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Connexions Calender

July 31, 2014
Film: Docunight - Iran via Documentaries 
Toronto, Ontario


July 31, 2014
River Run 2014: Walk with Grassy Narrows for clean water and indigenous rights
Toronto, Ontario

August 1, 2014
Gaza Vigil - Beit Zatoun
Toronto, Ontario


August 2 - August 3, 2014
Canmore Folk Music Festival
Canmore, Alberta

More events

 

 

Seeds of Fire: 
A People’s Chronology

July 31, 1811
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, Mexican Priest and Rebel is executed by Spanish Colonial Regime 

July 31, 1859
US troops land in Shanghai

July 31, 1905
Start of the Maji Maji Rebellion in Tanganyika (Now Tanzania) against  German colonial rule.  

July 31, 1917
Start of the battle of Passchendale. By the battle ends on November 10th, between 400 000 to 800 000 thousand are either killed or wounded.15654 Canadian casualties at the battles. 

Trying to change the world? We can help.

Getting your story across can be an uphill battle when your group is challenging the status quo. Our partner organization SOURCES can help you get your message out. As a SOURCES member, you have an array of media relation tools at your disposal to promote your events, books, articles, videos, etc. as well as tools to get you in contact with those who can help you achieve your goals. The SOURCES news release service is especially valuable for groups wants to inform the media (and the public) about their issues. For more information about Sources please click this link. 

 

 

About Us

Connexions exists to connect people working for social justice with information, resources, and other people.  The Connexions.org website includes:

The Connexions Library, featuring thousands of articles, books, documents, periodicals, films, and other resources on a wide range of issues;

The Connexions Directory, listing some 1,000 associations and grassroots groups working for social justice;

Connexions Calendar. Canadian + selected international events. Event listings from past years are archived.

 

* A variety of tools for finding information and ideas, including an Intelligent Search tool, a browseable Subject Index, as well as Author, TitleDateFormat, and other indexes and search features.

In addition to the Connexions website, there is also the Connexions Archive, a working archive holding a large collection of materials from grassroots groups spanning several decades of activism. A team of volunteers and interns works on scanning, abstracting, indexing, translating and digitizing these materials in order to preserve this history of grassroots activism and make it available in living, breathing form.

Your support is needed to keep Connexions doing its work

Most of the work of the Connexions project is done by volunteers, but our expenses include rent, phone and computer costs and technical support, as well as expenses related to our ongoing project of converting printed archival materials into digital formats. You can make a one time or regular monthly contribution through the donate page on the Connexions website.   

Bequests

Many of us have made working for social justice a lifetime commitment. If you are thinking about leaving a legacy for social justice that will live on, you might want to consider leaving a bequest to Connexions in your will. If you'd like to discuss this option, please contact us: Connexions Archive and Library, Toronto, 416-964-5735. 

Other Voices

The Connexions Newsletter
July 31, 2014

Dear Friends

Welcome to the third issue of Other Voices.

This week we are featuring more resources related to the continuing attack on Gaza, as well as a recent examination of truth, justice, and reconciliation efforts in countries such as South Africa, Chile, and Rwanda. We also spotlight issues related to the return of the physical remains of aboriginal peoples which ended up in western museums and the collections of private collectors, as well as a related story concerning the remains of hundreds of children who died in an Irish residential school.

In Treasures from the Archives, we feature the radical journalist I.F. Stone, whose newsletter I.F. Stone's Weekly (now available online) stood up for truth and justice in the McCarthy and Vietnam War eras in the United States.

Remember that you're invited to contribute to this newsletter. if you know of news or resources you'd like to share, please get in touch via mailroom@connexions.org or 416-964-5735.

If you're a former volunteer or intern who helped out in the past, and you'd like to let other Connexions folks know what you're up to now, we'd be happy to share that information too.

Subscribe/Unsubscribe: If you’d rather not receive this newsletter, click Unsubscribe. If  you’d like to have it sent to a different email address, use this link to Subscribe.    

