In this special crossover episode, Nashwa joins Derek and Priyansh of The End of Sport to talk about the cultural, political and social significance of Morocco’s men’s national football team at the 2026 MAGA World Cup.

Together, they discuss Morocco’s World Cup journey, what the national team means to Moroccans at home and across the diaspora, and the politics carried through football celebrations. The conversation moves through Moroccan identity, migration and colonialism, as well as policing, nationalism and the systemic violence surrounding a tournament hosted across Canada, Mexico and the United States.

What does it mean to celebrate Morocco while remaining critical? Who gets welcomed into the spectacle of the World Cup and who is policed, displaced or excluded? What can football reveal about belonging, empire and the contradictions?

This episode originally aired on The End of Sport and is being shared here as a special Habibti Please crossover. If you enjoy critical conversations about sport, politics, labour and power, please check out The End of Sport, subscribe to their podcast and explore their other episodes wherever you listen.

Listen to the original episode on Spotify.

July 7th, 2026

Speaking to Imam Omar Suleiman saying “I just did not want to stand before Allah on the Day of Judgement and have to admit to any complicity in this genocide.”

In this episode of Habibti Please, Nashwa speaks with Moroccan software engineer and community organizer Ibtihal Aboussad about Big Tech, Palestine, worker resistance, artificial intelligence, surveillance, militarization, faith, and collective refusal. At the centre of the conversation is a simple but urgent principle, workers should not be required to write code that kills.

Ibtihal formerly worked as a software engineer at Microsoft and now organizes with No Azure for Apartheid, a campaign of current and former Microsoft workers challenging the company’s technological and contractual relationships with Israeli military and government institutions.

In April 2025 Ibtihal interrupted Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman during the company’s 50th-anniversary celebrations, publicly challenging Microsoft’s provision of AI and cloud-computing services to the Israeli military. Microsoft fired Ibtihal and fellow organizer Vaniya Agrawal shortly after their protests. Their actions became part of a wider worker-led movement involving internal organizing, resignations, petitions, workplace disruptions, vigils, walkouts, sit-ins, and public campaigns against corporate military contracts. (The Guardian)

Together, Nashwa and Ibtihal discuss what brought her into the technology industry, when she began questioning its claims of neutrality, and what it means to refuse complicity when your income, immigration status, professional reputation, and future employment may be at risk. The relationship between cloud infrastructure and state violence, the role of worker organizing, the political and spiritual responsibilities of Muslim technology workers, the history of North African anticolonial struggle, international dockworker solidarity including in Morocco, and what Palestinian resistance teaches us about organizing against systems that present themselves as permanent.

Follow Ibtihal Aboussad

Follow Ibtihal on instagram for commentary on Palestine, worker organizing, Big Tech, Muslim ethics, and the No Azure for Apartheid campaign.A conversation Ibtihal had with Imam Omar Sulieman at Yaqeen Institute.

Follow Palestinian Journalists Directly

As mentioned in the episode people should follow Palestinian journalists, they have documented bombardment, forced displacement, starvation, military occupation, the destruction of hospitals and homes, and the killing of their own relatives, neighbours, and colleagues while living through those conditions themselves.

“Journalists in Gaza”

This resource provides a starting point for finding Palestinian journalists, photographers, healthcare workers, and citizen reporters who have documented Israel’s assault on Gaza. Important note about this resource:the article was published in January 2024 and does not appear to have been fully updated.

Some people included in older lists of Palestinian journalists may since have been killed, injured, forcibly displaced, evacuated, detained, stopped reporting, or had their social-media accounts suspended, hacked, removed, or changed.

Others to follow:

Bisan Owda

Bisan Owda is a Palestinian journalist, filmmaker, storyteller, and activist from Gaza. Her videos have documented displacement, hunger, bombardment, community survival, and daily life throughout Israel’s assault on Gaza. Her reporting has often begun with the words: “It’s Bisan from Gaza, and I’m still alive.”

Hind Khoudary

Hind Khoudary is a Palestinian journalist from Gaza who has reported extensively on the political, humanitarian, and social conditions facing Palestinians. Her work combines direct reporting with her own experiences of displacement, destruction, and loss.

More Palestinian Journalists to follow:

• Wael Al-Dahdouh

• Motaz Azaiza

• Plestia Alaqad

• Yara Eid

• Mariam Barghouti

• Maha Hussaini

• Ruwaida Amer

• Youmna ElSayed

• Abubaker Abed

• Mohammed El-Kurd

Because accounts and circumstances change quickly, search for each journalist’s current official page instead of relying entirely on older compiled lists.

No Azure for Apartheid is a campaign of current and former Microsoft workers organizing against the company’s contracts and technological relationships with Israeli military and government institutions.

The campaign calls on Microsoft to:

• end Azure contracts and partnerships with Israeli military and government institutions;

• publicly disclose its relationships with Israeli state, military, surveillance, technology, and weapons entities;

• protect Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and allied workers who organize or speak publicly for Palestine;

• support an immediate and permanent ceasefire;

• stop retaliation against workers challenging the company’s military relationships.

“Our Fight Against Microsoft-Powered Genocide: Campaign Statement on the Firings of Our Organizers”

“Inside the Campaign to End Microsoft’s Collaboration with the Israeli Army”

“Microsoft Faces Growing Unrest Over Role in Israel’s War on Gaza”

“As Big Tech Grows More Involved in Gaza, Muslim Workers Are Wrestling with a Spiritual Crisis”

“Microsoft Confirms It Supplied AI Tech to the Israeli Military for Use in Gaza”

“A Call for a Worker Intifada” — No Azure for Apartheid

Amazon Worker Intifada

“Activist Group Vows More Pressure on Amazon Over Israel Ties” — The New Arab

“Amazon Suspends Engineer Who Protested Company’s Work With Israel”

Cisco and Palestine — Drop Site News

No Tech for Apartheid

“Trade Unions Block Arms Exports to Israel”

“Dockworkers and Labor Activists Can Block the Transport of Arms to Israel”

Mediterranean Port Strikes

“Morocco Port Workers to Block Maersk’s Arms Shipment to Israel”

“Protesters Target Morocco Ports Over Ties to Israel”

“How Canada’s Purchases of Israeli Weapons Fuel Genocide”

“Canada to Host Tests of Israeli Arms Tech Used on Palestinians”

“Exposing Canadian Military Exports to Israel”

The Palestine Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein,

The conversation centres Matriarchy as a lived role, shaped through mentorship, listening, and accountability to land, people, and future generations. Moving between Wet’suwet’en feast house protocols, food sovereignty, climate justice, youth political organizing, and Bannock as pedagogy, Marlene offers a grounded vision of leadership rooted in care instead of hierarchy.

Rather than treating matriarchy as symbolic or historical, this episode understands it as active governance, survival, and responsibility, carried through everyday practices and intergenerational relationships.

This episode offers many learnings. Marlene generously explains that becoming a matriarch is not automatic or symbolic, it is a lifelong process of being mentored by grandmothers, mothers, and aunties. Knowledge is passed through observation, correction, and presence, beginning in childhood and continuing throughout life. She also describes feast houses as places where governance is learned through protocol, seating, service, and respect. Young people learn by watching elders closely, understanding roles, and asking questions when guided to do so. As mentioned in the episode, I first met Marlene in May 2025 during a rally at Montreal’s Cabot Square to honour missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

Although I have long been honoured to do work with and alongside Indigenous people I had rarely heard the kinds of connections Marlene made to pipelines and Missing and Murdered Indigenous women. Marlene connects resource extraction projects and, increased violence against Indigenous women. logging roads, and man camps to broader forms of harm: disrupted animal migration, food insecurity, environmental risks These are not separate issues, but interconnected outcomes of extractive systems.

Marlene reflects on how families once lived off the land year-round through hunting, fishing, drying, and berry picking,canning while today, forest fires, industrial development, and ecological destruction have made those practices difficult, forcing people far from their territories. To close we talk about a project Marlene spearheads Our Decision, Our Future and how it grew into Beyond the Ballot Box after witnessing deep political alienation among young people. Voting, she emphasizes, is only one step, while real democracy requires ongoing accountability to youth whose futures are most at stake.

Throughout the conversation, Marlene stresses that Youth and Elders. Elders create time and space and experience; Youth bring urgency serious issues and imagination, and each share stories. Marlene returns often to awareness: ofLand, Food Systems, and people, and as a form of survival and responsibility in a rapidly changing and often hostile political environment.

Film & Ongoing Work

Marlene is currently filming a documentary film grounded in years of organizing, The film examines systemic racism across health, education, justice, and environmental systems, while situating Wet’suwet’en struggle within global Indigenous movements.

Furthermore, since the pandemic hit,she has been raising awareness through her weekly webinar series, “Marlene Webinars Solidarity Action Group”. She has created this space for youth, elders, activists and more to share news and support each other through the many issues to its depth.

Follow & Support Marlene Hale

● Website: www.ourdecisionourfuture.ca

• https://chuffed.org/project/126670-our-decision-our-future

● Instagram: @OurDecisionOurFuture

● Bio: Marlene Hale - Our World

● Webinar: Marlene Solidarity Webinar

● Film: chefmaluh.ca

Video Interviews, Talks & Panels

Baking Bannock & Battling Environmental Racism with Marlene Hale.

POP Symposium – Day 3: Marlene Hale & Stefan Christoff
The Artist’s Role in Indigenous Land Struggles.

Marlene Hale Solidarity Update.

Additional Talk on Indigenous Struggle & Resistance.

Wet’suwet’en Chef, Turned Activist in Quebec Ready to Take on the Politicians.
(APTN News – video)

https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/wetsuweten-chef-turned-activist-in-quebec-ready-to-take-on-the-politicians-to-get-answers-for-her-people-in-b-c/

Further Reading & Viewing

A curated list to deepen the themes of matriarchy, Indigenous feminism, land defense, food sovereignty, and political accountability discussed in this episode.

Indigenous Matriarchy & Women’s Leadership

Reid, Teela. “The Power of the First Nations Matriarchy: Warrior Women Reckoning with the Colony.” Griffith Review.
https://www.griffithreview.com/articles/the-power-of-the-first-nations-matriarchy/

Murray, Roxann. “The Healing Power of Matriarchs.” YES! Magazine, 2024.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2024/04/22/women-native-healing-matriarch

“Indigenous Matriarchal Traditions: A Tribute for Women’s History Month.” Owamniyomni.
https://owamniyomni.org/2024/03/21/indigenous-matriarchal-traditions-a-tribute-for-womens-history-month/

Hale, Marlene. “The Making of a Matriarch.” BILD-LIDA.
https://bild-lida.ca/blog/uncategorized/the-making-of-a-matriarch-by-marlene-hale/

Indigenous Feminism, Care, & Knowledge Practices

Tuck, E., Stepetin, H., Beaulne-Stuebing, R., & Billows, J. (2022).
“Visiting as an Indigenous Feminist Practice.” Gender and Education.
https://poche.mdhs.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/4740723/2022-Tuck,-E.,-_Stepetin,-H.,-_Beaulne-Stuebing,-R.,-_-_Billows,-J.-2022.-Visiting-as-an-Indigenous-feminist-practice.-Gender-and-Education,-1-12.pdf

“An Indigenous Feminist Commemoration of Canada 150.” University of Winnipeg — Weweni.
https://www.uwinnipeg.ca/indigenous/weweni/past-wewenis/an-indigenous-feminist-commemoration-of-canada-150.html

Palmater, Pamela. “#MeToo and the Secrets Indigenous Women Keep.” The Walrus.
https://thewalrus.ca/metoo-and-the-secrets-indigenous-women-keep/

Law, Governance & Indigenous Feminist Frameworks

This section brings together Indigenous feminist scholarship that interrogates how law, governance, and state systems shape and often enable violence against Indigenous women, girls, Two-Spirit, and gender-diverse people. These works are essential for understanding why extractive projects, policing, and jurisdictional gaps continue to produce harm, and how Indigenous feminist legal thought offers pathways toward accountability, relational governance, and land-based justice.

Deborah McGregor — Indigenous Feminisms, Environmental Justice, and the Law

In this work, Deborah McGregor advances Indigenous feminist approaches to law and environmental governance. McGregor demonstrates how settler legal systems and extractive governance models marginalize Indigenous women’s authority, responsibilities to land, and knowledge systems, while reproducing colonial and gendered violence. Her work is foundational for understanding how environmental decision-making, resource extraction, and legal regimes intersect with the MMIWG2S crisis.
https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/scholarly_works/2924/

Cherry Smiley — Indigenous Feminism, Colonial Violence, and Resistance

In her doctoral research, Cherry Smiley offers a rigorous critique of how colonial governance, state feminism, and liberal legal frameworks obscure and perpetuate violence against Indigenous women. Smiley centers Indigenous feminism as a site of political resistance, challenging racialized and patriarchal narratives while foregrounding Indigenous women’s leadership in struggles against sexual violence, disappearance, and state harm.
https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/990510/

Pipelines, Man Camps & Violence Against Indigenous Women

Content note: The following resources discuss colonial and gender-based violence, sexual violence, disappearance, and murder of Indigenous women, girls, Two-Spirit, and gender-diverse people. We share these readings to deepen understanding of the structural conditions that create harm and to honour the leadership and analysis of Indigenous communities.

This set of readings explores how resource extraction projects, particularly pipelines and associated “man camps” intersect with the ongoing crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit, and gender-diverse people (MMIWG2S). Together, these pieces show how extractive economies, colonial jurisdictional gaps, and temporary industrial workforces create conditions that heighten risk and violence for Indigenous communities.

Selected Readings & Resources

• Pipeline of Violence: The Oil Industry and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
This legal and human rights analysis examines how oil and pipeline projects intensify violence against Indigenous women through jurisdictional failures, lack of accountability, and the social impacts of extractive economies on Indigenous lands.
https://lawblogs.uc.edu/ihrlr/2021/05/28/pipeline-of-violence-the-oil-industry-and-missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women/

• Pipeline Fighters – Missing & Murdered Indigenous Persons Resource Hub
A community-based resource linking pipeline resistance with MMIWG2S advocacy. This page connects extractive infrastructure to patterns of violence and offers pathways to further reports, inquiries, and Indigenous-led organizing.
https://pipelinefighters.org/resources/indigenous-resources/missing-murdered-indigenous-persons/

• Pipelines, Man Camps and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada (Al Jazeera)
This feature centers Indigenous voices describing how pipeline construction and transient work camps have led to increased harassment, intimidation, and violence in nearby communities, echoing findings from Canada’s National Inquiry.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/5/5/pipelines-man-camps-and-murdered-indigenous-women-in-canada

• What Do Pipelines Have to Do with Sexual Violence? (Vancouver & District Sexual Violence Prevention Alliance)
A clear, accessible overview explaining how pipeline projects and man camps can contribute to sexual violence, particularly in rural and Indigenous territories, and why prevention must be built into project planning and policy.
https://vsdvalliance.org/press_release/what-do-pipelines-have-to-do-with-sexual-violence/

• For Indigenous Women, More Pipelines Mean More Threats of Sexual Violence (The Revelator)
An environmental justice perspective highlighting how fossil fuel infrastructure projects increase risks of sexual violence for Indigenous women, drawing on community testimony and land-based resistance.
https://therevelator.org/fossil-fuel-indigenous-women/

• Wet’suwet’en Isn’t Just About a Pipeline, but Keeping Indigenous Women Safe (VICE)
Reporting from Wet’suwet’en territory that situates land defense as a form of community safety, emphasizing how opposition to pipelines is also about protecting Indigenous women and girls from violence.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wetsuweten-isnt-just-about-a-pipeline-but-keeping-indigenous-women-safe/

• Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQI+ People – Resource Guide (Canadian Human Rights Commission)
A comprehensive guide to reports, inquiries, community organizations, and educational materials — including Reclaiming Power and Place — offering broader context on the MMIWG2S crisis in Canada.
https://humanrights.ca/resource-guide/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-girls-and-2slgbtqi-people

P.S.

I also want to name that today feels politically important. Last year I attended Avi Lewis’ NDP leadership launch in Ottawa, and it left me feeling something I haven’t felt in a long time in formal political spaces: a sense of movement, seriousness, and possibility.

As many of you know, including from my essay Voting Is Not Harm Reduction I’m not someone who believes party politics will resolve our crises, or that electoral wins replace organizing, mutual aid, land defense, or movement work. I don’t see voting as the horizon of change.

But I do think moments like this can be openings. A leadership race like this one is a chance to push a mainstream party toward bolder climate justice, anti-war politics, and accountability to movements including Indigenous land defense and feminist struggles against violence. For me, this feels less like an endorsement of party politics, and more like a strategic intervention: an attempt to widen what’s politically sayable and possible.

If this resonates, you can sign up for an NDP membership (as little as $10) to be able to vote for Avi Lewis before before midnight PST/3 am EST today, on January 28.. I’m sharing the link here for anyone who wants to join me. An invitation, offered in the spirit of collective experimentation and hope.

