Number Two - January/February/March 1994 [Part III]

11) Wolves In Sheep's Clothing

Euro-Canadians...The Silent Majority?

The "Voice of Canadians Committee" held their founding meeting in Toronto on December 15/93 at the Swansea Town Hall. Self- acclaimed as the "Unhyphenated Canadians", these reactionaries are located between the Reform Party and the Heritage Front on the far-right scale.

Believing that the source of their economic and social woes stem from "taxpayer-funded special interest groups", their material drivels on about how their "free society" and upper class stature has been violated by immigration, employment equity, etc. Suggested name changes: Short-Sighted-Canadians, Got-It-All-And- Still-Want-More-Canadians, Euro-Ignoramus-Canadians, Whining- Windbag-Canadians, Ku-Klux-Kanadians.

Finding The Antidote For CURE

An attack on anti-homophobia education is the first step in a transparent attempt by the religious right to take control of Metro school boards. Using front group tactics imported from south of the border, well-known homophobia bigots have joined forced under the banner of CURE - "Citizens United for Responsible Education" - and taken aim at a package of mild educational reforms introduced in the Toronto Board of Education.

With school board elections coming up in the fall, their sights are now set on overturning the current board and replacing them with a crop of homophobic, conservative trustees who will roll back any small gains made in anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-homophobic education over the past 20 years.

CURE presents itself as a group of concerned parents who worry that the Board's recent steps toward countering homophobia in the school system means young people will be (gasp!) converted by pro- queer education. In fact CURE is led by a notorious collection right-wingers with shaky histories whose agenda includes the supposed "curing" of queers, questionable psychiatric ideologies and religious fundamentalism.

Watch out for CURE members, Dian Malott and Sue Careless. Furthermore, the reforms they're attacking were only a small step towards real (and long overdue) anti- homophobic education. However, if we want to see large steps taken, we'll have to wipe CURE off the map and push the Board to go the extra mile ahead rather than letting the bunch of them drag us back to the stone age. Students are already meeting to make sure that these kinds of decisions - about what kind of school environment we'll be working in - aren't made by the religious right, and more to the point, aren't made without us! If you want to get involved, contact us through ARA at 631-8835.

Index

12) Dudley Laws, Criminalized But Still Fighting...

The Black community is outraged that Dudley Laws, organizer for the Black Action Defense Committee, has been convicted of smuggling people across the U.S.-Canadian border. In a hearing which followed his conviction, his lawyers brought out the evidence that at the time he was charged, Metro cops were collecting information on Black community activists and building files on people; some of them government employees who had never been convicted of a crime. Laws in particular was singled out as a target because of his leading role in demanding justice for Black people who have suffered at the hands of Metro's finest.

His phone was tapped for a year and undercovers were sent to him, begging for help in leaving the country and offering money for the service. Despite all evidence that Laws was entrapped by police because they didn't like his politics, the judge upheld his conviction. Not too surprising, considering this is the same judge who had ordered the wiretap in the first place! At his most recent hearing, Laws was sentenced to nine months in prison.

Call BADC at 416-656-2232 for an update on the case and on efforts to further expose the malicious police campaign against the Black community in general. BADC also needs money to cover legal costs, so send some to their office at 386 Vaughan Road, Toronto M6C 2N8.

Index

13) Jewish Feminist Anti-Fascist League

"The Jewish Feminist Anti-Fascist League (JFAFL) came together in November 1992, to join the fight against fascism at a time when fascist and racist organizing was escalating in Toronto and globally.

Fascism is manifested in many ways. We feel that as Jewish feminist activists our experiences of anti-Semitism, and also sexism, homophobia, classism, ableism, and so on, help provide us with a complex analysis of the structure and operations of oppression. The far right has made many gains; consider the number of recently established white-supremacist groups and the increase of "above ground" anti-semitic race-hate literature, as well as fascist violence.

The extreme right has also gained legitimacy in mainstream electoral politics across North America, as well as internationally. Symptomatic of the rise of the neo-right are the renewed and vicious campaigns against immigrants, refugees, gays, lesbians, people of colour, women and people with disabilities." (exerpt from JFAFL pamphlet, March 8/1994-International Women's Day) JFAFL, P.O. Box 291, Stn. B, Toronto, M5T 2W2.

Commemorate the 51st Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising! An evening of readings and presentations by the Jewish Feminist Anti- Fascist League April 19th @ the Jewish Community Centre, Bloor & Spadina, 7pm.

The original plaintext version of this file is available via ftp.

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