activism

Keffiyehs, banners, cheers, and suppression: Four days of Western University’s graduation convocations

From June 10th to June 13th, Western University convocations were held at Canada Life Place. They were invigorated by protests for Palestine.  Numerous graduating students across disciplines and faculties faced the celebratory stage with Palestine flags, banners calling for justice, and regalia draped with keffiyehs. Outside, more protesters held banners and chanted human rights declarations to the downtown rush. They stationed themselves in areas where students arrived to pick up regalia and families waited before convocations began.   University administration, London police, and Canada Life Place staff attempted to quell the protests.  *** On the morning of June 10th —  the…

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Open Letter: This Emerita prof Supports Divestment

Dear President Shepard, I would like to thank you for the generous offer to attend a dinner with retired faculty from Western: it is an important gesture to remember former professors and our contributions. Normally, I would be looking forward to seeing familiar faces and reminiscing with colleagues about our days on campus. However, under the circumstances, I must decline your invitation.  It is impossible for me to enjoy a celebratory meal with Western colleagues when our Palestinian colleagues in Gaza are enduring a brutal famine deliberately imposed by an occupying power which is actively supported by your Administration. How…

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“We carry your memory like fire in our veins”: 77th Nakba Day 

Whenever someone asked me my name, it was always followed by: “Are you a refugee or a citizen?” As a child, I would ask: “What is a refugee?” On this year’s Nakba Day — May 15, 2025 — an Al Jazeera article by Ruwaida Amer in Gaza describes the 1948 displacement of her grandparents from their razed village of Beir Daras to Khan Younis, where she was born in a refugee camp. Her grandfather was fifteen years old during the Nakba, married and with a baby son. The baby — Amer’s uncle — died as they fled. He was just…

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‘The system itself is flawed’: London community shows up to support sexual assault survivor 

Over 40 people joined together on Tuesday, May 13 outside of the Superior Court in London, Ont., to support survivor E.M. on her seventh day of cross-examination by defense attorneys in the sexual assault trial of five men. E.M. was 20 years old at the time of the reported sexual assaults. The trial began at the end of April this year — nearly seven years later. The five men, Michael MacLeod, Cal Foote, Dillon Dubé, Carter Hart, and Alex Formenton, were hockey players on the Canadian World Juniors hockey team. They were in London in 2018 to celebrate the team’s…

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“There’s no Pride without Palestine”: Perspectives on pinkwashing 

On Tuesday, March 18th, two Israeli youth spoke to a Queer Theory class at Western University about queer feminist critique of Israeli militarism and pinkwashing.  “Pinkwashing” refers to the portrayal of Israel as “more humane, modern, and accepting” than the Arab world when it comes to embracing the queer community, and using this portrayal currently to morally justify the ongoing genocide in Gaza.  Einat Gerlitz, twenty-one years old, and Tal Mitnick, nineteen years old, refused to enlist in the Israeli military on grounds of pacifism. Both were imprisoned by the Israeli military and faced a slew of death threats and…

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“A small window into dehumanization”: Palestinian-Canadian doctor on the destruction of healthcare in Gaza

“Do you know how hard a kid fights when you bring a needle to their face and start cutting into it? Do you know how much strength they suddenly have? You can’t believe where it even comes from? Can you believe the screams that they deliver, when you try to suture them up? It’s crazy, it’s haunting. Truly, truly haunting,” says Palestinian-Canadian doctor Tarek Loubani. “The Israelis were always selective about painkillers. They’d never let painkillers through.” Loubani remembers suture rooms in Gaza full of wailing children. Half of Gaza’s population are children; they are the majority of those injured…

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“Six of us, stuffed into one ambulance, to go to a hospital. When we got there, it was sheer chaos”: A Harrowing Story of Getting Shot in Gaza

The following is a partial transcription, edited for brevity, of a talk given at King’s University College on February 24th, 2025 by Tarek Loubani, a Canadian doctor who has been involved in humanitarian medical missions in Gaza. Dr. Loubani recalls the time he was targeted and shot by Israeli forces while treating peaceful protestors during the Great March of Return protests of 2018-2019. He discusses how Israeli forces deliberately target Palestinian medical infrastructure and prohibit medicine and medical practitioners from entering Gaza. I was shot in 2018 in Gaza. When I was shot, and I kind of fell to the…

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“Where Olive Trees Weep”: Roots of injustice and resilience in the West Bank  

“I felt anger towards what the people on the screen were going through. Anger that this injustice – all of this – is still happening. Anger that all of this exists,” says Western University student Kamil Zerdoumi after viewing a film screening of Where Olive Trees Weep at King’s University College on November 29th, 2024. “It made me more aware of this huge, huge imbalance between [the] rights that Israelis and Palestinians have, and made me more fervent in Palestinians getting more rights and equal treatment and more justice, and less forgiving in any attempts to try and be a…

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“I wanted to share this moment with them”: Londoners gather in bittersweet celebration for long-awaited ceasefire in Gaza

On the frigid afternoon of Sunday, January 19th, people of all ages gathered in Victoria Park to share a glimpse of hope that came with the commencement of ceasefire in Gaza earlier that day after  470 relentless days of genocide.  Despite the biting cold, the long-awaited Gaza ceasefire announcement was the silver lining in the dark – “the bare minimum” as one speaker from  the Canadian Palestine Social Association (CPSA), who organized the event, said. The relief was welcomed but bittersweet. The brutal assault on Palestinians by Israeli forces has, to date, claimed the lives of approximately 46,707 people and…

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