For further context on why this leadership race matters strategically for the broader left, I recommend Martin Lukacs’ article “The left case for joining the NDP — and voting for Avi Lewis,” which lays out how building party membership now can expand space for movement politics.

As always, thank you for listening, for thinking alongside me, and for holding these conversations with care.

What begins as a seemingly innocuous royal tour reveals a much deeper story about arms deals, NATO expansion, Canada’s growing role in the military-industrial complex, and how cities like Montréal are quietly being positioned as hubs fo r weapons manufacturing and military AI.

Royal visits are not Neutral. The Swedish king and queen were not simply visiting for diplomacy or cultural exchange. Their presence functioned as high-level corporate lobbying on behalf of Sweden’s arms industry, specifically the push to sell Saab Gripen fighter jets to Canada amid tensions with the United States and a reassessment of F-35 procurement.

Sweden’s carefully cultivated global image as progressive, neutral, humanitarian collapses under closer scrutiny. The episode traces Saab’s history of corruption allegations across South Africa, Brazil, Central Europe, and beyond, raising urgent questions about why Canada would deepen military partnerships with a company repeatedly implicated in bribery and misconduct. “Humanitarian arms exporters” do not and will never exist.

Far from being peripheral, Montréal is already deeply embedded in global weapons supply chains. Montreal is indeed a weapons hub. From aerospace manufacturing to AI research institutes, public funds and public institutions are increasingly tied to military production often without public debate or consent. Montreal is already a weapons hub, you can read more from Arms Embargo Now here. The Swedish delegation’s visit to Montréal’s AI research institutions highlights how “innovation” rhetoric is used to normalize military tech development. Civilian research spaces are quietly absorbed into war-oriented futures under the banner of jobs and competitiveness.

The promise of “10,000 high-paying jobs” is interrogated head-on. The episode asks: Why are weapons framed as the only viable economic growth strategy? What would job creation look like if public money were invested in housing, climate resilience, care work, or food security instead? Why jobs implicated in war instead of justice?

While politicians insist Canada is not directly exporting weapons to conflict zones, the episode lays out how Canadian-made components feed into global arms supply chains including those linked to Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, and beyond. Canada is and has been quietly complicit.

This conversation invites listeners to move beyond surface-level nationalism and media complacency. It challenges the idea that Canada or Sweden can position itself as peace-loving while expanding war infrastructure. It also asks Montréalers to reflect on what kind of city we are being shaped into, and who benefits from that transformation. or clear, evidence-based reporting on how Canadian-made weapons and components continue to circulate globally despite official denials, spend time with this investigation from Arms Embargo Now: https://armsembargonow.ca/.

As this episode reminds us, militarized economies are life-taking economies and they require permanent war to sustain themselves.

Complicity Is Not a Mystery: Canada, Arms, and the Architecture of Denial

Canada often describes itself as a peacekeeping nation, restrained, principled, and guided by “benevolant” international law. Yet the evidence tells a different story. Over and over, Canadian-made weapons, components, and technologies surface in sites of mass violence: Gaza, Sudan, Yemen. Each time, the response follows a familiar pattern. Officials insist exports are frozen. Ministers emphasize complexity. Responsibility is displaced onto allies, intermediaries, or technical classifications.

What this bibliography reveals is not a failure of information, but an architecture of denial.

Civil society reports show how Canadian arms complicit in violence globaly reach places through U.S. supply chains. Investigative journalism documents contracts approved after internal reviews flagged extensive human rights violations. Parliamentary interventions warn that Canada is “on notice” of potential complicity under international law. Faith institutions and humanitarian organizations call for embargoes and sanctions. Still, the machinery continues.

Complicity here is not accidental. It is bureaucratic. It lives in export permits, Crown corporations,Canadian ports, risk-mitigation language, and procurement contracts framed as “industrial benefits.” It is reinforced through diplomacy, royal visits, trade missions, defence partnerships that normalize militarism as innovation and economic growth.

Looking at Sudan makes it impossible to dismiss as rooted on a single conflict. Canadian rifles appear in the hands of militias accused of massacres. Canadian exports pass through the UAE despite clear diversion risks. The same loopholes, the same rationales, the same denials reappear.

What changes when we read these sources together is scale. The question is no longer whether Canada knows. The record shows it does. The question is whether Canada is willing to act when accountability threatens profit, alliances, or national myth.

This archive exists to interrupt that myth and to insist that responsibility does not end at the border, the permit, or the press release.

Canada, Arms, and Complicity: A Starter Reading List

This short list is designed for people who want to learn about the issue issue or need a clear entry point. Each item attempts to answer a different “first question.”

1. Arms Embargo Now (2025)

Exposing Canadian Military Exports to Israel
https://armsembargonow.ca/report/

Why start here:
This is the clearest overview of what Canada is exporting, how it moves (especially via the U.S.), and why official claims of a “freeze” don’t match the evidence.

2. CBC News (2025)

Report suggests arms still flow from Canada to Israel despite denials
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/arms-ammunition-shipments-israel-canada-1.7596091

Why start here:
Shows how mainstream journalism confirms what civil society has documented and where government messaging breaks down.

3. Project Ploughshares (2025)

Canada under contract to supply the IDF with artillery propellant
https://ploughshares.ca/canada-under-contract-to-supply-the-idf-with-artillery-propellant/

Why start here:
Introduces the idea of indirect complicity and how Canadian goods flow through U.S. contracts and Crown corporations.

4. The Maple (2025)

How Canada’s purchases of Israeli weapons fuel genocide
https://www.readthemaple.com/how-canadas-purchases-of-israeli-weapons-fuel-genocide/

Why start here:
Shifts the conversation from exports to imports and how Canada financially sustains Israel’s military industry.

5. Yellowhead Institute (2023)

Canada’s Role in the Colonization of Palestine
https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2023/candas-role-in-colonization-palestine/

Why start here:
Provides historical grounding on how Canada’s relationship to Palestine did not begin in 2023.

6. Anglican Church of Canada (2025)

General Synod Resolution C012: Arms Embargo on Israel
https://gs2025.anglican.ca/resolutions/c012/

Why start here:
This is no longer a fringe position, institutions are publicly calling for an embargo.

7. Local 514 (2025)

The Swedish royal couple in Montréal to sell warplanes? (video of this episode)

Why start here:
Connects arms exports to diplomacy, monarchy, and the normalization of militarism.

PART II — DEEP-DIVE APPENDIX

A. Export Loopholes & State Risk Assessments

• Project Ploughshares & Amnesty International Canada —
  “No Credible Evidence”: Canada’s flawed analysis of arms exports to Saudi Arabia
  https://ploughshares.ca/special-report-no-credible-evidence-canadas-flawed-analysis-of-arms-exports-to-saudi-arabia/

• The Maple —
  Government export agency noted 99 Israeli crimes but OK’d arms sale
  https://www.readthemaple.com/government-export-agency-noted-99-israeli-crimes-but-okd-arms-sale/

• Middle East Monitor —
  Canada reviewing report on U.S. loophole sending military parts to Israel
  https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20251122-canada-reviewing-report-on-us-loophole-sending-its-military-parts-to-israel-despite-freeze/

B. Civilian Infrastructure

• The Rover —
  Are passengers on flights from Montréal sitting above shipments of bullets?
  https://therover.ca/gaza-are-passengers-on-flights-from-montreal-sitting-above-shipments-of-bullets-for-israels-war/

C. Sudan, the UAE, and Global Spillover

• CBC News —
  Sudanese fighters accused of massacres use Canadian-made rifles
  https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/sudan-rsf-massacres-canadian-rifles-sterling-cross-9.6969856

• Truthout —
  As Canadian weapons enter Sudan, activists decry Canada’s deepening UAE ties
  https://truthout.org/articles/as-canadian-weapons-enter-sudan-activists-decry-canadas-deepening-uae-ties/

• CJPME —
  Canada must halt arms exports to the UAE
  https://www.cjpme.org/pr_2025_10_30_sudan

D. Parliamentary & Institutional Accountability

• Senate of Canada — Kim Pate (2025)
  Senate intervention on Gaza and risk of Canadian complicity
  https://sencanada.ca/en/senators/pate-kim/interventions/671800/51

• Oxfam Canada —
  3 actions to limit Canada’s complicity in genocide
  https://www.oxfam.ca/story/3-actions-to-limit-canadas-complicity-in-genocide/

Listen + read more

Subscribe to Habibti Please on Substack for extended analysis, reading lists, and companion essays:
habibtiplease.substack.com

Follow Nashwa Lina Khan’s work at the intersections of disability justice, anti-militarism, and feminist decolonial analysis.

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Subscribe to Habibti Please on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Substack to keep up with future episodes, resistance reading lists, and conversations from the frontlines of feminist, abolitionist, and anti-colonial struggles. Habibti Please is a proud member of the Habinger Media Network, get weekly updates from Canada’s politically and socially progressive podcast community at Habingermedianetwork.com.

From Six Nations of the Grand River to Gaza, this conversation connects Indigenous resistance, Palestinian liberation, and the responsibilities of healthcare workers who refuse silence in the face of genocide. Dr. Ge shares first-hand experiences working in Rafah, witnessing severe malnutrition and attacks on Gaza’s hospitals, and reflects on the responsibilities of physicians to act politically, not just clinically.

They also discuss the Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s largest-ever mission, the Sumud flotilla, which set sail with over 50 boats from 44 countries to break Israel’s illegal blockade — and the increasing risks activists face as Israel escalates attacks and labels them “terrorists.”

To practice medicine is to confront colonialism, speak out against genocide, and understand care as inseparable from justice. Yipeng reflects on their education at McMaster, where Indigenous leaders like Dawn Martin Hill fought for the creation of Indigenous Studies, shaping a transformative understanding of privilege, responsibility, and solidarity. Drawing on the words of Dr. Nidal Jabbour, the conversation underscores that liberation and freedom — not aid alone — are essential for health and survival in Palestine and beyond.

Solidarity is an act of risk: putting one’s voice and body on the line, following the direction of oppressed communities, and standing in the way of erasure. Propaganda and lobbying in Canada and Western media erases and dehumanizes Palestinians while legitimizing settler state violence. Activism can be a driver of systemic change, from Burnaby declaring itself an apartheid-free city to Italian ports blocking Israeli arms shipments and a recent general strike.

Yipeng shares his experience working in Gaza, describing malnourished children, the destruction of hospitals like Nasser Medical Complex, and the resilience of Palestinian healthcare workers who continue to care for their people under siege. The Global Sumud Flotilla, international intervention from Italy and Spain in deploying naval ships to support the flotilla, 1 million Italians striking and shutting down the country for action, are critical escalation of global solidarity, even as the genocide intensifies.

The history of Western medicine is one that is complicit in slavery, eugenics, and Indigenous genocide. Yipeng reflects on disrupting these structures from within the profession. Hope is not passive, but a discipline — an active practice of persistence and resistance, embodied by Palestinian steadfastness and echoed in abolitionist struggles.

This episode is a call to understand medicine as resistance, solidarity as risk, and hope as a discipline — forged through collective struggle, from Gaza to Turtle Island.

Resources & Links

• Freedom Flotilla Coalition – Global Sumud Flotilla

• Countries part of the global flotilla

• Doctors Against Genocide

• Independent Media mentioned: The Maple, The Grind, Ricochet

• Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta’s work: https://drghassanabusittah.com/

• Follow Yipeng: Twitter | Instagram

• Subscribe: Habibti Please Substack

Academic / reports / analyses/ advocacy / activist/ coalition / grassroots resources

1. A Health Analysis of the Gaza Genocide (Public Health and Human Rights Initiative, PHRI)
   This report frames much of the health system collapse in Gaza through the lens of genocide law. (רופאים לזכויות אדם)
   
   

2. Safeguarding healthcare workers in Gaza and throughout conflict zones — Khanji et al., 2025
   Focus on legal / ethical imperatives for protecting medical personnel in conflict. (PMC)
   
   

3. Gaza’s healthocide: medical societies must not stay silent — The Lancet (Editorial)
   A call to medical institutions to break selective silence and act. (The Lancet)
   
   

4. “Healthocide and medical neutrality: a call for action and accountability” — (Abi-Rached et al.) BMJ Global Health

5. “The Rhetoric of Decolonizing Global Health Fails to Address the Reality of Settler Colonialism: Gaza as a Case in Point” — International Journal of Health Policy and Management

6. Doctors Against Genocide — Medical Resources
   A live, updated resource hub including webinars, profiles of Gaza health workers, and advocacy materials. (Doctors Against Genocide)

7. The Sameer Project
   A Palestinian-led medical / relief operation in Gaza. Their public pages (e.g. Open Collective) explain their work in shelter, medical care, supplies, etc. (Open Collective)

8. Librarians & Archivists with Palestine — Readings & Resources
   A curated and updated reading list and resource guide (nonfiction, fiction, archives, etc.). (Librarians with Palestine)

9. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) statements on Gaza / doctors’ calls to action
   MSF has publicly described that doctors in Gaza “face the devastating reality that they cannot stop genocide.” (MSF UK)

10. “Gaza’s healthcare system is being destroyed by targeted attacks” (The Guardian)

11. Doctors who visited Gaza speak of ‘atrocities,’ collapsing healthcare” (Reuters)

12. Healthcare collapse and disease spread: a qualitative study of challenges in Gaza strip
    Abuzerr, S., Zinszer, K., & Mahmoud, H. (2025). BMC Public Health (Open Access) — examines how the collapse of healthcare infrastructure is driving infectious disease spread in Gaza. (BioMed Central)

13. Barriers faced by primary healthcare providers in addressing emergencies in the Northern region of Palestine before and during the Gaza war
    Hamshari, S., Hamadneh, S., Ghneem, M. et al. (2024). BMC Primary Care (Open Access) — focuses on what primary healthcare providers are experiencing, before & during the genocide. (SpringerLink)

14. Resilience amid chaos: The role of Gaza medical points
    — from PMC (Open Access) — looks at “medical points” (mobile / temporary clinics) and how they function under severe shortage, damage, and conflict pressure. (PMC)

15. Rebuilding the health sector in Gaza: alternative humanitarian voices
    Blanchet, K., Najem, M., Shadid, L., et al. (2024). Conflict and Health (Open Access) — perspectives from humanitarian actors on how the health system can be rebuilt and what alternative / grassroots voices are calling for. (BioMed Central)

16. Defending the right to health in Gaza: a call to action by health workers
    Mohammed, F., Elgailani, U.S.A., Ibrahim Ali, S.Y., et al. (2024). Conflict and Health (Open Access) — health workers’ statement about the destruction of the health system, challenges, and what is urgently needed. (SpringerLink)

17. The Urgent Struggle for Health Justice in Gaza: A Crisis of Human Rights and Inequity
    Mansour, W., Theobald, S., Fouad, F.M., et al. (2025). International Journal of Health Planning and Management (Free Access) — an editorial framing Gaza’s situation as part of a broader struggle for health justice. (Wiley Online Library)

18. Critical care in Gaza amidst military pressure: the struggle of healthcare workers in Gaza’s Warzone
    — from PMC (Open Access) — detailed account of how critical care (ICUs, surgeries, anesthesia, etc.) is being impacted by conflict, blockades, hospital damage etc. (PMC)

19. Frontiers | The War on Gaza and Its Impact on Public Health: Challenges and Pathways to Recovery
    Al Bakri, Khader, Khatib, et al. (2025). Frontiers in Public Health (Open Access) — discusses present public health emergencies in Gaza and what pathways there might be for recovery. (Frontiers)

20. The cost of conflict: how war is crippling Gaza’s healthcare system
    Sajid, F. (2025). Egyptian Journal of Neurosurgery (Open Access) — letter-style piece detailing how war is affecting healthcare, capacity, infrastructure, etc. (SpringerOpen)

21. “Medicine is being strangled”: An MSF doctor on collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system. Médecins Sans Frontières. (2024). Doctors Without Borders.

22. Famine and disease escalate: Gaza’s humanitarian disaster. (2024). Annals of Medicine & Surgery.

23. Public Health Crisis in Gaza — The Responsibility of US-Based Academic Medical Journals. Ijaz, N., & Habib, A. R. (2024).JAMA Network.

24. Doctors for Global Health Statement on Gaza. Social Medicine.

25. As a Medical Student in Gaza, I Studied Malnutrition. Now It’s All Around Me. by Hend Salama Abo Helow Truthout (First-Person Essay).
    
    

Stay Connected:

• Follow us on Twitter: @habibtiblease and the habibti please instagram

• 🌳Our Linktree

• 💕Habibti Please is proud to be part of the Harbinger Media Network

Subscribe to Habibti Please on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Substack to keep up with future episodes, resistance reading lists, and conversations from the frontlines of feminist, abolitionist, and anti-colonial struggles. Habibti Please is a proud member of the Habinger Media Network, get weekly updates from Canada’s politically and socially progressive podcast community at Habingermedianetwork.com.

In this incisive episode, host Nashwa Lina Khan speaks with Canadian journalist Emma Pailing about how mainstream media in Canada—especially outlets like CBC—shape public understanding of Palestine and Israel.

