue-lines on ongoing strategies and struggles to challenge the entrenchment of a neoliberal and imperial military project in South Asia

2. Providing a vigorous and politically realistic, Marxist, anti-imperialist and feminist intellectual and political space to think through the relevant issues

3. Providing a space to link activists in the diaspora with struggles in South Asia

4. Developing a sharpened understanding of the need to lower borders, and gaining clarity for a regional level framework to resolve particular issues. This in turn will allow us to think about long term strategies towards removing borders and uniting the people of South Asia. (www.sapfonline.org)

                                       Second International Faiz Peace Festival

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
25 February, 2009

TORONTO (ON) The second International Faiz Ahmed Faiz Peace Festival will take place in Toronto on April 26, 2009.Writers, poets and activists from the Greater Toronto Area and from around the world will gather to oppose the culture of war and violence and to promote in their stead, peace, democracy, and social justice. The gathering will include participants attending the concurrent First International Festival of Poetry of Resistance, Toronto, and the South Asian Peoples Unity Conference, Toronto. The Festival is being sponsored by the South Asian Peoples Forum.

The Festival programme includes poetry and paper readings, presentations, dance, and music. International and local personages expected to attend include Muneeza Hashmi, daughter of Faiz Ahmed Faiz from Pakistan, Nancy Morejon, Poet Laureate of Cuba, Allison Hedge Coke, the Reynolds Chair at the University of Nebraska, USA, Gary Geddes, Lieutenant-Governor Award winner in B.C., Canada, Marilyn Lerch, President of the New Brunswick Writers’ Federation, Canada, Jorge Etcheverry, Ambassador in Canada of Poetas del Mundo. Published poets from France, Brazil, and other countries will also attend. The South Asian writers and activists expected to attend include Hamid Akhtar, Muno Bhai, and Abid Hussain Minto from Pakistan and Soma Marik from India. Rekha Suria from India will be the lead singer along with local Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Indian artistes. Community and youth groups will participate through audio visual presentations and cultural performances.

The Festival will take place at the Port Credit Secondary School Auditorium, in Mississauga, from 6 pm. Around 600 people are expected to attend

aipsg.blogspot.com/2009/03/second-international-faiz-peace