This Week on Connexions.org

Special report: Truth, justice and reconciliation: An examination of how countries around the world affected by civil war or internal conflict have approached justice

When Gerry Adams was released without charge last month after questioning over the 1972 killing of Jean McConville, the Sinn Fein president said the case highlighted the need for a victim-led truth and reconciliation process to lay to rest the legacy of the Troubles. Here we examine how other countries that have lived through civil war or internal conflict have approached the issue of transitional justice and reparations, and to what degree they have been successful in underpinning a lasting peace
Read the article

Keywords: Civil Wars - Truth & Reconciliation
 

The bone collectors: a brutal chapter in Australia's past: The remains of hundreds of Aboriginal people, dug up from sacred ground and once displayed in museums all over the world, are now stored in a Canberra warehouse. When will they be given a national resting place?

Mitchell sprawls untidily across Canberra's grassy northern plain. You would never go there incidentally; there's always a reason. Most of us who have lived in Canberra for any time have stood out there amid whipping winds or under a baking sun at the Australian capital's biggest cemetery. Thousands of precisely trimmed rose and rosemary bushes, plaques and headstones are set in an ocean of lawn, surrounding a constantly exhaling redbrick crematorium
Read the article

Keywords: Aboriginal Rights - Aboriginal History


The mother behind the Galway children's mass grave story: 'I want to know who's down there'

It was amateur historian Catherine Corless's painstaking research that brought news of the children's mass grave in Tuam to the world's attention. She tells how her search for the truth turned her life upside-down. Catherine Corless spent eight months trying unsuccessfully to get people to pay attention to the research she was doing on an institution for unmarried mothers in Tuam, the Galway town where she grew up
Read the article

Keywords: Residential Schools - Child Abuse & Neglect


Which came first? Palestinian rockets or Israeli violence?

Since US media are reporting the latest Israeli massacre in Gaza as though it is a defensive action, this article sets out to set the record straight. Israeli forces shelled and invaded Gaza BEFORE the rockets began. Rockets were fired only after numerous Palestinians, including many children, had been killed.

According to a pro-Israel website, the Jewish Virtual Library, Gaza rocket fire against Israel began in 2001. Four rockets were launched in the entire year
Read the article

Keywords: Israeli Military - Hamas


The deafening silence around the Hamas proposal for a 10-year truce

During its first 14 days, the Israeli military aggression on the Gaza Strip has left a toll of over 500 dead, the vast majority of whom civilians, and many more injured. Thousands of houses were targeted and destroyed together with other essential civilian infrastructures. Over one hundred thousand civilians have been displaced. By the time you will read this article the numbers will have grown higher and, despicably, no real truce seems in sight. When I say real, I mean practicable, agreeable to both sides and sustainable for some time 
Read the article

Keywords: Hamas - Israeli Politics

Topic of the Week:
Israeli Military 

Looking for resources on the Israeli Defense Forces and the Israeli Nuclear Weapons Program? Check out the Israeli Military Page in the Connexions Subject Index. Learn more about the ongoing current conflict as well as past military engagements by the IDF, including previous attacks on Gaza and surrounding countries. Also view resources on the equipment and tactics used by the Israeli Military against militants and civilians, including the use of brutal weapons such as white phosphorus clusters and flechette shells. You can browse or use our search feature.

Website of the Week:
+972 Magazine

Connexions.org features a directory of more than 1,000 progressive groups and websites. This week, we'd like to spotlight +972 magazine. +972 is a non-profit web magazine that has been run independently since 2010 and takes it name from the international dialing code for Israel and Palestine. Composed of the writers both based in Israel and the Palestinian territories, +972 gives a voice to young individuals who want to take part in the international debate reading Israel and Palestine.    