With the Genocide in Gaza currently accelerating with mass starvation now compounding the daily killing it is vital to recognize how the dehumanizing language and double standards appear frequently in mainstream news coverage of Gaza, reflecting biased narratives and systemic narratives. Mainstream outlets often adopt dehumanizing frames when covering Gaza or censor to further the colonial project of empire. PR firms play a significant role in shaping public opinion behind the scenes by engineering consent and influencing media narratives to favor particular perspectives. Emma’s work has extensively covered this and media bias at CBC following October 2023 revealing whose voices are prioritized and whose are erased, highlighting disparities in coverage and representation.

If you appreciate the work we do please support groups like the Glia Project and the Palestinian Youth Movement’s weekly protests and listen to the last episode of Habibti Please Bearing Witness in Gaza: A Conversation with Dr. Sarah Lalonde.

Emma also broke a story on the surveillance, silencing, and repression of pro-Palestinian anti-genocide voices on Canadian campuses, illustrating the broader challenges faced by activists and educators advocating for justice especially given the settler-colonial existence of what we call Canada. While activists across social justice issues try to get organized, urban development, especially condo projects, are reshaping class dynamics and transforming grassroots organizing within cities, often reinforcing social inequalities. Nashwa and Emma then explore what a decolonial, anti-capitalist Canadian media landscape that would challenge these entrenched narratives, centering marginalized voices and emphasizing justice would look like. Both journalists and readers have a crucial role in demanding more accountability and integrity from our media institutions to foster truth and equity in public discourse.

With the genocide in Gaza accelerating—now marked by mass starvation alongside daily bombings—it’s vital to examine how mainstream Canadian media upholds systems of violence through dehumanizing language and double standards. From selective reporting to outright censorship, dominant outlets often reinforce colonial narratives that erase Palestinian life and struggle.

Public relations firms play a powerful, behind-the-scenes role in shaping public opinion—engineering consent and directing media narratives to align with state and corporate interests. In this context, journalism often serves empire rather than accountability.

A detailed investigation revealed how CTV/Bell Media banned the use of the word “Palestine,” framing it as “non-existent,” while disproportionately amplifying Israeli perspectives and sanitizing Palestinian suffering (Breach Media). Similarly, CBC’s The National showed stark imbalance in its post-October 7 coverage, featuring significantly more Israeli voices compared to Palestinian ones, often leaving Palestinians unnamed (Breach Media). Editorial policies at CBC have also been found to sanitize language around Palestinian deaths, avoiding terms like “murderous” or “brutal,” which are reserved only for Hamas (Breach Media). Adding to these media silencing tactics, Global News reportedly refused to air critical interviews that challenged Israeli policies due to pressure from pro-Israel lobby groups (Read The Maple).

Surveillance and repression extend beyond media, reaching into academic spaces. After a meeting between former Minister Selina Robinson and the UBC president, the Anthropology department was ordered to remove a statement condemning “genocidal violence in Gaza,” with warnings that political statements might bring liability, raising serious concerns about academic freedom (Breach Media).

While activists across social justice sectors strive to organize, urban development—especially condo-driven gentrification—reshapes class relations and disrupts grassroots networks. New reporting from Read The Maple details how Canada’s “condo class” has fragmented political organizing by displacing communities and weakening local power (Read The Maple).

Journalist Emma Paling has extensively covered these intersecting issues, including media bias at CBC following October 2023, and uncovered the surveillance, silencing, and repression of pro-Palestinian activism on Canadian campuses (Breach Media).

Together, Nashwa Lina Khan and Emma Paling explore what a decolonial, anti-capitalist Canadian media landscape might look like: one that challenges entrenched empire-aligned narratives, centers Indigenous, Palestinian, and other marginalized voices, and demands justice and accountability. Both journalists and audiences share the responsibility to push for media institutions that foster truth, equity, and meaningful public discourse.

Resources and Further Reading:

• Follow Emma Pailing on Twitter: @emma_pailing

Emma Paling – Selected Work

• Emma Paling's portfolio – A full overview of her published journalism and investigations.

• CTV’s racist double standards in Palestine coverage – An exposé on Bell Media’s internal censorship and disproportionate framing favoring Israel.

• Global News refused to air anchor’s reports on Israel – Reporting on internal silencing of critical voices within Canadian broadcast journalism.

• CBC avoids “murderous” language when Palestinians are killed – A critical look at editorial double standards and dehumanizing language at CBC.

• How Canada’s condo class disrupted political organizing – On urban gentrification and its impact on grassroots activism.

• Canada ramps up immigration enforcement while cooperating with ICE – A cross-border analysis of migration enforcement and its racialized consequences.

• Professors backing Palestine motions face alleged hack and legal intimidation – On repression of academic freedom and digital targeting.

• Canadian newspapers fail to disclose military experts' ties – Investigating conflicts of interest and lack of transparency in defense reporting.

• $95 million in Canadian military goods could flow to Israel by 2025 – A deep dive into arms exports amid ongoing genocide.

• Falsehoods about Palestine go unchallenged on Canadian talk radio – How unchecked misinformation fuels anti-Palestinian racism.

• Companies ask court to keep Israel export details secret – On legal attempts to block public access to export data.

• Emma Paling profile at Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) – Highlights her reporting on Palestine, media, and accountability.
  

  

When Genocide Wasn’t News

Check out When Genocide Wasn’t News — a powerful anthology from The Breach that exposes how Canadian mainstream media actively distorted, downplayed, or erased coverage of Israel’s assault on Gaza. Through essays by journalists and advocates, the book challenges the complicity of institutions like CBC and CTV, and uplifts the stories that were silenced.

Visualizing Palestine Is Worth Exploring

One resource that powerfully shifts narrative away from erasure and toward truth-telling is Visualizing Palestine. This organization uses data-driven visual storytelling to document the structural violence of settler colonialism, apartheid, displacement, and resistance in Palestine. Their work is rooted in research, yet rendered in accessible infographics and animations that challenge mainstream distortions—especially those deeply embedded in Western and Canadian media systems, as Emma Paling critiques.

At a time when Palestinian voices are either silenced or stripped of political context, Visualizing Palestine offers tools to make complexity legible. Their graphics are used by educators, grassroots organizers, faith groups, and student campaigns worldwide, and have reached over 26 million people in the past year alone. Their recently released book, Visualizing Palestine: A Chronicle of Colonialism and the Struggle for Liberation, is a beautiful and grounding archive that reflects over a decade of visual resistance work. It’s not just a resource—it’s part of a growing movement to reclaim how the story of Palestine is told to the world.

If we’re thinking about narrative power—what gets framed, what gets buried—then Visualizing Palestine is essential reading and viewing.

About Emma Pailing

Emma Pailing is a Toronto-based journalist and writer with a focus on geopolitics, media, and social justice issues. Her work explores international conflicts, media narratives, and the influence of corporations and governments in shaping public discourse. Emma has contributed to various outlets, including The Canadian Dimension, Middle East Eye, and others, where she critically examines issues such as Israel-Palestine, media bias, and Canada's role in global conflicts. She is dedicated to uncovering the stories often left out of mainstream conversations and amplifying marginalized voices.

Organizations Mentioned:

• Palestinian Youth Movement

• Labour for Palestine

• Health Workers Alliance for Palestine

Take Action:

• Share this episode with friends, colleagues, and comrades to push back against media bias.

• Support independent journalism and media reform efforts in your community.

• Stay loud about Palestine, censorship, and the need for truth-telling in Canadian media.

Note from Nashwa:

While this episode focuses on the role of Canadian media and PR in shaping public perception of Palestine, it's essential to also acknowledge the unprecedented violence faced by Palestinian journalists. Since October 2023, more than 230 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza — making it the deadliest war for journalists in modern history (Al Jazeera, Middle East Monitor). Many face starvation and targeted attacks while continuing to report (CBC, ABC).

We must also remember Shireen Abu Akleh, a veteran Al Jazeera journalist, whose killing remains a haunting reminder of the impunity with which Israel targets the press (The Guardian). Canadian media rarely covers these deaths — or does so with hesitation — despite their significance for press freedom and international law.

Stay Connected:

• Follow us on Twitter: @habibtiblease and the habibti please instagram

• 🌳Our Linktree

• 💕Habibti Please is proud to be part of the Harbinger Media Network

• Subscribe to Habibti Please on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Substack to keep up with future episodes, resistance reading lists, and conversations from the frontlines of feminist, abolitionist, and anti-colonial struggles. Habibti Please is a proud member of the Habinger Media Network, get weekly updates from Canada’s politically and socially progressive podcast community at Habingermedianetwork.com.
  
  

Production Credits:

Hosted by Nashwa Lina Khan

Art for Habibti Please by postXamerica

Production and Editing by Andre Goulet

Social Media & Support:

Support us on Patreon

Subscribe to us on Substack

A message written by MSF's Dr. Mahmoud Abu Nujaila before he was killed in a strike on Al-Awda Hospital on November 21, 2023. Palestine 2023 © MSF

In this episode of Habibti Please, Nashwa speaks with Dr. Sarah Lalonde in Monreal a Montreal-based emergency and family physician who recently returned from Gaza. Dr. Lalonde shares what she witnessed while working in the emergency department at the European Gaza Hospital amidst ongoing Israeli attacks—including the deliberate targeting of health workers, collapsing infrastructure, and the catastrophic impact on children.

Together, we explore what it means to bear witness, the emotional toll of working under siege, and how Canadian healthcare systems are complicit in global injustice. This episode is a continuation of our series on medical solidarity, following our previous conversation with Dr. Tarek Loubani of Glia.

We recorded this conversation on July 11th, 2025, in Montreal at Halte 24-7.

“Solidarity without cost is not solidarity.” – Dr. Sarah Lalonde

Sarah is a Montreal-based physician who recently returned from Gaza a few months ago where she joined a team of international medics working in the ruins of a healthcare system under siege. What she witnessed, what she lived through, is not just a humanitarian crisis—it is the architecture of genocide, laid bare.

There’s something haunting about the way Sarah describes a hospital that no longer functions as a place of healing, but as a site of mass death. About treating children whose bodies are broken not by rare diseases, but by bombs. About watching colleagues—nurses, surgeons, paramedics from afar—targeted and killed. In her words and in her silences, there’s a clarity: this is not a natural disaster or humanitarian crisis. It is a man-made horror.

Sarah also speaks to the impossible conditions that define what it means to be a healthcare worker in Gaza. To heal is to resist. But resistance can mean death. In that double-bind, neutrality is a lie—and the idea of “do no harm” becomes a radical, life-threatening commitment. Since October 2023, we've seen Canadian healthcare institutions fail to rise to this moment. Instead of standing up against genocide, they've punished those who do. We've seen students, nurses, residents, and physicians silenced, suspended, blacklisted. Meanwhile, those who justify or ignore the destruction of life go unchallenged. As Sarah reminds us, medicine has never been apolitical. You either uphold life actively—or you make peace with systems that end it.

As listeners, as comrades, as people who care, our work isn’t just to hear these stories—it’s to act on them. To connect Gaza to Canada. To understand that the siege abroad is mirrored by silence at home. That every institutional reprimand for speaking up is part of the same machinery.

Please consider sharing this episode. Talk to your colleagues. Interrupt the silences. Support groups like the Glia Project and the Palestinian Youth Movement.

Habibti Please is a proud member of the Harbinger Media Network. Get weekly updates from Canada’s progressive podcast community at harbingermedianetwork.com.

About the Guest

Dr. Sarah Lalonde (@dr.sarah.lalonde)

Dr. Lalonde is an emergency and family physician specializing in rural, remote, and community medicine, particularly within Indigenous communities. She has worked internationally with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Guinea, Albania, Togo, and Chad, and is recognized as Quebec’s provincial physician expert on human trafficking. In Gaza, she served at the European Gaza Hospital as part of an international medical mission.

Resources & Links

Previous Episode

→ Dr. Tarek Loubani on Glia, Open-Source Solidarity, and Gaza

Support Medical Work in Gaza

→ Glia – Global organization for low-cost, open-source medical tools
→ Donate to support Dr. Lalonde & Dr. Loubani’s ongoing work through Glia

🚢 Track the Flotilla

→ Follow the Freedom Flotilla & Dr. Yipeng Ge’s journey aboard the Handala
Freedom Flotilla Tracker

Related Reading & Reports

• Candians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East Factsheets

• Gaza’s Nasser Hospital will turn into ‘silent graveyard’ if siege and fuel shortage persist, doctors say

• 65 Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics: What We Saw in Gaza

Follow

• Dr. Sarah Lalonde – @dr.sarah.lalonde

• Dr. Tarek Loubani – @trklou

• Freedom Flotilla Coalition – freedomflotilla.org

💌 Call to Action

→ Donate if you can to medical missions and grassroots aid efforts like Glia
→ Share this episode with others who care about justice, healthcare, and solidarity.
→ Bear witness—listening is not passive. Let it move you to action.

Humanitarian & Community Aid:

• Islamic Relief Canada – Palestine Emergency Appeal

• Humanity Auxilium

• Palestinian Youth Movement

• Palestinian Youth Movement – Popular Cradle Podcast

• Support the Glia Project: Donate or amplify their open-source medical tools: glia.org

• Donate to frontline organizations: Support trusted orgs like Islamic Relief Canada, Doctors Without Borders and Humanity Auxilium

• Organize within your profession: If you're a healthcare worker, speak out, form collectives, and protect each other from institutional repression. Check out Health workers Alliance for Palestine

• Stay loud: Refuse silence in your classrooms, hospitals, unions, and friend groups. Silence is complicity. Check out Labour for Palestine

• Educate yourself: Study the roots of this genocide—settler colonialism, white supremacy, and global capitalism. Check out The Anti-Empire Project
  
  

Suggested Readings & Resources

This section provides some contextual readings and links to explore.

• Glia Project

• How Gaza’s doctors endure the impossible

• ‘My challenge for people is to see the children they love in the children of Gaza’

• Canadian doctors returning from Gaza hold a press conference in Ottawa – May 28, 2025

• How a doctor treated Palestinian victims of Israeli torture, with Sarah Lalonde

• Doctors returning from Gaza beg humanity to stop the carnage

• ‘We’re holding those dead babies with our hands’: Doctors returning from Gaza beg humanity to stop the carnage

• 'Appalled' Trudeau calls for inquiry after Canadian doctor wounded in Gaza - The Guardian

• Canadian doctor who works in Gaza makes 3D-printed face shields for COVID-19

• From Canada to Gaza, physician uses 3D printing to make medical face shields

• Tarek Loubani: 3D Printing High-Quality Low-Cost Free Medical Hardware

• ‘Shock and grief’ as senior doctor killed in Israeli airstrike in Gaza

• People in Gaza 'starve or risk being shot': NGOs urge end to aid work backed by U.S., Israel as deaths rise

• I’m in northern Gaza. I would rather starve than take GHF aid

• Marking a year of heartbreak: A letter from MSF USA chief executive officer Avril Benoît

On the Targeting of Canadian Healthcare Workers:

• Doctor suspended from U of O residency after pro-Palestinian social media posts

• 'Chilling effect': People expressing pro-Palestinian views censured, suspended from work and school

• ‘Abuse of power’: Hospitals, med schools crack down on Palestine advocacy

• Protect medical trainees from anti-Palestine bigotry in medical placement process!

• A List Of Some People In Canada Fired For Pro-Palestine Views

• OPINION: Ontario Nurses’ Association Must Speak Out Against Gaza Atrocities

Production Credits:

Hosted by Nashwa Lina Khan

Art for Habibti Please by postXamerica

Production and Editing by Andre Goulet

Social Media & Support:

Follow us on Twitter @habibtiplease

Support us on Patreon

Subscribe to us on Substack

Closing Song: Closing Song: Muhannad Khalaf - Allah M7yeh Falastin (2021) / مهند خلف - الله محيي فلسطين

Hi habibtis, and welcome back. In this episode, I sit down with Sean Orr—writer, musician, activist, and newly elected Vancouver City Councillor with COPE—for a conversation about politics, activism, and the urgency of global solidarity.

Sean shares his journey from Vancouver’s punk and arts scenes to becoming a sharp political writer and now, a municipal politician. We talk about the challenges of holding radical commitments while working inside political systems, and the complexities of balancing grassroots movements with electoral politics.

We also get into the social and political history of Vancouver, including gentrification, policing, and the Downtown Eastside and some reflections on global struggles against apartheid and fascism—from Palestine to local politics including the win of Zohran Mamdani in New York.

This episode also highlights the importance of not letting activism become abstract, the role of stories in movement-building, and how bringing humor and heart into political spaces can help engage new people without losing sight of the seriousness of the work.

I really loved this conversation—it felt honest, thoughtful, and full of the kind of political clarity we need more of right now. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Follow Sean Orr:

Twitter X: @seanorr
Bluesky: seanorr.bsky.social
Instagram: @seanorrofficial

READINGS

Reading group: AUTONOMIA, OCCUPY, COMMUNISM: LEGACIES AND FUTURES

Spill the Tea: Gentrification of Vancouver Chinatown

Vancouver’s Little Saigon Facing Gentrification?

