Rating: 4/4

Last week I sat in a meeting called by a councillor in one of Toronto’s “priority neighbourhoods,” populated by immigrants and working-class folks.

He talked about how the police run drop-in programs for youth so that they can get to know them, and keep an eye on them, so that they can easily question youth about other youth who they are running with and get them to snitch.  When these youth grow up and maybe get into trouble, police will know who they are beforehand. The youths will be “known to police.”

“Known to police” is a phrase that gets tacked onto mainstream media reports about a lot of crime and violence. “Known to police” is supposed to mean that the persons involved were already suspicious, shady, irresponsible to begin with. Isn’t this what they said about Ahmed Hassan after he was shot dead at the Eaton Center on June 2, or Nixon Nirmalendran, who died of his wounds over a week later?  Maligned, not mourned.  What the media didn’t tell us was that one of the main reasons Nixon was known to police was for witnessing Alwy Al-Nadhir’s murder at the hands of police on the night of October 31, 2007.

For those of us who don’t live the daily reality of police terror in this city, Jane and Finch’s resident people’s theatre troupe, Nomanzland, offers us a glimpse into what it’s like to be “known to police”:

It’s about neighbourhoods that are systematically ignored, neglected and oppressed. It’s about youths who have no job options, even when they get university degrees, because of their race and class status in a system where there’s a lack of jobs overall. It’s about families trying to make ends meet and build community in difficult conditions. It’s about politicians and developers trying to make a quick buck off of the land on which poor people live through “revitalization.”

And it’s about treating children and youths as criminals or potential criminals — about dealing with problems through racist and oppressive policing rather than through building communities and providing opportunities to the people there.

‘Known to Police’ doesn’t try to hide any of the problems of the hood. It lays them out for us to see — it revolves around two beefing youth, Dante and Kelvin, who are involved in criminal activities. But it also shows us the lived realities of the peoples involved, and that the problems aren’t with individuals but with the system that they live in.

We meet a group of women who are organizing against politicians’ and developers’ attempts at “revitalizing” — that is, gentrifying — the neighbourhood. We meet an OG revolutionary who resolves the beefing and seeks to unify the hood to build a revolutionary movement. We meet mothers who are single-handedly raising their families and keeping their kids on the right track. We meet people who tried to escape the violence of their homelands (caused by Canada and other Western powers’ imperialism) only to find themselves facing violence in the hood.

We see the cops killing yet another youth in the hood, and getting away with it – a likely reference to Junior Manon’s murder on York University campus on May 5, 2010.  We also meet an undercover cop entrapping youth in a web of violence by selling them the same guns that they’re banging out on each other.

All of this is put in the context of world revolution — the uprisings of working people in Egypt and Tunisia are our backdrop. Rhymes, raps and songs are dropped throughout the play — all of them written by the actors themselves. And the acting is amazing, it’s easy to forget that we’re watching a play. (No doubt, because so many of them are from the neighbourhood.)

The play was raw enough to provoke an older, white audience member to ask which parts of the play are based on actual events? “All of it. All of it” – answer a number of cast members, almost in sync.

In the end, the youth of Nomanzland tell us that there are no easy solutions to the problems — and that we certainly can’t rely on politicians of any party. Instead, just like the peoples of the Arab uprisings, communities have to organize to build self-reliant organizations and build their own power to take on the cops, the politicians and developers.

They tell us that we need a proper revolution.

Known to Police was performed at the Young People’s Theatre, June 15-17. Hit up Nomanzland and get them to perform the play in your hood.

Indian police, like police everywhere, oppressing the people -- in this case, working class untouchables.

Rating: 3.5/4. Directed by Anand Patwardhan. Running time 185 minutes.

A complex musical documentary about that side of India that we don’t see in the media: oppressive, exploitative and brutal. Jai Bhim Comrade is about the “untouchable” Dalit castes of India and the music of their resistance.

The caste system means that people are born into occupation groups, some of which are considered “pure” and others “less pure” — the “least pure” of all are literally untouchables. It’s kind of like the racial system in North America, as the people at the bottom of the ladder are more likely to be poor and oppressed, and discriminated against by upper castes.

“Jai Bhim Comrade” means “Long Live Bhim, Comrade!” — “Bhim” is a nickname for Bhimrao Ambedkar, the great 20th century leader of Dalits who drafted India’s constitution and reinvented Buddhism into an anti-caste religion against superstition and ignorance.

