When thinking outside the box just isn't enough
I am going to tell you about The Chocolate Farmer, a documentary made by director Rohan Fernando, an award-winning director and cinematographer, a Sri Lankan native and Canadian immigrant, and produced by Annette Clarke thanks to the beloved treasure, the National Film Board of Canada. It’s been circulating, sometimes jokingly, that the end of the […]
The absurdity of war, of a conflict without meaning, of barriers without meaning, of a wall. Seeing Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette’s film Inch’allah made me realize the point to which wars, conflicts, attacks, military invasions, are of no meaning to us, the people. To the people waging the wars, the army generals, the political officials, the presidents of states or of corporations manufacturing weapons, and the technology, software, networks, circuits and the fuel that support war, it is entirely lucrative. What is war? Is it between two fighting parties? Between two armies? Between two peoples? Between two governments? Two, or more? The wars we see today, are they between armies? Or is it an army on people? Or, an army versus so-called rebels or militants? It is unclear to me…
Being invited to present at Montreal’s Jewish Festival, Le Mood, is a privilege. I am a Palestinian and Lebanese woman living and raised in Montreal, and who has been part of activist and community initiatives for the last decade of my life.
Working in a field called public relations that calls for being on top of the action and being well connected to people and what they do, I still find it difficult to fully embrace social media.
Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Vietnam: there are girls who are raped by a relative, or kidnapped by a man or a woman claiming to be a helping relative or friend and then cruelly sold and enslaved to give their body night after night, day after day, to clients, as they call them.
Sitting at home for dinner with friends—a married couple in their late twenties and mid-thirties—who are visiting from America, the conversation quickly turns sour.
I wonder how and when we stopped studying for the sake of learning. Why must it be an investment? A must? A pressure?
Two police officers, a young man and a young man, wearing dark latex gloves and standing near their vehicle, are speaking with a young woman who is very thin, her blond hair is disheveled, her clothes are dirty, teeth in bad shape (several missing), and she seems intoxicated.
In a city, you see graffiti. Do you wonder where it’s from? Do you see it? Do you read it? Do you understand it? Do you see who did it? Is it pleasing to your eye? Does it make you love the city more? Do you relate to the expression on the wall, on the bridge, on the train? Graffiti ignites wars and turf disputes between the perceived and self-proclaimed owners of space and us. You want to draw on a wall, on the street, on a train, on an abandoned building, can you? Are you allowed? Who decides?
Rana Alrabi thinks that we’re far too focused on ourselves and the economy in this election campaign. She argues that we should be more compassionate in who we vote for.
I listen to the three women around me in the bustle of Lafontaine park on the first evening of August. Each, in turn, shares their upbringing, their feeling about her Jewishness, stories from grandparents who survived World War II’s holocaust, their awakening and relationship to the word Zionism and to a place (or to a state) called Israel, and their comprehension of everything they have been told as 20-something-year-olds in Montreal.
Where am I going with this? No one, in my assertive opinion, wants a job. I am 35 years old, living in North America and in touch with my social media side. I know what’s happening, who’s doing what and who’s fed up with industrialization’s stubborn vestiges. We are a generation ready for change. Forgive the cliché. It is true…
I am Palestinian, Lebanese, Abu Dhabi-born, Montreal-raised, fluent in Arabic, English, French, Spanish, and sometimes Italian, and am a public relations activist who spurs initiatives from neighbourhood clean-ups to dialogue dates between Palestinian and Jewish Montrealers. In my constant search for excitement, I learn of Forget The Box’s call for writers! Intrigued, I invite founders Jason C. McLean and Chris Zacchia to meet. And meet we did on a stormy Monday evening at a McGill ghetto café…