Crackdown Podcast

From dishwasher and punk rocker to city councillor: Sean Orr’s unique path to City Hall

Sean Orr’s Writing

Some highlights from Sean’s Writing

On Rampaging White Men, Dummy Mayoral Candidates, and Even More Problems with the Police

Get to Know: Overdose Prevention Society

Barge Chilling Beach

On Gas Hoarding, House Hoarding and Finding A New Frequency.

Medicine Under Siege: Dr. Tarek Loubani on Gaza, Resistance, and Refusing Silence

In this episode of Habibti Please, Nashwa sits down with Dr. Tarek Loubani—emergency physician, humanitarian, and founder of the Glia Project—to talk about the politics of medicine in Palestine, and what it means to be a healthcare worker under siege.

Drawing from his over 15 years of medical work in Gaza, Tarek shares harrowing, deeply personal stories of treating patients in war zones, responding to mass casualty events, and witnessing the deliberate destruction of Palestine’s healthcare infrastructure. From the starvation of children to the maiming of protesters, this conversation offers a sobering look into the conditions Palestinians face daily—and the impossible choices doctors like him must make.

We also talk about the origins of the Glia Project, which produces affordable, open-source medical devices like tourniquets and stethoscopes—designed for use in the Global South and under blockade. For Tarek, creating these tools is not only about saving lives, but about resisting the imperial systems that profit from crisis.

We turn the mirror toward Canada, discussing the coordinated effort to silence healthcare workers speaking out for Palestine. From healthcare worker suspensions and other efforts to silence anti-genocide healthcare professionals, Nashwa and Tarek unpack the dangers of enforced neutrality, and the urgent need for medical professionals and the general public to reject complicity.

This episode is about medicine, yes—but also about ethics, empire, and what it means to stay human in inhumane systems. It is both a grief document and a call to action.

Suggested Readings & Resources

This section provides some contextual readings and links to explore.

• Glia Project

• How Gaza’s doctors endure the impossible

• 'Appalled' Trudeau calls for inquiry after Canadian doctor wounded in Gaza - The Guardian

• Canadian doctor who works in Gaza makes 3D-printed face shields for COVID-19

• From Canada to Gaza, physician uses 3D printing to make medical face shields

• Tarek Loubani: 3D Printing High-Quality Low-Cost Free Medical Hardware

• ‘Shock and grief’ as senior doctor killed in Israeli airstrike in Gaza

• People in Gaza 'starve or risk being shot': NGOs urge end to aid work backed by U.S., Israel as deaths rise

• I’m in northern Gaza. I would rather starve than take GHF aid

On the Targeting of Canadian Healthcare Workers:

• Doctor suspended from U of O residency after pro-Palestinian social media posts

• 'Chilling effect': People expressing pro-Palestinian views censured, suspended from work and school

• ‘Abuse of power’: Hospitals, med schools crack down on Palestine advocacy

• Protect medical trainees from anti-Palestine bigotry in medical placement process!

• A List Of Some People In Canada Fired For Pro-Palestine Views

• OPINION: Ontario Nurses’ Association Must Speak Out Against Gaza Atrocities

Humanitarian & Community Aid:

• Islamic Relief Canada – Palestine Emergency Appeal

• Humanity Auxilium

• Palestinian Youth Movement

• Palestinian Youth Movement – Popular Cradle Podcast

• Support the Glia Project: Donate or amplify their open-source medical tools: glia.org

• Donate to frontline organizations: Support trusted orgs like Islamic Relief Canada, Doctors Without Borders and Humanity Auxilium

• Organize within your profession: If you're a healthcare worker, speak out, form collectives, and protect each other from institutional repression. Check out Health workers Alliance for Palestine

• Stay loud: Refuse silence in your classrooms, hospitals, unions, and friend groups. Silence is complicity. Check out Labour for Palestine

• Educate yourself: Study the roots of this genocide—settler colonialism, white supremacy, and global capitalism. Check out The Anti-Empire Project
  
  

You can follow Tarek here and check out his site here. Subscribe to Habibti Please on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Substack to keep up with future episodes, resistance reading lists, and conversations from the frontlines of feminist, abolitionist, and anti-colonial struggles.

Production Credits:

Hosted by Nashwa Lina Khan

Art for Habibti Please by postXamerica

Production by Andre Goulet

Social Media & Support:

Follow us on Twitter @habibtiplease

Support us on Patreon

Subscribe to us on Substack

Editing Support by Nabeela Jivraj and Kalden Dhatsenpa

Closing Song: Dana Salah - Ya Tal3een (full version) يا طالعين

So, did you vote in the April federal elections? Maybe you did. It was supposed to be "the most important election of our lifetime ". A second question, then. What are your relations, responsibilities, and obligations?

These are anchoring questions for those who use the languages of progressivism, left politics, or community organizing when engaging with electoralism. Especially those who crib the language, such as those who have mutated the meaning of harm reduction to apply it to electoral politics.

I speak and write in many directions, intending to create a throughline about the imperative to honour our relations in a way that resonates and aligns with our politics and the world we want to build. With this piece, I attempt to hold space for the complexity of navigating settler systems without collapsing into their logics — and to weave in the kind of fierce clarity, principled refusal, and deep love that runs through the work of those who have taught me and will continue to do so.

These days, I am aware of the weight that many of us carry: the tension between participating in systems we do not believe in and our ongoing responsibility to one another beyond such systems. Here, decisions are made and responsibilities rendered. If you voted and claimed it was in the name of social justice, there is a reckoning to be had—a need to confront the contradictions between that choice and the systems it upholds.

The result of these attempts to grapple with the theories and practices of electoralism has made me reflect not just on the act of voting, but it has also reminded me that our politics, ethics, and solidarities must be rooted elsewhere. I think of Rudy's Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex. Our politics must be rooted in our relations, not institutions. In our actions, not our comfort. In our commitments, not our compliance.

When Language Travels

A few months ago, I had a small picnic with some friends from different walks of life, who now all organize together around arts and liberation. As we sat in Montréal's Little Portugal Park in the dark, sharing snacks, we began discussing the upcoming elections and wondered how, after 18 months of consciousness-raising, so much still remained that didn't make sense to us.

We talked about how people—regardless of how performative they were or how fluently they spoke the language of theory and liberation—were now, in this moment of elections, claiming to be doing grassroots community organizing or some iteration of it. However, in practice, what many of them were doing looked exactly like what their conservative counterparts were doing: canvassing, door-to-door campaigning, putting up signs, and mapping constituents.

We found ourselves asking: How is it that, despite all the language, theory, and performative politics, so many people were now claiming to engage in grassroots organizing—when, in practice, their actions mirrored those of conservative campaigns?

Art by Jay Soule aka CHIPPEWAR, Jay creates art under the name Chippewar which represents the hostile relationship that Canada's native people's have with the government of the land they have resided in since their creation.

Canvassing, door-to-door campaigning, putting up signs, and mapping out constituents—these are standard electoral tactics. When conservatives engage in them, we don't call it community organizing. However, when progressives engage in similar actions, there is often a desire to reframe these actions as inherently righteous or transformative—as if proximity to progressive values automatically changes the nature of the work, rendering it more righteous. It's like trying to force the sticky, messy batter of electoral politics—full of contradictions and compromises—into the mold of grassroots, community-built activism. But it just doesn't fit.

There is a tendency among social democrats and those newly identifying with the left to convince themselves that all the work they do is inherently radical or community-based. This often results in an insistence on attaching liberatory language—like "harm reduction"—to every political act, including electoral participation. We saw this clearly in the framing of voting as a moral imperative: campaigns proliferated that attempted to circle the square, promoting voting as a way to "do good" and offset systemic harm. But this logic often falls apart—it feels like throwing one's ballot into a pool of blood and hoping it cleanses something.

The Vote for Palestine campaign, while admirable and a meaningful intervention, existed within this complex tension. Its call for a two-way arms embargo and for Canada to recognize a Palestinian state was endorsed by only ten percent of incoming Liberal MPs—revealing a limit of moral persuasion in electoral politics. While the campaign is an important step, critics have pointed out that electoral strategies alone cannot deliver justice. In a media environment hostile to Palestinian liberation, these limitations risked overshadowing the broader goals of the campaign. That's why it is crucial to mobilize the growing number of people of conscience who are signing the anti-genocide pledge and organizing beyond the ballot box. The escalation of terror continues in Gaza, with The United Nations having declared that 14,000 babies could die within days if thousands of trucks filled with aid, including baby food, do not make it to Gazans. The situation continues to grow dire. We have to diversify on the ground beyond an electoral mindset.

While many still insist on viewing elections as a redemptive ritual of democracy, it's crucial to remain critical of what we're being asked to participate in and who we're being asked to trust. As scholar and writer Steven Salaita warns, "Be careful about nostalgia for a democratic polity that never was. Be careful about activists and organizations appended to the Democratic Party. Be careful about the podcasters who built an audience by caping for Bernie Sanders… Be careful about the next shiny young politician who comes out of nowhere to save us… Be careful about anything that tries to make a place for oppression in this world."

Salaita's words, though directed at U.S. audiences, resonate deeply in the Canadian context, where similar dynamics play out under the guise of multicultural tolerance and liberal benevolence. Here, too, activists are pressured to align with political parties that ultimately uphold settler-colonial logics; celebrities and influencers posture as progressive while soft-pedalling genocide; and electoral politics are held up as the only legitimate site of change. Others adopt activist language solely in corporate settings. What is all this rhetoric worth if it is constantly being used to channel our resources into institutions that were never designed to serve emancipatory aims. We are told to place our faith in institutional mechanisms that have consistently failed Black, Indigenous, and racialized communities—especially those who organize for Palestinian liberation. "Being careful" in this context must mean more than cautious participation. It must mean cultivating a discerning political practice that refuses to accommodate oppression under any banner, no matter how progressive it claims to be.

Attempting to take the dough of electoral politics to grow activism is like trying to make muffins out of pancake mix — the ingredients might seem familiar, but the structure, the intention, the outcome? Entirely different. Grassroots work rises in its own way. Electoral politics flattens it.

Electoral politics and grassroots activism may share some language (primarily due to the spread of DEI policy throughout workplaces via graduate-educated facilitators), but they don't speak the same dialect. One is built for containment, while the other is built for transformation.

Trying to cook with the messy batter of electoral politics is bound to fail. It is full of contradictions, compromises, and half-baked agendas. It cracks. It buckles. It was never meant to hold the fire of activism. Electoralism is a recipe built for repetition, not resistance.

After more than 20 months of consciousness-raising—and an endless stream of images that should haunt any feeling human—we are now being told that voting is the ultimate use of our voice. That to vote is to contest genocide. That voting is a radical act. It is framed as something big, moral, and novel—yet also as something simple, a 20-minute task. A routine part of being Canadian, without much critical examination of what "being Canadian" means or how inclusion in Canada hinges on others being excluded from it.

Elbows Up, Flags Out – Red, White, and Complicit: The New Face of Canadian Nationalism

In the context of the recent federal election, an overt evocation of "Canada First" sentiment has emerged—not just from the political right but also within the rhetoric of the New Democratic Party (NDP). During the election, Party leader Jagmeet Singh made repeated appeals to nationalistic themes, suggesting a shift in tone that aligns, even if subtly, with populist-nationalist undercurrents. Notably, Singh ultimately lost his seat and stepped down from party leadership—an outcome that raises questions about the political efficacy of adopting such rhetoric within a party traditionally aligned with internationalist, grassroots, and justice-oriented movements. A noteworthy example is found in an interview with the Toronto Star, where Singh relays, "To stop Pierre Poilievre, I put Canada before the NDP," a statement that underscores the prioritization of national identity over partisan loyalty (Toronto Star, 2025). This rhetoric was also present in a March 2025 post, captioned "Canada is not for sale. We're strong, and we'll never back down. #elbowsup," with text overlaid reading "Fight like hell for Canada" (Instagram). The framing positions Singh as a defender of Canadian values under threat, a narrative that mirrors nationalist tropes often employed by conservative leaders.

This messaging is further amplified on visual platforms. In a YouTube video, Singh declares, "Keep Canada, Canada," invoking themes of protectionism and national pride, and asserts it in different posts with variations of his line, "We are Canada. Strong. Proud. Free." (Instagram). A search through Singh's social media feed reveals a consistent emphasis on "Canada" as both a rhetorical and symbolic anchor in his more recent messaging (Twitter). These examples suggest that Singh is strategically engaging with a nationalist discourse, perhaps to counteract the populist appeal of his Conservative opponents while attempting to position the NDP as aligned with broader Canadian values and identity. This rhetorical shift reflects a broader trend in Western democracies where centre-left parties increasingly adopt patriotic or nationalist language—once considered the domain of the political right—as a way to reclaim national identity and counter far-right narratives.

A tweet from Singh claims that "Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives fired 1,100 border officers in one day," leading to increased gun smuggling and making "Canadians… less safe" (Twitter). While this appears to be a straightforward critique of Conservative austerity and public safety policy, it operates as a subtle nationalist dog whistle. By invoking the border as a point of vulnerability and linking reduced border enforcement to threats from gun smuggling, the message draws on securitized narratives typically associated with right-wing populism. These narratives frame national borders not just as administrative boundaries but as symbolic front lines against chaos, crime, and foreign danger—rhetoric often used to justify surveillance, xenophobia, and exclusionary policies (Mountz, 2010; Anderson, 2013).

Singh's tweet implicitly constructs a Canada under siege. It casts the NDP as its defender, signalling a rhetorical shift in which even centre-left actors adopt the logics of national security and territorial sovereignty to assert moral and political authority. This mirrors broader trends in Western democracies, where centre-left parties—facing rising right-wing populism—have increasingly adopted language that emphasizes law and order, national safety, and border integrity to maintain credibility among anxious electorates (Moffitt, 2016; Kenny, 2021).

Singh was not alone. Many caught Canada fever. One would go to the grocery store and be inundated with maple leafs and variations of marketing around products being "Canadian-made."

Singh's rhetoric demonstrates a form of emotive and symbolic statecraft wherein national security and border control become sites for constructing political legitimacy. In adopting tropes usually associated with right-wing populism—such as crime at the border and threats to Canadian safety—Singh participates in a broader shift wherein even centre-left leaders use nationalist cues to assert political authority and electoral viability.

Many are typically able to hold rigorous positions that are not rooted in belonging to a Canadian nation-state and fueling affective statecraft.

People who typically engage in land acknowledgements, express concern for undocumented people, and refer to themselves as "guests on stolen land" suddenly have been caught in the fervor or nationalism, posting like proud patriots. The Canadian flag — once a symbol many progressive people viewed with caution — has re-emerged in their posts and profiles. The satirical outlet Walking Eagle News headlined, "Indigenous Person Unsure if House with Canadian Flag in Window Belongs to` Freedom Convoy Supporter or Liberal" — capturing the unease many felt around the flag's evolving symbolism.

Since the 2022 Freedom Convoy, the flag has taken on new meaning, often signalling a form of conservative nationalism that is increasingly xenophobic. Even before the convoy, during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests and after the murder of George Floyd, some police officers and Canadians began dawning a version of the flag with a thin blue line — a contentious symbol widely seen as emblematic of systemic racism and a divisive "us versus them" mentality. This same symbol appeared throughout the Freedom Convoy protests, linking both versions of the flag to right-wing ideologies. In response, several Canadian police forces, including the RCMP, Ottawa Police, and Vancouver Police, banned officers from displaying the Thin Blue Line imagery while on duty, citing its erosion of public trust. And yet, since Trump's rise in the U.S. and more recently in Canada's last federal election, many people — including self-identified progressives — have embraced a version of Canadian patriotism that appears to contradict the very anti-colonial, anti-racist values they claim to uphold. The national flag is clearly a rallying point for a growing form of reactionary nationalism; why, then, would anyone claiming to be on the left rally around it as well?

This resurgence of patriotic symbolism among liberals and progressives reflects a more profound discomfort with ambiguity — a desire for a clear moral high ground, even if it means embracing symbols that have long been contested. The flag becomes a shorthand for "decency," "order," or "stability," even as it carries with it the legacies of residential schools, exclusionary immigration policies, police brutality, and ongoing colonial violence. In moments of national crisis — whether a global pandemic, an election, or international conflict — people reach for unifying images. But the Canadian flag is not neutral. Its red and white threads are stitched through with contradiction: multiculturalism and genocide, hospitality and detention, healthcare and hunger, a peaceful Canada that provides arms to a settler colony, a flag that is emblematic of a settler colony through and through.

What's revealing is how quickly people who once critiqued settler nationalism fall into patriotic performance when their sense of Canada feels threatened — not by injustice, but by the possibility of political instability or association with American-style right-wing extremism. This is not unlike the liberal embrace of military flyovers or the quick pivot to "we're all in this together" messaging during COVID — moments where nationalism gets sanitized and rebranded as compassion. This rebranding creates a hard facade to penetrate and have honest, necessary conversations.