Many Dalit activists have combined revolutionary leftist politics with anti-caste politics, and that is where the film begins, with a huge march in Mumbai (Bombay), as hundreds of Dalits/workers wave red flags and one activist in particular sings a song of freedom:

The singer poet, Vilas Ghogre, drifts away from his leftist comrades as they fail to approve of his attempts to make a livelihood for his family by singing at events for other political groups, and moreover because his comrades don’t have a proper analysis of caste. In 1997, when police shoot and kill 10 unarmed Dalit protestors in a Mumbai slum, he kills himself in protest against the hypocrisy of Indian democracy.

Over the next 15 years, Ghogre’s friend, director Anand Patwardhan, tracks the various strands of Dalit life: the way Dalit workers are discriminated against and mistreated, the way Dalit activists try to spread a consciousness-raising, anti-superstitious way of thinking, and the different political factions that take inspiration from Ambedkar. We see how Dalits and Adivasis (the so-called untouchable tribals) are treated in the most violent and brutal of ways—raped and lynched frequently.

The film also shows upper caste Indians who claim to have superior, pure blood and their depraved politics. In some cases, we see how opportunistic Dalit parties cut deals with casteist Hindu-supremacist parties to get ahead, while other Dalit activists who fight against such politics are killed and persecuted.

In all of this, director Patwardhan weaves together a complex web of in-depth stories of families and individuals, their day-to-day lives and struggles, and the broader and more general story of an India degenerating into greater inequality, deeper Hindu-supremacy, and oppressive politics in general.

But he does so with great skill, interspersing footage with the music of Dalit spirituality, politics and resistance. Nothing we write can quite capture the essence of the film — It is a long film at about three hours, but it is worth watching, processing and reflecting upon. Notably, it calls on us to take action in solidarity with those progressive forces who mix the blue of Dalit politics with the red of revolutionary leftist politics.

The film ends on a note that is both hopeful and dismaying. A troupe of performing artists raise awareness about caste, gender and class discrimination, and encourage Dalits and workers to unite and rise up. It’s kind of how the film starts:

But their message is so powerful that the Indian government declares them Maoist rebels and they flee underground to avoid persecution. Learn more about the Kabir Kala Manch and about other progressive forces in India today.

Rating: 3/4.  Directed by Katja Gauriloff. Running time 90 minutes.

Canned Dreams begins in Brazil, where workers rummage about looking for aluminum ore while a massive excavator smashes the rocks right next to them. They have no protective gear and are paid a pittance for their work.

We meet a worker who has had a difficult childhood and continues to have a difficult adulthood. She tells us with sadness that she has had twelve children but couldn’t afford to take care of them and so gave most of them away.

Aluminum from Brazil, hundreds of pigs efficiently raised in Denmark, tomatoes harvested by huge machines and conveyor belts in Portugal, cows slaughtered by large machines in Poland, thousands of eggs mechanically farmed from caged chickens in France, mechanized threshing and winnowing of wheat in the Ukraine, olives crushed into oil in Italy, pigs slaughtered into pork in Romania—all of it assembled in France into a tin can of pasta, sauce and meat.

But Canned Dreams is not the story of the can of ravioli. It is about the hopes and dreams of those nameless, faceless workers who work around the world to make what seems to be one simple product. These are the dreams of those who have nothing, who have to dare to wish to have children.

A worker from Poland speaks of how his wife betrayed his trust while he was away as cows are slaughtered with mechanical efficiency by huge machines. He cheated on her, too, but he seems to think that that’s okay, and he plots revenge as cows are skinned and cut in clockwork fashion.

In Romania, a Romani (Gypsy) worker listens to ignorant, racist remarks from a co-worker but says nothing. She speaks of a negligent and abusive boyfriend who cares little for their daughter, but reveals that she still dreams of becoming a bride. Meanwhile she cleans the hundreds of pigs that are being slaughtered in the factory.

The film lets us listen to the inner thoughts of these workers, as they work—but shows us how hopelessly disconnected they are from each other. They don’t know where the things they make come from or where they will go. (Nor do we know where all the things we use come from!) The work they do is so repetitive and dehumanizing that it seems like they are extensions of the massive machines and technology.

But the film doesn’t show us the inner lives of these workers, outside of their workplaces. Nor does it show us who profits from these massive factories or open air mines that have come to dominate their lives and taken so many precious hours out of their days, hopes and dreams.