People's History and Grassroots Archives News

12 Million Euros for Digital Infrastructure

CLARIAH or Common Lab Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities , a consortium of Humanities Research Institutes of which International Institute of Social History is a part of, will receive a grant of 12 million euros (17.52 Million CND) from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. The grant will fund the development of a digital infrastructure that combines diverse data sets and software tools from various humanities disciplines, and to provide user-friendly tools to search through these data sets and make them searchable. New digital tools will enable researchers to explore profound questions of cultural and social change across the disciplines. The IISH was one of the co-applicants for CLARIAH and is largely responsible for building and maintaining this digital infrastructure.

More information...


Treasures from the archives

I.F. Stone's Weekly

I.F. Stone's Weekly was the newsletter published by the radical American journalist I.F. (Izzy) Stone (1907-1989). Finding himself blacklisted in the 1950s and unable to find work as a journalist, he decided to start him own weekly publication. I.F. Stone's Weekly launched in 1953 and continued until 1971. Stone wrote all the stories; his wife Esther handled the subscriptions. The Weekly eventually achieved a circulation of 70,000.

I.F. Stone's Weekly provided a thoroughly researched, well-documented, alternative view of events in the 1950s and 1960s. Stone covered American foreign policy, McCarthyism, and the struggle against segregation and racism in the U.S. In 1964, he was the only journalist to challenge President Johnson's claim that Vietnamese vessels had attacked American ships in the so-called Gulf of Tonkin incident, which the administration used to justify intensified attacks against Vietnam. It was later revealed that the entire 'incident' has been a fabrication designed deceive the media (easy enough!) and the public.

All issues of I.F. Stone's Weekly have been scanned and are now available on the I.F. Stone website maintained by his family.

Articles from I.F. Stone's Weekly were collected in several anthologies which are available in the Connexions Archive & Library. Stone's book Underground to Palestine, which describes the journey of Jewish refugees to Palestine in 1948, is also available in the Connnexions Archive. Stone came under intense attack as a "self-hating Jew" when, in 1978, for a new edition of Underground to Palestine, he wrote a postscript in which he criticized Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

Further reading:

I.F. Stone's Weekly online

Barrie Zwicker: I. F. Stone: A Wonderful Pariah

I. F. Stone - Reflections and Meditations Thirty Years After

I. F. Stone - Connexipedia article

I. F. Stone - Underground to Palestine

I. F. Stone - The Haunted Fifties

I. F. Stone - In a Time of Torment

I. F. Stone - Polemics and Prophecies 1967-1970

I. F. Stone - The I.F. Stone's Weekly Reader
 

Studs Terkel Archive

Studs Terkel (1912 - 2008) was an American author, historian, broadcaster, and actor. His popular radio program The Studs Terkel Program, aired in Chicago between 1952 and 1997.
Terkel produced a number of oral history books about the lives of ordinary people, including "Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do target="_blank";" "Division Street: America;" "Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression target="_blank";" "The Good War;" "American Dreams: Lost and Found;" and "Race: What Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession."

WFMT Radio Network, along with the Studs Terkel Center for Oral History of the Chicago History Museum and other partners are now working to create a Studs Terkel Radio Archive, parts of which are available online at http://studsterkel.org/#the_archive. A new permanent website will be launched later.

The archive will feature interviews from Terkel’s hour-long daily radio show which ran from 1952 to 1997 on WFMT in Chicago, during which he conducted over 5,000 interviews. The subjects of his interviews span almost 5 decades of prominent figures such as jazz, blues, folk, classical and world musicians; novelists; scientists; historians; visual artists; actors; political theorists and activists; poets; dancers; film-makers; sociologists and anthropologists; architects and urban planners; civil rights leaders; philosophers; folklorists and, of course, many fascinating, non-famous working people.

More information:
Studs Terkel website
Studs Terkel - Connexipedia article 
My Studs Terkel and Yours

More about grassroots archives and people's history: Connexions.org features an annotated list of grassroots, radical, labour, women's, and social history archive. Find out more about these

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Copyright Connexions 2014. Contents are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. This means you are welcome to share and republish the contents of this newsletter as long as you credit Connexions, and as long as you don’t charge for the content.

Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter, is available online here

Thanks to Tahmid Khan and Ulli Diemer for their work on this newsletter.  


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