For many Indigenous, Black, and racialized communities, the flag has not been a symbol of safety or unity. Its sudden reappearance in progressive spaces doesn't just feel out of place — it feels like erasure. It flattens the complex, painful relationships many have with the Canadian state, reducing decades of resistance and refusal to embrace a hashtag moment or a window decal.

This contradiction becomes even more stark when we consider how Indigenous communities have long used the Canadian flag not as a celebration but as a canvas of critique — of mourning, resistance, and refusal. In 2013, Colby Tootoosis carried an upside-down Canadian flag into the grand entry of a powwow, a direct intervention that sparked public backlash and police involvement. Tootoosis's act was not just a rejection of the flag's authority but a ceremonial reframing, turning a symbol of occupation into one of active distress and truth-telling. Similarly, artist Teresa Marshall's Elitekey (shown at the National Gallery of Canada's Land, Spirit, Power exhibition) placed a half-raised Canadian flag — with its maple leaf cut out — next to a figure in traditional dress with no visible body. Between them, a canoe symbolizes both hope and betrayal. The absence of the maple leaf and the fragmented bodies spoke to the violence of erasure, particularly in the wake of the 1990 Oka Crisis, where the Canadian military confronted the Mohawk Nation.

In other instances, the flag has been used to underscore specific national failures. Artist Karen Cummings' textile work, "Someone Knows," exhibited at the Okanagan Art Gallery, reimagines the Canadian flag using reclaimed fabrics. Its iconic white stripe is replaced with 122 quilted squares — each stitched with either a red thread question mark or the outline of a body — memorializing the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). Cummings forces viewers to confront how national identity is built on disappearance — not just of land, but of life.

These artistic and political acts push back on the sanitized nationalism that has resurged in recent years. They remind us that for many Indigenous people, the flag is not neutral — and never has been. It is a signal not of pride but of pain. And it is through its alteration, its defacement, or its reimagining that a more honest story of this land emerges.

There is a tension that exists where the act of voting is often framed as a core civic duty and a meaningful expression of political will; it's important to interrogate what voting alone can actually achieve—particularly in a moment marked by resurging nationalist sentiment. It is also necessary to remember that voting has not always been granted to all, even in the 2025 Federal election Nunavik had polling stations that opened late or not at all, highlight ongoing systemic barriers that disenfranchise Indigenous communities in Canada. Despite constitutional rights to participate in elections, logistical failures and lack of culturally responsive planning continue to undermine equitable access to the ballot box.

Despite the progressive rhetoric that characterized the previous political era, this election cycle revealed how easily such language can be co-opted or abandoned in favor of more exclusionary, regressive platforms. This dissonance between campaign promises and political outcomes underscores the limitations of voting as a tool for genuine change. It's not that voting is meaningless, but rather that its power is constrained when systemic issues—like nationalism, white supremacy, and economic inequality—remain unaddressed by those in power, regardless of party.

Mood Management is not Liberation - Against Political Cosplay

Here, I'm thinking of the many thinkers, peers, and lived experiences that have shaped my politics. One is Glen Sean Coulthard, who writes:

"I suggest that Indigenous peoples' individual and collective resentment — expressed as an angry and vigilant unwillingness to forgive — ought to be seen as an affective indication that we care deeply about ourselves, about our land and cultural communities, and about the rights and obligations we hold as First Peoples."

I hold this position in direct tension with those who enthusiastically support a Liberal or Social Democratic incumbent simply because they have signed a pledge or made a gesture toward progressive values. The reality remains: the Liberal Party has failed to end long-standing boil-water advisories and has made limited progress on the 94 Calls to Action outlined by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I go back to Rudy's call on us to be Accomplices not Allies.

As Patrick Wolfe reminds us:

"Settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure not an event. In its positive aspect, elimination is an organizing principle of settler-colonial society rather than a one-off (and superseded) occurrence." (from: Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native)

In Red Skin, White Masks, Coulthard pushes this further, reminding us that this is not only about political theory — it's a call to action:

"For Indigenous nations to live, capitalism must die. And for capitalism to die, we must actively participate in Indigenous alternatives to it."

So yes, vote — but do so with clarity. Know what you are doing, and just as importantly, know what you are not doing. Liberation does not happen at the ballot box. Use precise language. Do not let words drift and mutate into comfort — the act of voting is not more than it is, and we do ourselves a disservice when we pretend otherwise.

Fight against radical concepts and language that travel and mutate to self-soothe people who want the act of voting to be bigger or better than it is.

This contradiction isn't just about inconsistency — it reveals how hollow politics can become when divorced from sustained commitment. It's political cosplay: one day urging others to "vote like our lives depend on it," and the next day posting excerpts from Black Power or Pedagogy of the Oppressed, as if quoting radical theory can retroactively cleanse complicity with the status quo. The popular resurgence of a Kwame Ture quote this election — "You vote once in four years, and that's your political responsibility? That's the height of bourgeois propaganda…" — is a case in point. Too often, it's shared not as a provocation toward deeper organizing but as an aesthetic flourish—a kind of moral branding after a candidate someone liked has tanked or disappointed them.

In these moments, radical Black voices become content. The whole context of Ture's work — his deep critique of U.S. imperialism, his commitment to revolutionary struggle, and his rejection of liberalism — is flattened into a caption-friendly quip. This extraction is itself a kind of violence: the rebranding of revolutionary figures into mascots of the type of politics that ultimately reinforces the very systems they fought against. Just as the Canadian flag gets sanitized and reclaimed in moments of national insecurity, so too do radical legacies get reappropriated in moments of personal or collective political doubt — offered not as calls to action but as symbols of edgy self-awareness.

This isn't accountability — it's mood management. And it allows progressives to feel temporarily radical without risking anything: not their safety, not their relationships to power, and certainly not their national mythologies.

Not to the State, But to Each Other – What We Owe to Each Other

A few weeks ago, I reflected on my strong belief that voting is not harm reduction, nor is it apathy. It is a refusal to romanticize the mechanisms of empire and settler governance. It is a call to think beyond survival tactics that reinforce the status quo — the kind of survival that asks us only to endure, to minimize harm without ever confronting its root causes. This kind of survival keeps us trapped in cycles of compliance, asking only for less violence rather than imagining a world without it. The future we need will not be voted in; a statement from a government finally condemning genocide will not suffice.

During the 2016, 2020, and 2024 U.S. Presidential election cycles, a refrain echoed in certain activist and liberal idpol circles was: "We don't owe each other votes" or also "I don't owe people education." At first glance, this stance might seem like a call for respecting individual political autonomy or valuing disproportionate labour. But too often, it carried a condescending undertone—one that shut down collective accountability and erased the complexities of political solidarity.It was a refusal to engage with the sometimes uncomfortable work of building trust, sharing knowledge, and mobilizing communities together. The frameworks of refusing dialogue, shutting down questions, and framing relational and political work as burdensome are one that keeps us stagnant.

This attitude functioned as a kind of gatekeeping, a way to declare moral independence while simultaneously dismissing the very relationships that underpin effective activism and organizing.

By morally positioning certain level-of-education statuses as ones where you do not have to share knowledge, or see vote-sharing as debts to be withheld. These votes could translate into tangible rights for the most marginalized (think about those who smugly would not vote for Bernie Sanders and, by extension, universal healthcare in primaries because they wanted identity politics-based representation vis a vis a woman the majority of women cannot relate to but a professional managerial class of university-educated women could in Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris).

This stance resonated especially within a certain stream of Western, liberal-centric feminism that values self-preservation over collective responsibility and empowerment through personal choice over structural change. Here, refusal is stylized as resistance, and disengagement is misread as a radical boundary. But this form of politics rarely threatens power—it just recasts it in more palatable, individualized terms.

I do not dwell on this because it is one particular moment; I look at it as one version of paradoxically reinforced isolation and fragmented movements that occur in different iterations again and again. Rather than fostering spaces of mutual support, it produces a brittle individualism cloaked in the language of empowerment and identity—one that ultimately limits the imagination of what political responsibility can be.

For those who do vote — who feel a duty, a desperation, or a pressure to do so — that act cannot end at the ballot box. If voting is a tactic, it cannot become one's politics. Our politics must live elsewhere: in our communities, in our solidarities, in our refusals, in our visions. We must not confuse access to participation (arguably an act that does not render muchchange in Canada) with liberation itself.

To vote and do little after is to allow empire to frame the limits of your responsibility. It is to be pulled into its rhythms, its symbols, its ritual performances of change. For those who vote or who organize in electoral contexts, there remains an unshakable obligation — not to parties, not to politicians, not to the myths of representation — but to the people at the doors you canvass. To honour the word you gave people at the doors of their homes.

Our accountability is not just to abstract notions but to real people and real histories. We carry obligations to honour the lineages of resistance we come from and/or the politics we espouse. To honour our communities and communities we allegedly advocate for, especially those for whom voting was never an option — whether by law, design, or geography. To honour the land we stand on and those still fighting for its return.

Voting must be understood as an act bound by deep responsibility. The work does not end with a ballot. It only begins. We are responsible for what comes after — for staying vigilant, for telling the truth, for refusing to disappear the violence of the state when it is dressed in our chosen colors, in our ignoble flags.

For one, voting is not an exercise in power. In Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition,Glen Coulthard argues that as long as recognition is something granted by a dominant power to the oppressed, it cannot be a path to liberation. Recognition, in this model, is not mutual or reciprocal — it is conditional. It is always filtered through the lens of the settler state, which maintains the authority to validate or deny the legitimacy of Indigenous presence, culture, and governance; this concept can be extended, especially in this political moment.

This same logic is at play in electoral politics. Voting, as structured within a settler-colonial state, often masquerades as empowerment while reinforcing the very systems that disenfranchise. When participation is framed as recognition — when the state invites historically oppressed peoples to engage on its terms through its institutions — that participation becomes another form of containment. It binds our political imagination to the parameters of legitimacy defined by empire. Last year, I recall reading a tweet that cut through the noise: "Your voting fetish is limiting your imagination." That line was not just clever, but clarifying. This is a reminder that real political engagement begins where sanctioned participation ends.

As Coulthard notes, this model entrenches "the assumption that the flourishing of Indigenous peoples as distinct and self-determining entities is significantly dependent on their being afforded cultural recognition and institutional accommodation by the settler state apparatus." In other words, liberation is made contingent on recognition from the very system that suppresses it.

Applied to elections, this means that inclusion in the vote is not the same as inclusion in power — and certainly not in justice. It keeps us locked into the logic that our self-determination must be validated by a ballot, that our future is dependent on political cycles, and that freedom is something we can lobby for rather than something we must assert and build outside the terms of settler governance.

To vote within such a system can be strategic, but it is not emancipatory on its own. It must be accompanied by a refusal to mistake recognition for liberation and a commitment to building power and solidarity beyond the ballot box — in our communities, in our movements, and in the relationships to which we are accountable. Otherwise, we risk mistaking visibility for freedom and participation for transformation.

Audre Lorde reminded us that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." That means we must not be seduced by the idea that justice can be brokered within the architecture of the carceral state, the settler state, and the imperial state. These tools may rearrange power temporarily. They may offer a short-term reprieve. But they will not free us. And they were never meant to.

When we pretend otherwise, we betray the people who cannot afford our illusions. We betray those who live at the sharpest edges of the systems we try to reform. We betray those whose futures will not be protected by legislation but by resistance.

I fear a future where harm reduction, abolition, and community care become corporate language. Where mutual aid is funded by the same governments that withhold welfare. Where liberation frameworks are absorbed into electoral platforms and sold back to us as policy. Where decolonization becomes a metaphor instead of a demand.

Voting, especially in that context, becomes a tool of pacification — a strategy of co-optation. And yet, some of us will still vote. So, if we do, we must carry the weight of that choice with integrity. We must refuse to let it soften our tongues or dull our analysis.

We owe nothing to the state, but everything to each other. To the people who are still under siege, who are still locked up, who are still mourning, who are still resisting. Our solidarity must be fierce and unswerving, even — especially — when it is unpopular.

We do not want inclusion. We want transformation. We do not want representation in violent systems. We want to end those systems. The futures we imagine cannot be legislated into existence. They must be built. And they will be — not by politicians, but by people who have the courage to name the truth and the commitment to live by it.

These obligations cannot be cast on a ballot and never will be. It must be carried in our hands, in our actions, in our refusal to be silenced or softened.

This is one of the responsibilities we must carry after. Not to the state. Not to the spectacle. But to each other.

Towards and for the unfinished work of liberation. To futures, we may never see, but we must still protect.

Voting, as above mentioned in this way and within the current context, becomes revealed as a tool of pacification and a strategy of co-optation.

And yet, some of us will still vote.

If we do or you do, we must carry the weight of that choice with integrity. We must refuse to let it soften our tongues or dull our analysis.

We must keep speaking about Palestine.

About Black liberation.

About Indigenous sovereignty.

About disability justice.

About the worlds we are trying to build — not manage and ask for accommodations.

Because what we owe is not to the state but to each other.

Vote Out Loud, No Quiet Ballots

Witnessing the results of the 2025 election, it's clear that many voted against Poilievre rather than for a particular vision.The anti-conservative sentiment ran so deep that the NDP lost party status — a historic blow. In riding after riding, traditional NDP voters went red.

There's a recurring opinion among organizers that it can be easier to build resistance when the opponent is clearly defined — the "devil you know" logic. I agree; since the election, I've found myself in rooms and conversations with people who claim to hold pro-labour, anti-war, New Democrat values — and who nonetheless voted Liberal.

This dissonance was strikingly reflected in a recent Stripper News video, where two individuals awkwardly stumbled from expressing concern for Palestine to justifying their Liberal vote on the basis of personal interest.

What we're seeing is a pattern of secretive, conflicted voting — the kind that explains how the Liberals, polling at 20% just weeks before, managed to leap to nearly 40%, securing a best-scenario minority government that looks and acts dangerously close to a majority.

This is the tension of the quiet ballot — unspoken, unaccountable, and yet with very loud consequences.

Human rights attorney, scholar, and author of Justice For Some Noura Erakat addressed this same tension during the 2024 American election.

She tweeted:

"Progressives voting Harris need to be public about it & include some sort of pledge to disrupt the system (resign en masse, go on strike…) if she doesn't deliver embargo, ceasefire in first 100 days.

Secretly voting 4 'better organizing conditions' w/o an imperative is inadequate.

Doing it to 'avoid things getting worse' pretends like it's not already the worst for Palestinians enduring annihilation — and for those of us racialized in the U.S. as terrorists, enemies of the state, sleeper cells, enduring violence, doxxing, loss of employment, deportation.

So, if voting for Harris is your position — own it loudly and connect it to your self-imposed accountability.

Make a pledge — don't vote and disappear. Vote, take the front line, and sacrifice — make good on your theory of change."

We can carry the same principle here.

If we vote, it must not be quiet.

It must not be secretive or ashamed.

It must be accompanied by a public, visible, unrelenting commitment

to act, to refuse, to disrupt, to honour our solidarities.

Because what we owe is not to the state but to each other.

Politics is every day. It's not just a vote or sharing a quote over an image in a 24-hour story. It's the slow, continuous, often uncomfortable work of unlearning, connecting, and resisting — not in the name of branding or taking a selfie with a vote sign, but of liberation.

Otherwise, we risk laundering our participation into complicity.'

• Big gratitude to Kalden and Nabeela for being extra eyes and ears, humouring all of my ideas and thoughts I want to unravel in words.

Some Works Referred to:

Anderson, B. (2013). Us and Them? The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Control. Oxford University Press.

Coulthard, G. S. (2014). Red skin, white masks: Rejecting the colonial politics of recognition. University of Minnesota Press.

Mountz, A. (2010). Seeking Asylum: Human Smuggling and Bureaucracy at the Border. University of Minnesota Press.

Moffitt, B. (2016). The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation. Stanford University Press.

Kenny, M. (2021). "The rise of progressive patriotism in British politics." The Political Quarterly, 92(2), 178–185.

Rudy. (2014) https://www.indigenousaction.org/accomplices-not-allies-abolishing-the-ally-industrial-complex/

Salaita, S. (2024, May 4). Care and carefulness in today's United States. https://stevesalaita.com/care-and-carefulness-in-todays-united-states

Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 387–409.https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520601056240

Production Credits:

Written by Nashwa Lina Khan

Production by Nashwa Lina Khan and Andre Goulet

Essay Editing by Kalden Dhatsenpa and Nabeela Jivraj

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In this episode, Nashwa speaks with Danaka Katovich, a national co-director at CODEPINK, about global anti-war organizing, challenging U.S. imperialism, and building anti-war movements from the ground up. The conversation explores Danaka’s work supporting campaigns against U.S. military intervention in Yemen, Iran, and Palestine, as well as her reflections on international solidarity, grassroots activism, and the current threats to peace.

Together, Nashwa and Danaka reflect on their respective trips to Cuba, what they learned from the Cuban people, the movement to end the war on Yemen, sanctions, and how to get involved even when one might be feeling disengaged or that it’s hard to make a difference.