What about the class of owners whose dreams come true because they crush the dreams of others? Whose riches and profits are based on the work done by these workers? They are nowhere to be seen.

Canned Dreams shows us a lot, in very beautiful ways, and for that it is worth watching. But it also leaves out too much.

Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment
Edited by Carole Boyce Davies
241 pages. Ayebia Clarke Publishing. $24.95.

Picture this. It is 1948 and at the age of 23, your citizenship is denied to you because of your political activities since you were 18. How would you feel?

Claudia Jones, activist of Trinidadian origin, was outspoken as early as when she was in Grade 4! Yet, her deportation case was a big part of her life because it was the first time she was arrested. Jones knew that she was a thorn in the side of racist legislators in 1930s USA: “I was deported because I urged the prosecution of the lynchers rather than the prosecution of the Communists and other democratic Americans who opposed the lynchers, big financiers and war mongers, the real advocates of force and violence in the United States”.

Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment is a collection of the works of Claudia Jones, who created a ripple effect for many women of colour in the United States as an intellectual pioneer — daring to speak out against racism, sexism and class exploitation. The book, edited by Carol Boyce Davies, also highlights Jones’s life story through her many writings, essays, and poetry, which reflect how her personal experiences led her to rise up and resist. Her poetry was an outlet of creative resistance, capturing intense emotions that could only be expressed outside of political, formal writing and speeches.

The work and life of Jones are relevant to us today, as many families come to North America in search for a better life for their families, often leaving many of their loved ones behind to start anew, thinking this is the land of the “free.” And yet, we are constantly faced with a reality similar to the one Jones faced as a youth of colour growing up in a time when people were lynched for being Black in a “free and democratic” USA.

Although racism today isn’t as direct and overt as it was in her day, the word multiculturalism has blinded us from the truth that Jones spoke about concerning issues of human rights and peace. She became a political prisoner for speaking out during an International Women’s Day speech. This is not too different from the case of Wendy Maxwell, a non-status queer Black woman who was apprehended at an International Women’s Day event in 2005. Maxwell refused to be quiet and was active as a community organizer. For that, she was deported despite the threat of significant danger to her in Costa Rica.

Claudia Jones constantly pointed out that the oppression of women of colour was intensified because these women were the workers: not only the most underpaid and underprivileged, but also often the main breadwinners of the families – far more so than white women. Black women were seen as inferior and as slaves, yet also as a radical threat to the white upper-classes as they could mobilize their communities. Despite their status as amongst the most oppressed segment of society – workers, Black, and women – Jones notes how they were largely shut out of the mostly white and upper-class suffragist movement, as well as the more white and more middle-class communist movements in North America, which were, by the 1930s, beginning to surrender their revolutionary principles and becoming increasingly distant to the working class.

This is an important book for all women and men to read because of how Claudia’s words still ring true. This memoir of Claudia’s work allows us a glimpse into the life a woman who caused a lot of uproar in her time and who continues to inspire many of us now.

Imperialist Canada
By Todd Gordon
432 pages. Arbeiter Ring Publishing. $24.95 ($16.46 from online retailers).

Imperialist Canada by Todd Gordon

Most Canadians tend to view our country as a force for good in the world — we have even been subjected to beer commercials trying to convince us that we are a nation of peacekeepers, not soldiers.

This story would also have us believe that Canada was settled through a process of fair negotiation with Canada’s many indigenous peoples, and is a beacon of enlightened foreign policy and multicultural toleration when compared to our overly aggressive southern neighbour.

Todd Gordon’s book Imperialist Canada not only turns this misconception on its head, but shatters it with a sledgehammer of inconvenient but necessary truths about how the relative comfort and security we currently enjoy has come at the continued expense of indigenous peoples at home, and our oppression and exploitation of other peoples across the developing world.

A book that Gordon admits is long overdue, Imperialist Canada deals with the legacy and continuation of racist practices, stereotypes and ideologies — topics which do not make the evening news, but should.

From Canada’s decade-long war in Afghanistan to the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Haiti in 2004, to our government’s support for an illegitimate pro-business regime in Honduras, our country’s hands are far from clean, and our national consciousness is anything but enlightened.

The book is written in an engaging and straightforward manner, with Gordon seamlessly incorporating theory, history and current events into a highly readable and accessible book. Doubters of Canada’s role as an imperial power will unfortunately be met with a host of references which reinforce Gordon’s point.

