Today, as systematic human rights violations continue to be committed by the Israeli government against the Palestinian people, we are appealing to you on behalf of the Montreal-based collective Tadamon! and Art Threat concerning your planned visit to Tel Aviv.
We have learned that you have been offered the Dan David Prize from the Tel Aviv University for your outstanding literary work. First, we want to openly recognize your work, renowned not only for literary excellence but also for the humanistic message it portrays. Beyond literature your sincere advocacy for social justice, from the struggle for women’s liberation to environmental protection, has made you an international role model who people respect and admire.
This is particularly true in Canada, where you hold a special place in the hearts of people in Canada. It is precisely for this reason that we appeal to you to reconsider accepting this award.
A new biography of the great 20th century journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski is causing a stir. His biographer Artur Domoslawski accuses Kapuscinski of making it up — of making some of it up, anyways. And his accusations have reignited the controversy over truth’s inviolability in the work of professional journalists.
Kapuscinski is like Canada’s Farley Mowat who some years ago was the target of a similar complaint — in fact, a rather savage attack that also accused him of making it up (Mowat’s face appeared on the cover of a widely circulated national magazine with an enlarged Pinocchio nose). And there is the recent reputational crucifixion of James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces and memoir-writer-cum-reluctant-novelist who made too much of it up for America’s apparently (and selectively, one might add) fact-hungry public, not to mention Oprah and her fans.
The idea of the ‘lie’ in journalism can still provoke a certain kind of righteous outrage. But what gets lost in the excitement is the conversation about truth itself. More specifically, outraged critics hardly ever suggest just what the unimpeachable approach to the truth might be.
Growing skepticism about journalism runs deeper than doubts about a few erroneous facts. An increasingly media savvy public has begun to suspect that the truth always arrives in the mouth of a speaker — that is, always from within language, culture, experience. The more serious problem isn’t the inviolable truth of this detail or that, but what will happen to a profession that hangs all of its hats on the peg of truth when the possibility of truth itself is up for grabs.
Margaret Atwood, Canadian novelist, activist and general rabble-rouser, has been awarded the Dan David Prize at Tel Aviv University. As an outspoken advocate on everything from censorship to poverty to women’s equality to gay rights to arts funding, many human rights activists around the world are hoping Ms. Atwood will join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign and decline the award.
John Greyson, the academic, teacher, superb political filmmaker and committed activist who recently led the campaign to boycott the Toronto Film Festival in reaction to its uncritical spotlight on Tel Aviv, has drafted and distributed the excellent letter to Ms. Atwood below.
Kolkata Dreams is a first collection of poems from Montreal writer K. Gandhar Chakravarty (8th House Publishing) and true to form offers the delight of a new poet’s way of seeing and being in the world — in this instance, the world of Kolkata, India.
What I liked most about this collection — more specifically, about the better poems in the collection — was Chakravarty’s eye for the poetic moment. Wandering the streets of Kolkata, in his finest moments, Chakravarty is able to see into original moments of real pathos and humour through the sometimes difficult tension of being an outsider. The poetic importance, for instance, of children throwing pebbles into a hole in a stone wall — a game that will never be marketed to wealthy Western kids — or the butchering of a small goat, or the way food offerings in a temple become food offerings for the millions of tiny creatures who carry it away, or the crazy and not-so-crazy street words of a leper.
Poetry plays a critical role in Palestinian history, artistic verse emerging from a region where literature has occupied a key space in cultural expression for centuries.
Rafeef Ziadah, a Palestinian poet and activist based in Toronto, recently released Hadeel, an incredible debut poetry album and important point in contemporary Palestinian cultural history. Ziadah’s current work builds on an incredible history of engaged Palestinian artistic expression that has key played a role in shaping cutting-edge culture in the Middle East throughout the past century.
The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games have come to an end. Canada won more gold medals than any country ever in the history of the Winter Games. And yesterday, Canada took gold in men’s hockey in an electrifying game against the USA. A fitting end it seems to a two-week barn-burner of patriotism and national pride.
But the celebration has its darker side, one that few Olympic enthusiasts know about, or perhaps care to know about. For starters, in 2002 Vancouver residents voted in favour of a $3 billion Olympics that have subsequently mushroomed into a $7-8 billion bacchanalia of subsidies and debt. These “unexpected” costs have put unprecedented pressure on the provincial spending. Over the next two years, provincial funding for the arts will be cut by a staggering 88% – a devastating blow to cultural groups in British Columbia. School closures throughout the Lower Mainland reflect more of the pressure that has been brought to bare on provincial budgets. Add to these the ongoing crisis in homelessness and poverty in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side and the ways that Olympic enforcement ran roughshod over Constitutional rights of expression and assembly, and you have substantive fodder for a critical conversation about the Olympic Games.
For those of us who still have holiday gifts to purchase — and let’s face it slackers, that’s most of us — here’s our last minute gift guide for your politically inclined, arts-loving friends and family. Of course, some gifts here are also well-suited for those people us pinko commie types have yet to brainwash with our liberal, freedom-hating propaganda. You never know, you may even catch Glenn Beck questioning his convictions after watching the right documentary.
Where appropriate, separate affiliate links are provided for our Canadian and American readers.
Kolkata Dreams is a first collection of poems from Montreal writer K. Gandhar Chakravarty (8th House Publishing) and true to form offers the delight of a new poet’s way of seeing and being in the world — in this instance, the world of Kolkata, India.
Poetry plays a critical role in Palestinian history, artistic verse emerging from a region where literature has occupied a key space in cultural expression for centuries.
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