This episode was recorded before the Freedom Flotilla but we feel that it is important to highlight what the flotilla reveals about the risks—and necessity—of global solidarity work. You can find some interesting reads in the shownotes.

Guest Bio:

Danaka Katovich is the national co-director of CODEPINK. Since 2018, she has been organizing to end U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen and challenging U.S. sanctions and military aggression in the Middle East and beyond. Her writing has appeared in Jacobin, Salon, Truthout, and CommonDreams.

Further Reading & Resources:

Danaka wittingly points to how media literacy is a muscle, we have to work it out. We really hope you do work it out, with some selected readings you will find below.

This Week’s Curated Reading List:

Liberation, Resistance & Feminist Critique of Empire

Revolution, Uprising & the Limits of Liberal Reform

Vincent Bevins – If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution

A comprehensive and compelling analysis of global mass protests from 2010–2020, examining why many failed to achieve lasting change.

• Read the full book on Internet Archive

• Listen to an audiobook excerpt on SoundCloud

• Vincent's Site With some Articles

• Vincent's Substack

Frantz Fanon – The Wretched of the Earth

A foundational text in anti-colonial thought, exploring the psychological and political impacts of colonization and the necessity of decolonization.

• Read the full book on Internet Archive Another link to download the book

Feminism, Islam & Decolonizing the “Rescue” Narrative

Lila Abu-Lughod – Do Muslim Women Need Saving?

A critical examination of Western narratives that portray Muslim women as needing liberation, challenging simplistic assumptions.

• Read more about the book here

Saba Mahmood – Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject

An ethnographic study of women's mosque movements in Egypt, challenging liberal feminist notions of agency and secularism.

• Read the book here

Lila Abu-Lughod (ed.) – Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East

A collection of essays rethinking modernity and gender in the Middle East, resisting Western feminist frameworks.

• Download the PDF here

Empire, Imperialism, Resistance & Knowledge Production

Leila Ahmed – Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate

A comprehensive historical analysis of Islamic thought and colonialism's impact on gender discourses.

• Yale University Press

Angela Davis – Women, Race & Class

A classic work analyzing the intersections of gender, race, and class in the U.S., from slavery to the women's liberation movement.

• Read the book here

Other Readings

• Edward Said – Culture and Imperialism

• Helen Yaffe – We Are Cuba!: How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World

• Noura Erakat – Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine

• Isa Blumi – Destroying Yemen: What Chaos in Arabia Tells Us About the World

• Che Guevara – Colonialism is Doomed

• Joseph Massad – Islam in Liberalism

Current Events & the Gaza Freedom Flotilla

• CODEPINK’s Statement on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Attack

• CODEPINK’s Latest Update on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla

• Why Was a Gaza 'Freedom Flotilla' Ship Attacked? | The Take – Al Jazeera

• Gaza-Bound Freedom Flotilla Attacked in International Waters – Democracy Now!

• Organizers Say Ship Carrying Aid for Gaza Hit by Drones Near Malta – The Washington Post

• About the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition
  

Danaka Katovich’s Work & Writing

• Danaka Katovich's Articles on Truthout

• “The Drone War You Don’t Hear About” – Truthout

• Jacobin: Cancel the F-35 Program and Replace It With Nothing

• CommonDreams: “Biden Must End U.S. Support for the Blockade on Yemen”

• Congress, Do Your Job, End US Support for the War in Yemen – Common Dreams

• Why is the U.S. Bombing Yemen? A Short History – CODEPINK Video
  

CODEPINK’s Campaigns for Peace & Sanctions Relief

• CODEPINK’s Campaign to End the Cuba Embargo

• CODEPINK’s Campaign to Lift Sanctions on Cuba

• Ontario Code Pink Chapter

• Download Code Pink Resources

Subscribe, rate, and review to support the show—and follow @CODEPINK on Twitter/X for updates.

In this episode of Habibti Please x Deathnography, we’re asking what voting even means anymore? Canada just had the highest advance voter turnout in history — with over 7.3 million ballots already cast. This new record speaks to something in larger Canadian society but in all honesty, for us, the vibes feel more like collapse than hope.

As e-day approaches this Monday, we were compelled to make this episode because of the deep weirdness of the “Elbows Up” Canada energy right now: tariffs, carbon taxes, immigration panic, wild anti-Trudeau/Trump energy, but also the sense that electoralism inside a settler colony doesn’t actually offer a way out.

We start with a vibe check: why is turnout up? Fear, anger, dread — not necessarily belief in change. Are we being gaslit into feeling like voting is meaningful, even when everything points to systemic collapse?

We get into the real question: does Canada even deserve to be saved? What are we voting for — reform? Harm reduction? And why is voting not harm reduction despite many arguing that it is. Or just legitimizing a settler colonial project? There’s real ethical tension about participating in a system that is actively involved in genocide, imperialism, and ongoing harm.

We talk about Jagmeet Singh being the only leader saying things that sound reasonable right now — but is that enough?

Is it giving "Obama knew Edward Said" vibes? Did he have the right tools all along and only step up now – or just another case of performance politics where representation masks deeper harms?

We witness a longer mapping and analysis of Singh and the party’s stance, we cite Yves Engler’s thread on Singh raising the genocide during the French Federal debate.

The NDP question is messy: is voting for them useful, useless, or actively bad? What do we do when our local candidate (like Clare Hacksel) is actually good — pro-Palestine, willing to use words like “genocide”? How do we balance local wins with provincial and national betrayals?

We get into the Vote Palestine Pledge and why it’s complicated. Some sus people are on it, but it’s still a political litmus test that's hard to ignore. We unpack critiques of strategic voting, symbolism, and what it means when "voting for Palestine" gets reduced to a checkbox.

Finally, we ask: what are the limits of electoralism in a settler colony? Is voting just giving consent to a system that’s already broken? How do we respond to the argument that “it’s privileged not to vote”? And if electoralism isn’t enough (which it isn’t), what are we actually building outside of it?

We end on some reflections about how to live your politics daily — not just in a ballot box. How to make space for grief, anger, and clarity. How to move beyond voting into something real, rooted, and lasting.

Thanks for joining the show! And happy voting or not voting.

Production Credits:

Hosted by Nashwa Lina Khan, Henry Lee, and Shah

Art for Habibti Please by postXamerica

Production by Nashwa Lina Khan and Andre Goulet

Shownotes support by Nabeela Jivraj

Social Media & Support:

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This week on Habibti Please, we're joined by Niall Clapham Ricardo — jurist, activist, and New Democratic Party candidate for Papineau. Niall and I first crossed paths on a cold January night outside Parc station, remembering the victims of the Quebec mosque shooting. Since then, I’ve gotten to know him not just as a political voice, but as a deeply thoughtful friend and community member.

In this episode, we talk about what it means to show up — on the campaign trail, in the courts, in the streets, and at birthday parties. Niall shares how his personal background shapes his advocacy, the stakes of talking about Palestine as a Jewish voice, and why he's choosing to run in a riding as complex and storied as Papineau — the one once held by Justin Trudeau.

This episode is about the messy, meaningful work of showing up — in politics, in movements, in community, and in friendships. Together with Niall, we begin to unpack:

• Electoralism, especially in the context of settler colonialism, what do terms like “harm reduction” and “strategic voting” really mean — if they mean anything at all?

• Is strategic voting actually strategic — or just another trap? In the context of electoral politics within a settler colonial system, how meaningful — or empty and harmful — are concepts like harm reduction and strategic voting? We conclude there is no value in lacking precise language or being tepid.

• How buzzwords from social justice spaces are being absorbed (and often diluted) in the world of electoral politics.

• Trade union stories and the future of labour

• Legal advocacy and international human rights work

• The riding of Papineau and what people are really saying at the doors

• Revolutionary love, hope, and being a present friend in the middle of it all

• Visions of the “good life” and what it takes to create a world where everyone can thrive.

• Friendship, political clarity, and holding onto hope in deeply uncertain times.

From Parc Station to Papineau our friendship and origin story of meeting at a protest imbue the episode. As community organizers who do believe that activism starts in our communities and home we know the importance of how friendship is meant to expand and challenge one’s desire for a better world and a good life. With this spirit, this set of shownotes features readings that are from the thinkers Niall references in the episode - they were curated around themes of abolition, revolutionary love, Indigenous Resistance & global struggles for justice.

Niall reminds us to always laugh. Something everyone fighting to build a better world should weave into their engagements.

Some pictures of the campaign moment, with moments of laughter, joy, and a fight for a good life and better world together.

Guest Bio:

Niall Clapham Ricardo is a jurist practicing in Tiohtià:ke / Mooniyang / Montréal. He formerly served as the Francophone spokesperson for Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) and is currently the NDP candidate for Papineau. Niall’s work spans labour, legal, and international human rights struggles — and is grounded in deep relational care, solidarity, and a commitment to justice from the ground up.

Follow Us:

Habibti Please — wherever you get your podcasts

Hosted by Nashwa Lina Khan

Produced by Andre Goulet at Harbinger Media Network

Editing Support from Nabeela Jivraj

Reading List from talking with Niall:

Reading List inspired from my chat with Niall and the thinkers that inspire him.

1. Lula - Live a Good Life

• Letters to Lula in prison tell story of Brazil’s ‘invisibles’
  
  

• “Lula Is Right About Israel’s Genocide in Gaza” – Jacobin
  
  

• “Lula’s Victory Is a Testament to Solidarity” – Jacobin
  
  
  

2. Angela Davis

• Are Prisons Obsolete? – Full PDF

• The Meaning of Freedom: And Other Difficult Dialogues ( A selection)

• Angela Davis: 'Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world'

• On Transnational Feminist Solidarity: The Case of Angela Davis in Egypt
  
  

3. Noura Erakat

• Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (Stanford University Press)

• Nothing Will Ever Be the Same Again

• Race, Palestine, and International Law

• "A Campaign of Genocide": Noura Erakat Speaks to Ta-Nehisi Coates About Israel's War on Gaza

• Can the ICJ Survive Israel's Genocide on Gaza?

• Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine with Professor Noura Erakat

4. Enzo Traverso

• The End of Jewish Modernity

• Historian Enzo Traverso: Israel Is Using the Memory of the Holocaust to Justify Genocide in Gaza

• The End of Jewish Modernity

• Enzo Traverso on Fascism, Marxism and Israel

• Germany’s Reckoning With the Past Is No Longer a Model An interview with Enzo Traverso

• No, Post-Nazi Germany Isn’t a Model of Atoning for the Past

5. Che Guevara on Love & Revolution

• The Che Reader

• Socialism and Man in Cuba
  
  

• Che Guevara on Love, Injustice, Revolution, and Socialism.

6. Ellen Gabriel

• Over 30 Years of Indigenous Resistance with Mohawk Land Defender Ellen Gabriel
  
  

• Ellen Gabriel and the ‘watershed moment’ that was the Siege of Kanehsatà:ke

• Ellen Gabriel: to imagine a better world, we must challenge colonialism

• Short Documentary: Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance
  
  
  

7. James Baldwin

• The Fire Next Time

• No Name in the Street

• A Talk to Teachers

• Jimmy’s Blues and Other Poems

A Niall Clapham Ricardo Reading List (in brief)

Niall’s work as a legal thinker and activist is also reflected in his published writings, particularly in Pivot, where he offers critical perspectives on international solidarity and systemic racism in Québec.

• De militants à candidats : Papineau, Spinoza et le NPD – Radio Canada/CBC (2025)

This week Radio-Canada profiled Niall, they write on his life as a Jewish Montreal activist and member of Independent Jewish Voices, his advocacy for Palestinian rights while challenging the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism. The piece also highlights how activists like Ricardo are turning their community engagement into political candidacies—such as in the Papineau riding—to promote social justice and international solidarity.

• De l’Ukraine à Gaza : qui a le droit de se défendre ? – Pivot (2022)
  A compelling argument on the double standards in international law and media narratives surrounding self-defense and state violence.

• « L’islamophobie n’existe pas », mais elle tue – Pivot (2023)
  A searing critique of how Islamophobia is dismissed in public discourse while continuing to harm communities in Québec and beyond.
  

• See all of Niall’s contributions at Pivot

The liberal uses the radical's language to achieve the conservative's aim: the preservation of the capitalist system, and the traditional ethnic/racial hierarchy within society.

— Manning Marable

​​Language is a minefield. It has significant influence on how we think and what we believe. So remember to be CRITICAL.

— Mohammed El-Kurd

Before I began writing this, I wanted to simply say — with no footnotes or caveats — that voting is not harm reduction. This election cycle, I’ve been struck by the wave of voices, some well-meaning and some opportunistic, declaring the opposite. What’s most concerning isn’t just the statement itself, but how it co-opts the language of harm reduction — language rooted in struggle, mutual aid, and community care — and repackages it in service of a liberal electoral project.

Harm reduction is not metaphor (yes this is indeed a play and hommage to Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s Decolonization is not a Metaphor (2012)). It is not a catchphrase to be hauled out every time there is an election to soothe collective disillusionment of voting as an act that creates change and is not part of reifying systems we should oppose. It is a radical practice that emerged from queer, Indigenous, Black, disabled, and poor communities — people navigating state neglect, carceral violence, and medical abandonment. It has always been about survival in spite of state systems, not thanks to them.

To invoke harm reduction as a reason to vote — particularly within the current settler colonial, carceral, capitalist context — is a disservice to the people who built harm reduction from the ground up. It rebrands electoral participation as a life-saving act, while leaving the state’s own role in manufacturing harm largely unexamined.

Election cynicism is okay, and election pessimism is a must. We have witnessed genocide, the mass eviction of encampments, unfulfilled promises to end boil water advisories, relentless violence against land defenders, and corporate partnerships with grocers, among countless other injustices.

In Canada, the invocation of harm reduction in electoral discourse often masks the state’s ongoing role in producing the very harms communities are supposed to vote against. From the Liberal government’s repeated funding of arms to settler colonial regimes, to its failures in addressing the opioid epidemic, to the empty promises of reconciliation while pipelines are forced through Indigenous territories — the gap between policy and practice is cavernous. Yet, each election cycle, we are told that voting for the “lesser evil” is a form of care. This logic flattens the violence of Canadian statecraft, and erases the work of those who build resistance outside of Parliament — Indigenous land defenders, disabled organizers, Black harm reduction workers, and migrant justice collectives. In Canada, like elsewhere, voting is not harm reduction. It is, at best, a delay. At worst, it is complicity repackaged as care.

Harm Reduction is Rooted in Refusal

Harm reduction originated from and was influenced by social movements and grassroots strategies that took shape in the 1960s to 1980s (Harm Reduction Coalition, n.d.). These strategies were not aligned with state systems — they were often in defiance of them. Syringe exchanges and safe consumption spaces didn’t arise from policy memos; they emerged from urgent survival needs, from communities that knew no one else was coming to save them.

To say voting is harm reduction is to imply that voting is an act of care and resistance on par with these grassroots interventions. It is not. It will never be one.

It might be a tactic, it might be a tool, and for some, it might feel necessary. But it is not a substitute for organizing, for community care, for mutual aid, for direct action. And it should never be marketed as such.

Audre Lorde warned us that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” This is a quote people love to use in social movements and for good reason yet the minute there is an election for some it dissipates. Voting, often framed as the most accessible tool of democracy, is one such tool — designed within and for the architecture of the same systems many of us seek to unmake, undo, and unravel. When we’re told that voting is the only way to create change, we’re being asked to build liberation with instruments crafted to sustain empire. Lorde reminds us that true transformation demands different methods, different dreams — ones rooted in radical imagination, not assimilation.

On Co-optation and Language

Marable's insight—"[t]he liberal uses the radical's language to achieve the conservative's aim: the preservation of the capitalist system, and the traditional ethnic/racial hierarchy within society"—remains crucial. Time and again, we have seen language evolve and distort as it moves through different contexts.

The liberal project has long relied on absorbing the aesthetics and rhetoric of resistance. It packages abolitionist demands as reform, feminist ethics as branding strategy, and now — harm reduction as voting strategy. In each case, the effect is the same: defanging the radical edge of community practices to reinforce the very systems they sought to dismantle.

There’s a responsibility that comes with language — especially language that holds historical, embodied weight. So here are a few questions I offer to those using activist and organizing language in the name of “getting out the vote”:

• Would those who fought for these words — through grief, resistance, and collective action — be okay with how you are using them now?
  
  

• What does it mean when language forged in syringe exchanges, underground clinics, mutual aid collectives, and occupied streets is used to justify supporting a settler-colonial, carceral state?
  
  

• How are you honouring the histories and communities that shaped these practices? Or are you flattening them to ease your own discomfort?

I look also to Edward Said here, personally I encourage people to look to Said’s other work and writings.