Imperialist Canada gives the reader an important context to understand the current conflict in Northern Ontario, where the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation are fighting mining companies from excavating their sacred burial grounds and contaminating their drinking water. This is not an isolated incident, but rather part of a tragic pattern that extends to Canadian mining corporations undermining indigenous peoples across the Americas, Africa, and Asia.

Stephen Harper’s statement that, “We also have no history of colonialism. So we have all of the things that many people admire about the great powers but none of the things that threaten or bother them” is revealed as a dangerous lie.

Canada’s announcement earlier this year to open military bases in Jamaica, South Korea, Senegal, Kenya, Kuwait and Singapore is a sign of a more militant and aggressive Canada with imperial ambitions — a further confirmation of the book’s premise.

Todd Gordon skilfully succeeds in “encouraging people to rethink Canada’s role in the world.” For that, this book is highly recommended for all engaged in the struggle for social justice across Canada and beyond.

Imperialist Canada importantly points out that being the lesser of two evils in comparison to the United States is not a position Canadians should be proud of — being a lesser evil is still a far cry from being a force for good in the world. We can, and should, work toward ending our exploitation and oppression of indigenous peoples at home and other peoples abroad.

The Communist Manifesto (Illustrated). Chapter One: Historical Materialism
Edited by George S. Rigakos, illustrated by Red Viktor
29 pages. Red Quill Books. $12.50.

The crew at Red Quill Books has decided to put out a comic book version of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s 1848 text, The Communist Manifesto. That may seem old school but the text seems remarkably fresh, like it was written yesterday, when placed alongside images of our own world today.

For example, we see images of Western UN soldiers handing out aid in an unspecified African country, even as military helicopters bombard villages. Marx and Engels’s text accompanies: “Just as [capitalism] has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised countries, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.”

The language may be archaic (who they calling barbarian?) but its meaning comes through, especially when placed along the illustrations by Victor Serra (Red Viktor). Without a doubt, the best image is of a human pyramid of class struggle — ordinary folk throughout the ages struggling and climbing atop of rulers and their police forces: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”

But the editor, George S. Rigakos, a professor at Carleton University, saw fit to rearrange and trim some of the original words. While trimming might have been okay, throwing the words out of order seems to me to take away from some of the force of how Marx and Engels build their argument step by step. The text in the comic book seems a bit disconnected, rather than something building up.

Also, rather than letting the German revolutionary philosophers speak for themselves, Marx and Engels’s text is preceded by an editorial introduction in two parts. The first is a written piece by Prof. Rigakos which sounds almost apologetic about doing up this comic, given the supposedly repressive history of communism when put in practice — though apologetic, the piece is hopeful about new readers discovering the text. This apology is followed by a lengthy and wordless illustrated sequence where an old school, disillusioned communist activist yells at Marx’s grave in the rain, angry about Stalin and Pol Pot.

By no means should those struggling to build a new and better world avoid examining the sometimes colossal mistakes of actually-existing socialisms in the 20th century (though, even by that standard, Pol Pot’s Cambodia is a far stretch — it was backed by the imperialist United States in war against communist Vietnam). But Prof. Rigakos could have started out the comic by examining the relevance of Marxism and communism as a living and vital force in world politics today, be it the resistance of peoples in Latin America trying to build new socialisms, or the revolutionary communism of the peoples of Nepal, India and the Phillippines.

Instead, Prof. Rigakos gives too much to the current ruling classes who seek to discredit everything about communist movements past and present, trying hard to pretend that Marxism and communism are dead. So it comes down to Prof. Rigakos and Mr. Serra to breathe some new life into it by “reanimating” the text, as he puts it. But that text is already being animated by peoples around the world.

This book is the first of four parts, and hopefully the following parts focus more on what Marx and Engels wrote themselves and the living relevance of Marxism and communism today. Trying to introduce The Communist Manifesto to a new generation of students and youth is definitely a worthwhile effort, and we hope Prof. Rigakos and Mr. Serra are successful in this.

$12.50 is a bit hefty when your average monthly comic goes for $3 or $4 (and is therefore out of the reach of a lot of working folk), but it is a slickly produced, full-colour book by a small publisher and part of the proceeds go to supporting student scholarships. So if you have the money and like radical comics, you might want to get the four parts as they come out. Definitely grab a hold of the comic books from a library.