Homonationalism, too, began as a sharp critique of how queer identities were folded into state power and militarism, but has since become flattened in some circles into a marker of being “acceptably gay” in Western terms. Even Orientalism, originally a critique of imperialist knowledge systems, has traveled in strange ways—sometimes invoked to defend nation-states built on slavery, oil, and displacement. Language, like theory, shifts meaning as it moves—especially during elections, when radical terms are softened, emptied, or wielded in the service of maintaining power. As Suren Pillay writes, “the challenge is to hold on to the specificity of [a theory's] initial interventions… while we simultaneously put it to work in other places, at other times, for different uses.” The task now is not just to track these shifts, but to ask who benefits when theory is emptied of its teeth. How do we ensure organizing language does not stray too far?

What Futures Do We Imagine?

To insist that voting is not harm reduction is not apathy. It is an insistence on clarity. It is insistence on precision. It is a refusal to romanticize the mechanisms of empire and settler governance. It is a call to think beyond survival tactics that reinforce the status quo. It is a yearning for a politics that does not start and end at the ballot box. It is a desire to name precisely what voting is and is not.

The future we need will not be voted in — it will be built, slowly, deliberately, together.

I fear a future where, like DEI and other attempted interventions, harm reduction and other collective language and offerings travel to spaces that are electoral and corporate. Where our language of care is sanitized and weaponized, used to uphold the very systems we sought to dismantle.

We are not interested in symbolic gestures or performative politics. We are invested in reimagining and rebuilding — not branding — our liberation. The futures we imagine are rooted in refusal, in relation, and in responsibility to one another. They do not live in ballot boxes or campaign slogans. They live in our mutual aid, our joy, our land back, our abolitionist dreaming, our disruptions of extractive logic, our everyday acts of interdependence.

We close with no finality, only a beginning: a commitment to keep imagining futures that do not ask us to trade in our values for temporary safety. Futures that are ungovernable by colonial desire. Futures that are truly ours.

Reading List: Voting Is Not Harm Reduction – Critical Indigenous and Left Perspectives

1. Voting is Not Harm Reduction: An Indigenous Perspective (Zine)
   A radical zine by Indigenous Action dissecting the limits of electoral politics and the narrative of voting as harm reduction. It explores how settler colonial structures persist regardless of who's in office and calls for direct action and self-determination.
   
   

2. Audio Zine: Voting is Not Harm Reduction (Podcast)
   A narrated version of the above zine — great for folks who prefer listening. Offers the same sharp critique in audio.
   
   

3. Voting is Not Harm Reduction: A Student’s Viewpoint – The Carletonian
   Alé Cota writes on the disillusionment of youth and BIPOC voters within a U.S. university context.
   
   

4. Is Voting Really Harm Reduction? – Briarpatch Magazine
   A thoughtful counterpoint from Canadian publication Briarpatch, questioning but not entirely rejecting the harm reduction framing of voting. This piece invites readers to have nuance and broader strategy discussion.

In this exciting comeback episode of Habibti Please, we dive into the intersections of technology, capitalism, and social justice with special guest and friend of the show Paris Marx—a leading tech critic, author, and host of the acclaimed podcast Tech Won’t Save Us.

In this episode, Paris shares the story behind Tech Won’t Save Us—what inspired him to start the podcast in 2020 and how the conversations have evolved since. We also explore how gig platforms like Uber and DoorDash are reshaping the labor market. Are stronger labor protections the answer, or is a complete overhaul needed?

We dig into the future of work and discuss whether governments are ready to handle the social and economic impact of automation and artificial intelligence. Paris also speaks to which policies could change Big Tech’s growing influence.

We also examine how surveillance technology plays a role in occupation, genocide, and other fascist suppression with a focus on Gaza and occupied Palestine, Pegasus spyware, and Israel’s use and export of surveillance tools abroad. We discuss how to push back against the normalization of these practices, and can governments ever truly strike a real balance between privacy and public interest?

Throughout, Paris highlights why collective, community-driven solutions are essential to building more equitable futures.

Join us for a thought-provoking conversation about the power dynamics in tech and what it will take to build a better future.

Readings that accompany this episode:

Forensic Architecture tracks surveillance of activists and journalists by Hakim Bishara (2021).

The Technology of Occupation Has Become One of Israel’s Main Exports by Antony Loewenstein (2023).

Tools to Explore and read about:

Understanding Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for CUPE Members (2023)

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) has created this guide to help members understand the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace. It highlights both the opportunities and risks associated with AI, including issues like workplace surveillance, discrimination, and the acceleration of work processes. The guide emphasizes the importance of union involvement in shaping AI's role in public services to protect workers' rights and enhance job quality.

​​

Information on Shutdown of the Mobile Justice App

The ACLU has announced that the Mobile Justice app will be discontinued on February 28, 2025, due to evolving privacy laws and concerns over surveillance technology. For a decade, the app has been a critical tool for documenting police encounters. While the app is shutting down, the ACLU continues its work in police accountability, protest rights, and public safety. Find Know Your Rights resources, legal advocacy efforts, and ways to get involved through ACLU’s website.

Secure Communication & Encryption

• Signal – End-to-end encrypted messaging, voice, and video calls.

• Session – Decentralized, anonymous messaging app.

• ProtonMail – Encrypted email service based in Switzerland.

• Jitsi Meet – Secure, open-source video conferencing.

• Element – Secure, federated messaging using the Matrix protocol.

Anonymous Browsing & Online Privacy

• Tor Browser – Anonymizes web browsing and hides your IP address.

• Brave – Privacy-focused browser with built-in ad and tracker blocking.

• DuckDuckGo – Search engine that doesn’t track you.

• Tails OS – A portable, live operating system that leaves no digital trace.

Anti-Surveillance & Digital Security

• ObscuraCam – Removes metadata and blurs faces in images.

• Haven – Turns your phone into a motion-sensitive security device.

• Umbrella – Security guidance for activists, journalists, and human rights defenders.

• Calyx VPN – Free VPN from a nonprofit privacy group.

• Riseup VPN – VPN for activists, provided by the Riseup collective.

Counter-Surveillance & Digital Investigation

• ProofMode – Cryptographic timestamps for verifying photos and videos.

• Maltego – OSINT tool for network analysis and data mapping.

• OSINT Framework – Open-source intelligence tools for digital investigations.

Protest Safety & Documentation

• Security in a Box – A comprehensive guide to digital security for activists.

• Holistic Security Manual – A guide to physical and digital security for activists.

Guest Information:

Guest of the week: Paris Marx

Check out Paris’ show Tech Won’t Save Us

Check out Paris’ newsletter Disconnect

Production Credits:

Hosted by Nashwa Lina Khan

Music by Johnny Zapras and postXamerica

Art for Habibti Please by postXamerica

Production by Nashwa Lina Khan and Andre Goulet

Social Media & Support:

🎧 Listen Now: Wherever you get your podcasts! (spotify/apple)

📬 Subscribe: Habibti Please Substack

✨ Support Us on Patreon

🐦 Follow Habibti Please on Twitter: Habibti Please

🐦 Follow Nashwa Lina Khan on Twitter: Nashwa on twitter

🌳Our Linktree

💕Habibti Please is proud to be part of the Harbinger Media Network

This week Habibiti Please is focused on a favorite topic of the show: disarmament. Nashwa and Geneviève host Jeremy Corbyn in advance of Selling Death: Why the International Arms Trade Must be Controlled, an upcoming event hosted by Egypt Watch and Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project. Join Jeremy Corbyn at the event on Saturday, July 17th, 2021, at 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time and 4 p.m. London time here.

We discuss the Peace and Justice Project, an initiative that works to bring people together for social and economic justice, peace, and human rights in Britain and across the world.

This episode explores the arms trade and why we must move towards disarmament. The international arms trade fuels forever wars, bloody occupations, and the military-industrial complex. The detritus of war and occupation will linger long after militaries leave the countries they ravage. As this episode highlights, COVID-19 serves as a canary in the coal mine; a warning for how things can only get worse if change does not happen now. A virus cannot be nuked, yet the rush to create and sell arms from the imperial core has continued without challenge even during the pandemic. 

The Corbyn Peace and Justice Project illustrates why domestic and international problems and injustices cannot be separated. We also explore how we build solidarity beyond borders and across communities. 

This episode also draws links between the arms trade, the climate crisis, and other ongoing struggles, including the growing number of refugees. Industrialists selling weapons and war promoters are akin to the mythical hydra, where chopping off one head sprouts another. This hydra is a monster, directly supported by Western governments. And blowback is to be expected. Continued death and destruction fuelled by the imperial core through tradecraft will have global consequences,

Forward-looking movements are needed now. Join Egypt Watch and Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project for Selling Death: Why the International Arms Trade Must be Controlled this Saturday on July 17th. We look forward to seeing you there. Now, more than ever, we must stand in solidarity to stop our governments from funding mass death throughout the world. 

Head over to thecorbynproject.com/armscontrol to sign up for Saturday’s event. 

Habibti Please is proud to be part of the Harbinger Media Network and we are grateful to partner with Canadian Dimension on this episode.

Organizations to check out: 

Egypt Watch 

Egypt Watch is a media services company based in London and was founded in 2019 by Osama Gaweesh, a well known Egyptian journalist and TV Presenter.

Their mission is to put Egypt under the international spotlight and to raise global awareness about the declining situation in Egypt; to advocate for freedom of press, for human rights, and for upholding democracy. 

Corbyn Peace and Justice Project 

An organization founded by longtime activist for social justice and former Labour party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to bring people together for social and economic justice, peace, and human rights, in Britain and across the world.

The Event

Selling Death: Why the International Arms Trade Must be Controlled

War is big business. The international arms trade is worth hundreds of billions, and arms deals brokered by the rich and the powerful continue to extend human misery around the world. 

The UK is the world’s second-largest arms exporter in the world, fuelling conflicts like the war in Yemen which has claimed a quarter of a million lives to date. 

We must come together across borders and backgrounds to fight back against this economy of war and suffering, and demand real security for all. 

The Peace and Justice Project is proud to support Egypt Watch’s upcoming event: Selling Death: Why the International Arms Trade Must be Controlled, an international conference that aims to shed light on the horrific abuses of the arms trade, and help build a movement to fight back. 

Join the event on Saturday July 17th, 2021, at 11 am Eastern Standard Time and 4pm London time, and sign up now.

Additional Resources:

Some resources that complement this episode: 

• Boris Johnson is leading the UK into an even greater COVID catastrophe by Paul Rogers

• Unions must stand united to end Canada’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia by Simon Black

• WESCAM controversy highlights double standards in Canadian arms controls by Lital Khaikin 

• 100 million Egyptians at risk of going thirsty by Osama Gaweesh

Guest Information 

Guests of the Week: Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn served as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2015 to 2020, and has represented Islington North since 1983. He is a lifelong campaigner for peace and justice, holding roles in the Anti-Apartheid Movement, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and Stop the War Coalition.

As Labour leader, he oversaw the development of a comprehensive programme to rebuild the UK economy, transfer wealth and power from the few to the many, tackle poverty and division, put Britain at the forefront of confronting the climate emergency, and pursue a peace and rights-based foreign policy.

Jeremy received the Gandhi International Peace Award in 2013 and the Seán MacBride Peace Prize in 2017.

Co-hosted by Geneviève Nevin

Originally from the West Coast, Geneviève Nevin (she/her) is a white Ashkenazi settler based in Montréal (unceded and unsurrendered Kanien’kehà:ka territory) where she is a community organizer and JD/BCL candidate at McGill University. Geneviève is passionate about politics and social justice and is actively involved in movements for migrant rights and Palestine solidarity, particularly within the Jewish community, as the former Membership & Fundraising Coordinator with Independent Jewish Voices Canada. Geneviève was also one of the organisers behind the successful Palestine resolution at the 2021 NDP Convention which called for a ban on illegal Israeli settlement products as well as an arms embargo against Israel until Palestinians are free. 

Production Credits:

Hosted by Nashwa Lina Khan 

Show Music by Johnny Zapras and postXamerica

Art for Habibti Please by postXamerica and Canadian Dimension

Production by Canadian Dimension

Production Assistance by Geneviève Nevin, Nashwa Lina Khan and Canadian Dimension

Social Media & Support:

Follow us on Twitter @habibtiplease

Support us on Patreon

Subscribe to us on Substack

This week Habibiti Please is focused on a favorite topic of the show: disarmament. Nashwa and Geneviève host Jeremy Corbyn and Paul Rogers in advance of Selling Death: Why the International Arms Trade Must be Controlled, an upcoming event hosted by Egypt Watch and Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project. Join Jeremy Corbyn, Paul Rogers, and Geneviève at the event on Saturday, July 17th, 2021, at 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time and 4 p.m. London time here. 

We discuss the Peace and Justice Project, an initiative that works to bring people together for social and economic justice, peace, and human rights in Britain and across the world.

This episode explores the arms trade and why we must move towards disarmament. The international arms trade fuels forever wars, bloody occupations, and the military-industrial complex. The detritus of war and occupation will linger long after militaries leave the countries they ravage. As this episode highlights, COVID-19 serves as a canary in the coal mine; a warning for how things can only get worse if change does not happen now. A virus cannot be nuked, yet the rush to create and sell arms from the imperial core has continued without challenge even during the pandemic. 

The Corbyn Peace and Justice Project illustrates why domestic and international problems and injustices cannot be separated. We also explore how we build solidarity beyond borders and across communities. 

This episode also draws links between the arms trade, the climate crisis, and other ongoing struggles, including the growing number of refugees. Industrialists selling weapons and war promoters are akin to the mythical hydra, where chopping off one head sprouts another. This hydra is a monster, directly supported by Western governments. And blowback is to be expected. Continued death and destruction fuelled by the imperial core through tradecraft will have global consequences,

Forward-looking movements are needed now. Join Egypt Watch and Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project for Selling Death: Why the International Arms Trade Must be Controlled this Saturday on July 17th. We look forward to seeing you there. Now, more than ever, we must stand in solidarity to stop our governments from funding mass death throughout the world. 

Head over to thecorbynproject.com/armscontrol to sign up for Saturday’s event. 

Habibti Please is proud to be part of the Harbinger Media Network and we are grateful to partner with Canadian Dimension on this episode.

Organizations to check out: 

Egypt Watch 

Egypt Watch is a media services company based in London and was founded in 2019 by Osama Gaweesh, a well known Egyptian journalist and TV Presenter.

Their mission is to put Egypt under the international spotlight and to raise global awareness about the declining situation in Egypt; to advocate for freedom of press, for human rights, and for upholding democracy. 

Corbyn Peace and Justice Project 

An organization founded by longtime activist for social justice and former Labour party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to bring people together for social and economic justice, peace, and human rights, in Britain and across the world.

The Event

Selling Death: Why the International Arms Trade Must be Controlled

War is big business. The international arms trade is worth hundreds of billions, and arms deals brokered by the rich and the powerful continue to extend human misery around the world. 

The UK is the world’s second-largest arms exporter in the world, fuelling conflicts like the war in Yemen which has claimed a quarter of a million lives to date. 

We must come together across borders and backgrounds to fight back against this economy of war and suffering, and demand real security for all. 

The Peace and Justice Project is proud to support Egypt Watch’s upcoming event: Selling Death: Why the International Arms Trade Must be Controlled, an international conference that aims to shed light on the horrific abuses of the arms trade, and help build a movement to fight back. 

Join the event on Saturday July 17th, 2021, at 11 am Eastern Standard Time and 4pm London time, and sign up now.

Additional Resources:

Some resources that complement this episode: 

• Boris Johnson is leading the UK into an even greater COVID catastrophe by Paul Rogers

• Unions must stand united to end Canada’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia by Simon Black

• WESCAM controversy highlights double standards in Canadian arms controls by Lital Khaikin 

• 100 million Egyptians at risk of going thirsty by Osama Gaweesh

Guest Information 

Guests of the Week: Jeremy Corbyn and Paul Rogers

Jeremy Corbyn served as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2015 to 2020, and has represented Islington North since 1983. He is a lifelong campaigner for peace and justice, holding roles in the Anti-Apartheid Movement, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and Stop the War Coalition.

As Labour leader, he oversaw the development of a comprehensive programme to rebuild the UK economy, transfer wealth and power from the few to the many, tackle poverty and division, put Britain at the forefront of confronting the climate emergency, and pursue a peace and rights-based foreign policy.

Jeremy received the Gandhi International Peace Award in 2013 and the Seán MacBride Peace Prize in 2017.

Paul Rogers is an Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University. He is a biologist by original training, lecturing early on at Imperial College and also working as a senior scientific officer in government service in East Africa.   For the past forty years, he has worked on international and environmental security and has written or edited thirty books.  He is International Security Advisor to Open Democracy.

In the late 1990s, he wrote Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century, which was years, if not decades, ahead of its time, anticipating the 9/11 attacks and the twenty-year war on terror that follows. A new edition has just been published updating and expanding the analysis. It looks forward to the 2030s and 2040s as the decades that will see a showdown between a bitter, environmentally wrecked, and deeply insecure world and a possible world order rooted in justice and peace. You can order the updated edition here.

Co-hosted by Geneviève Nevin

Originally from the West Coast, Geneviève Nevin (she/her) is a white Ashkenazi settler based in Montréal (unceded and unsurrendered Kanien’kehà:ka territory) where she is a community organizer and JD/BCL candidate at McGill University. Geneviève is passionate about politics and social justice and is actively involved in movements for migrant rights and Palestine solidarity, particularly within the Jewish community, as the former Membership & Fundraising Coordinator with Independent Jewish Voices Canada. Geneviève was also one of the organisers behind the successful Palestine resolution at the 2021 NDP Convention which called for a ban on illegal Israeli settlement products as well as an arms embargo against Israel until Palestinians are free. 

Production Credits:

Hosted by Nashwa Lina Khan 

Show Music by Johnny Zapras and postXamerica

Art for Habibti Please by postXamerica and Canadian Dimension

Production by Canadian Dimension

Production Assistance by Geneviève Nevin, Nashwa Lina Khan and Canadian Dimension

Social Media & Support:

Follow us on Twitter @habibtiplease

Support us on Patreon

Subscribe to us on Substack

Two weeks ago hundreds of police officers and parapolice descended upon Trinity Bellwoods park in Toronto to violently evict the residents living there, displacing people from their homes and severing communities. Toronto has been cruel and brutal to the people living in this city. The austerity measures put in place using the pandemic as an excuse for imposing cruelty will not suddenly dissipate after the pandemic “ends.” It is important to note how the pandemic continues to ravage other places in the world. Many are under the illusion that it is near the end because of the inequitable global vaccine rollout and apartheid. While companies thrived, many have died. 

This episode was done in collaboration with the Encampment Support Network (ESN) in Toronto. We worked with Charlotte, an outreach volunteer with ESN. We discussed the evictions at Lamport Stadium that took place in May which involved a bulldozer to forcibly remove residents. 

Throughout the pandemic Encampment Support Network Toronto has provided help for people in encampment sites. Right now in the city, there is increasing pressure to re-open, and we must reckon with what reopening and “back to normal” means for those most disenfranchised. 

Public officials informed the “general public” to socially distance, while at the same time pushing unhoused people to live in crowded shelters and shelter hotels where the virus was spreading and killing. There are a number of obscene contradictions like this that reveal how people in power intentionally make others live in deplorable conditions to die.

The lives of unhoused people do not matter to Mayor John Tory and downtown City Councillor Joe Cressy. Although many have known this for far too long, it has again become blatantly obvious this week. Who we let live and who we let die speaks volumes about our society and cities. Depredation and violence by capitalists and the governments that back them were fully demonstrated viscerally throughout the pandemic and should not be surprising. The pandemic again brought this out revealing sores in the underbelly of Toronto brought about by austerity measures. Entire populations are subjected to death and disease by choice. 

Laid bare by the pandemic are the conditions which have always existed for those marginalized by the state. Capitalism is functioning as it should be, and the pandemic has only accelerated its efficiency. The proliferation of narratives by people like high-ranking public servant Brad Ross claiming the park was “dirty” continues to push the selective disposal of human beings. They want you to imagine that people who live in encampments are unclean but also disposable; not worthy of public space or full lives.  As Zoë Dodd posted, “people are not garbage.”

As Dodd and many others have pointed out these were people’s homes. 

Dodd also reminds us how violence is a spectacle and more specifically how words like “safety” are weaponized against those who are cash poor. Parks are public spaces and necessary. Parks are a space of life, however, the City appears to only want some to enjoy parks while others must be dispossessed of public space. 

As Alex V. Green reminds us, parks are a site and space for so much life. 

The violent clearing events at Trinity Bellwoods serve as a harbinger. Austerity and privatization are in full effect as the means with exterminism as the goal. It is reasonable to expect that the new austerity and security measures are here to stay “post” pandemic. The city attempted media rehabilitation after images of the full force of their violence turned public opinion against their immorality,  claiming there were public health issues and that people in the encampment were offered housing. This is false: only one individual was offered housing. It is important that we cut to the truth and do not cast doubt on the City of Toronto’s violence and injustice by their spin and narratives. 

This episode highlights how encampments are an alternative for so many and the reasons behind that. It also speaks to the work Encampment Support Network Toronto is doing. This episode discusses the tactics deployed by the city, police, and para-police. It also highlights how people can and do care for each other.

In these moments, it is also vital to connect our discontents. We will continue to bear witness to evictions and mutations of evictions. It is necessary that we understand the global nature of clearing people. There is creative destruction in so many urban environments, but also an urbanization that has cultivated a specific desire for a specific class of citizen that the nation desires. Here, it is the rich who are desirable. 

It is impossible for low-income and marginalized populations to live in cities or centers of cities. Pulling from Henri Lefebvre, it is a necessity to think about who has the right to the city, the right to everything urban life offers. We deserve cities that offer life to all residents. These discontents should never neglect this struggle globally. Presently in Silwan village in East Jerusalem, thousands of Palestinians are losing their homes and even being forced to destroy their own homes. 

Capitalism, white supremacy, and fascism yield a massive graveyard. Criminalizing poverty is a war on people. The war on drugs is a war on people. Only through connecting our oppressions will we move forward. We do all owe each other so much, and so many deserve so much better.

This is a free episode, but we hope people who are able to consider donating to groups in the mutual aid section of the shownotes. We also hope people support Idle No More, other Indigenous organizations, movements, and people in their calls to #CancelCanadaDay. You can learn more here. 

Habibti Please is proud to be part of the Harbinger Media Network, this episode was graciously edited by executive director Andre Goulet. The Harbinger Media Network is working towards building a left media ecosystem in Canada and we urge you to check it out if that’s your thing! We are also grateful to partner with Canadian Dimension.

Mutual Aid & Community Support:

Although this episode is not paywalled we would deeply appreciate it if people would share or give (if able to do so) to any of the causes or groups listed below. 

The Encampment Support Network Toronto (ESN)  is an ad-hoc, volunteer-run network supporting people living in encampments in 6 locations throughout Toronto. This includes ESN Parkdale, ESN Trinity Bellwoods, ESN Scadding Court, ESN Moss Park, ESN LNP, and ESN Cherry Beach. We advocate for better conditions in encampments, report on city conditions and activity in encampments, and advocate for long-term permanent housing for people in their communities of choice. ESN also collects and compiles feedback from residents to support our advocacy efforts and continues to pressure the city to develop real solutions to the housing crisis. The only way to provide effective support and find solutions is by listening to and centring the needs of people experiencing homelessness.You can support their work here. 

website:https://www.encampmentsupportnetwork.com/

instagram: https://www.instagram.com/esn.to.4real/

twitter: https://twitter.com/esn_to

youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0ZLEEETJXZtA4kSv6W7qJA

This Way Up Collective is a group of queer and trans BIPOC youth that are on the ground providing mutual aid. Taken from their website: “our goal is to actively engage the communities that we are a part of and fill in the gaps wherever possible. We support encampments, youth in shelters, and anyone in need via care packages, weekly hot meal drops, and community arts programming.” * they are one of the groups that have been helping provide meals to encampment residents and doing amazing work. You can support their work here. 

website: https://www.thiswayup.ca/

instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thiswayupcollective/

Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction (TIHR) emerged in April 2020 during the first wave of the COVID19 pandemic in response to a massive shutdown of frontline services and a lack of basic needs for Indigenous houseless folks in the city of Toronto. Over the past year, we have provided basic needs, access to critical health support & covid 19 testing, harm reduction supplies, sexual, reproductive health and prenatal support, traditional medicines, traditional food, expressive arts, and ceremony to some of our most vulnerable people. TIHR aims to reduce the negative impacts of substance use and other stigmatized behaviours and experiences through culture and unconditional support. TIHR is an entirely queer and Two-Spirit Indigenous collective founded by Nanook Gordon, co-led by Brianna Olson Pitawanakwat and Lua Mondor, and supported by Dashmaawaan Bemadzinjin (They feed the people) and countless volunteers.

To date they have served over 3,000 meals to the encampments and Indigenous street folks. You can support their work here.

website: https://www.torontoindigenoushr.com/

facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TorontoIndigenousHarmReduction

instagram: https://www.instagram.com/torontoindigenousharmreduction/

Additional Resources:

Some resources that complement this episode: 

• Take action with the #NoEncampmentEvictions toolkit

• ESN Toronto Newsletters

• We Are Not the Virus Podcast

• Fixing the housing crisis will mean treating shelter as a right—not a commodity by David Moscrop

• Eviction at Trinity Bellwoods repeats history by Cathy Crowe

• Demolishing Palestinian homes for an Israeli religious theme park by Al Jazeera

Guest Information 

Guests of the Week: Charlotte Smith of Encampment Support Network Toronto

Charlotte is an outreach volunteer with the Encampment Support Network in Toronto, Ontario. 

The Encampment Support Network Toronto (ESN)  is an ad-hoc, volunteer-run network supporting people living in encampments in 6 locations throughout Toronto. This includes ESN Parkdale, ESN Trinity Bellwoods, ESN Scadding Court, ESN Moss Park, ESN LNP and ESN Cherry Beach. We advocate for better conditions in encampments, report on city conditions and activity in encampments, and advocate for long term permanent housing for people in their communities of choice. ESN also collects and compiles feedback from residents to support our advocacy efforts and continues to pressure the city to develop real solutions to the housing crisis. The only way to provide effective support and find solutions is by listening to and centring the needs of people experiencing homelessness.

Production Credits:

Hosted by Nashwa Lina Khan 

Show Music by Johnny Zapras and postXamerica

Art for Habibti Please by postXamerica

Production by Andre Goulet

Production Assistance by Charlotte Smith, Ali McKnight, Nashwa Lina Khan, and Canadian Dimension

Social Media & Support:

Follow us on Twitter @habibtiplease

Support us on Patreon

Subscribe to us on Substack

In this episode, Nashwa and Ryan sit down with Andrea Horwath, MPP for Hamilton-Centre and the Leader of the Official Opposition New Democrats. ** Please note this episode was recorded in mid-March** Nashwa and Ryan contextualize this episode with an extensive pre-show- if you do not want to listen to the pre-show please forward this episode to the interview that begins at around 26 minutes. 

In this interview Nashwa and Ryan wanted the audience to learn more about Andrea and the Ontario New Democrats. This episode focused on provincial issues such as the vaccine rollout. The rollout continues to be a disservice to Ontarians as many have witnessed egregious lines at pop-ups and people rely on a community-driven twitter feed for information about the vaccines. Ryan and Nashwa also ask about the Ontario NDP’s launch of the Green New Democratic Deal. 

Although this was recorded during phase two and we are now in phase three the rollout remains disjointed and inequitable. As a podcast project, we are constantly thinking about a world beyond electoral politics and hope for electoral politics with teeth that go beyond platitudes. This is why we asked about the Ontario NDP’s stance and their policy paper produced in the Summer of 2020. You can find the NDP policy paper referenced here: End Police Violence. Invest In Black, Indigenous And Racialized People’s Lives. An Ontario NDP Commitment To Action. 

Ryan wraps up by asking an evergreen question about the future of the Ontario NDP, how the base is being built, and how the provincial party plans to retain power. 

During the pre-show, Ryan and Nashwa discuss the current state of so many political issues throughout Ontario and why we want Ford out. While we vehemently recognize and acknowledge the limitations of electoral politics we hope this episode presents an alternative to the Ford Conservatives. 

Last week Doug Ford’s Conservatives rammed through Bill 307. For the entirety of the pandemic, there was no urgency for an adequate paid sick days plan, to stop COVID evictions, to roll out an accessible vaccination program, to redress long-standing issues throughout the Long-Term Care system, and so much more. The list of moments throughout this pandemic that were urgent for so many Ontarians and not prioritized by Ford Nation are quite obvious. 

At the same time, we are witnessing a burgeoning fascist movement in Ontario and throughout Canada. We have been experiencing a rising unchecked white supremacy grow in Canada, overlapping with the anti-mask conspiracy parades. We fear that as Canada “goes back to normal” hate crimes will inevitably increase (terminology that frankly requires its own reckoning and further complexity). 

This contingent, which was emboldened after Donald Trump’s election as well as the general acceptance of far-right hate speech in Canada's political discourse has been left entirely unaddressed. The Ford government is part of this. With cabinet members like Merrilee Fullerton and friendships with people like Charles McVety it is rather clear that this is a government that is friendly to bigotry. 

Bill 307 was rammed through last week after courts had deemed it unconstitutional because it unjustifiably violated Ontarians’ right to freedom of expression – in particular affecting this important right during elections. Instead of appealing the decision, the Ford government invoked s. 33 of the Charter: the Notwithstanding Clause. The legal rule is an emergency tool governments can use to override certain Charter rights, even after a court deems a law unconstitutional. This tool has never been used in Ontario because invoking the Notwithstanding Clause means that a policy is going to violate fundamental civil liberties. This shows just how far Ford will go to achieve his political goals.

Regardless of where you fall politically, even if you are beyond electoral politics, Ford’s time in office has been devastating for activists and organizers throughout the province fighting like hell to keep people safe and alive. From his austerity cuts and right-wing populism, the racist dog whistles he has used to signal that he's on the side with the white supremacists, Ford needs to go. 

In Ontario, one could describe the current electoral political arena as something like the Sanders versus Trump showdown that never materialized in the US. With decades of Liberal governments neglecting Long-Term Care, destroying our public services, and so much more, the NDP finally holds a position as the official opposition in a way they previously have not. 

We have less than one year to get the Ford government out of office, but we can also dream far beyond that. We are very cognizant of the limitations of electoralism, as we've expressed on many occasions on this podcast, but it is also important to recognize multi-method action. We can and should be principled while also knowing that there is flexibility and multiple fronts we must organize on and counter. 

** Please note this episode was recorded in mid-March**

* This episode was recorded before Nashwa began her role at the Ontario NDP.

Mutual Aid & Community Support:

Although this episode is not paywalled we would deeply appreciate it if people would share or give (if able to do so) to any of the causes or groups listed below. 

Last week has been and will continue to be hard for myself (Nashwa) and the team so I will keep this brief. I will try to better address the murder of multiple generations of the Afzaal family in London Ontario at another time but for now, I am trying my best to be there for my community and help organize. I have been asked to share this page for financial support of the 9-year-old son who was left orphaned and injured. 

I keep this podcast mostly free. I know my listeners are generous people who care about this world and so if you are able to give we urge you to give to the remaining member of the Afzal family, Faez Afzaal. From the team and I, Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un to multiple generations of the Afzaal family. We will keep you in our hearts and continue to fight for a world that does not paper over the vile settler colonialism and xenophobia that is the bedrock of what we know as Canada. 

Guest Information 

Guests of the Week: Andrea Horwath, MPP for Hamilton-Centre and the Leader of the Official Opposition New Democrats.

Andrea Horwath

Andrea Horwath is the Leader of the Official Opposition New Democrats. From her early career in community development to today, she’s always believed that government should be about giving people the opportunity to build a good life no matter where in Ontario they live, or when this province became home.

Born and raised in Hamilton, Andrea was elected to Hamilton City Council in 1997, then as the MPP for Hamilton-Centre in 2004. In 2018, Andrea led her party to become the Official Opposition – the largest Official Opposition in a generation. Today, half of the members of her MPP team are women, they represent ridings from every region of the province, and together they’re reflective of the diversity of Ontario.

She’s a leader who believes in proposing positive solutions, especially when it comes to ending hallway medicine, giving seniors better care and supporting public schools so they can give kids a great start. She’s fighting for good jobs, and a more affordable life.

She’s an Ontarian, a mom, a Hamiltonian and she’s running for premier in 2022.

You can find Andrea’s online on her website, on twitter, on facebook, and on instagram.

Production Credits:

Hosted by Nashwa Lina Khan and Ryan Deshpande 

Show Music by Johnny Zapras and postXamerica

Art for Habibti Please by postXamerica

Production by Canadian Dimension 

Production Assistance by Ryan Deshpande and Nashwa Lina Khan

Social Media & Support:

Follow us on Twitter @habibtiplease

Support us on Patreon

Subscribe to us on Substack

Plus: Atlantic correspondent James Brown makes a bold proposal for another kind of monument in our nation's capital.

Special thanks to Zaid Siddiqui for research on this episode.

You can support Harbinger Media Network here: 

https://harbingermedianetwork.com/

You can check out a premium teaser to Nashwa and Shaadie’s interview with Vincent Bevins here: https://habibtiplease.substack.com/p/jakartamethod

You can hear Henry Lee's conversation with Bevins on a recent episode of Deathnography at https://deathnography.libsyn.com/what-is-possible-realistic-dreams-and-the-myth-of-scarcity-ft-vincent-bevins-and-maya-menezes and support the show at https://www.patreon.com/deathnography

Support Palestinian Youth organizing at https://palestinianyouthmovement.com/donate

Islamic Relief is helping to provide immediate medical assistance and vital aid to all those affected by the violence and most in need at

https://www.islamicreliefcanada.org/emergencies/palestine/

Eye on Palestine is providing media coverage that mainstream news never will at

https://www.instagram.com/eye.on.palestine/

Find out more about the Movement to Safeguard Palestinian Communities and how to become part of the movement for peace at

https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/icareaboutpeace/