Greetings friends. My name is Jess McLean and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints

of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining

power structures and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,

we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle

capitalism, decolonize our spaces and bring about the political revolution we know we need.

Before we jump into this episode, we just want to quickly mention that this was recorded before

the recent encampments at various universities across Canada. And you're going to hear references

that might be a little bit out of date, but we still think it's incredibly relevant to

what's going on right now. And other than that, please enjoy. I'm welcoming a lot of people

to the studio today, so it's not going to be a regular introductions. We have got an eclectic

group of people. joining us all from all over Canada, so-called Canada, and what they represent

are local groups of Palestinian solidarity activists that are springing up absolutely everywhere.

They've done it on a writing basis. And like Asya just said before we started recording,

it seems like there's a new one every day. So we're going to talk to them about what their

experience has been like organizing at this local level, how they're networking with one

another, and just how widespread this local movement is getting. So welcome everybody.

There's five, how many guests we have? We have four of you in the studio today, but you'll

be sharing perspectives from a lot more groups than that. How many are there? Michelle, did

you look that up for us? I looked up for, so my name's Michelle and I'm from Montreal. I

work in what's called the Outrement Riding, which is the federal riding. And we have at

least 16 groups. Like you said, they keep popping up. So there might be more today, or there

might be somebody who I didn't count in the list, but I counted at least 16. Asya, yeah.

How many's Toronto got? You've got an Ontario count? So I think Ontario has at least 30.

And then maybe, I think BC, I've seen about... eight, but I feel like they're going to start

growing real fast. Do you feel like are you all connected with one another or are people

just kind of seeing what's happening, popping up and you're just pleasantly surprised by

it? So a lot of the groups are connected under the PAL Solidarity Canada umbrella. However,

those who are not, we kind of try to rope each other in and eventually put them all in a group

and then do subgroups. which is kind of how we met, because the big group is super busy

and we wanna keep pushing for more activities and things to bring awareness about Palestine.

So it's been really interesting because in Montreal, we have the groups that organized with PAL

Solidarity Canada, who started off with federal writings, but we also have groups that started

off just because they were people in neighborhoods who wanted to come together and work. So we

have some groups that are... neighborhoods that aren't federal writings, and then we kind of

connect. So I found that really interesting for the organizing too because we can work

together, but then we can also do separate things. And so it kind of makes the movement more powerful

to have people kind of thinking in different ways. We've done a lot of like cross group

things in that way, which I thought has been really productive. Can you give us some examples?

Like I know I've seen two Toronto groups sharing the hosting of a film screening or other kinds

of seminar learning education events, which is easy to double up on, but can you give me

some other examples of where two different local groups are, are doing something together so

that they don't double up on the work? Cause that's the idea of creating alliances and networks,

right? So not everybody is doing the same thing. over and over again, but at the same time,

if you're all local, you do want to replicate it. So what's that balance like? Oakville.

So to Michelle's point, our group in Oakville, we do have two federal writings. We have Oakville

and then Oakville North Burlington. We weren't founded from a concerted effort from any kind

of national group. It was a pretty organic grassroots campaign. There was a ceasefire motion at our

town hall here in Oakville. And the mayor then... basically said that he was distraught from

anti-Semitic and bullying messages that he had received, and him and the town counselors left

for a recess indefinitely. And then we all kind of decided, hey, they're not gonna listen to

our 25 speeches that we prepared, we're gonna give our speeches to one another. So then the

town council kind of just became this beautiful public forum where we all made a WhatsApp chat

and decided to start organizing together. So in terms of... Working with other groups though,

it's been really productive for us to talk to Mississauga groups, groups in Hamilton. We've

arranged marches with them. And additionally, we have like a vigil coming up on Sunday. We

coordinated with PYM, which is Palestinian Youth Movement, Toronto for Palestine, just to ensure

there's no overlapping major events, such as a large march downtown that would conflict

with our event. So that's kind of what we've been doing in the background and we've been

assisting with things like marshalling, just community support through our activism, and

it's been really helpful. I think a big, so my name's Batool, I'm from the Edmonton area.

A big way that we've been looking to work together with other groups in Edmonton, so there's a

bunch of different groups in Edmonton working. You know, the group centered around the Edmonton

Center Riding, which is Randy Boyce-Denau's federal riding, but also other groups within

within Edmonton that have just been doing other work. For example, I think we've all come to

realize that economic pressure is very important in this effort. And so, whether it's the SJP,

the University of Alberta Students for Justice and Peace, Justice in Palestine, or if it's

our group with Randy's, organizing around Randy Boycenot. we try to share our efforts in terms

of pushes for BDS, and so that there are different targets, but our messaging is the same, our

demands are kind of similar, and we're not replicating, we're not redoing work that has already been

done. You know, if there's a letter campaign that's in progress, then we can work together

on it so that we can adapt it to our different targets and make sure that all of our efforts

are in line with one another and that, like, Like we said, we are having that multi-pronged

approach so that all avenues, all targets are feeling the pressure to divest from Israeli

occupation and apartheid. I love how Oakville's group was given their first organizing space

by a bunch of cowards. That's a great story. But, Betul, to your point and to that question

that I asked, again, it reminds me of... that episode Santiago we did with the anarchist

collective crime think and the need for groups and individuals to be able to move forward

in ways that work for them, right? And that are uniquely local because some of you are

going to have conservative MPs, some of you are going to have liberal or maybe ND, like

varying receptiveness, different types of communities in that regard. But at the same time, there's

an importance to keep with the demands set by Palestinians themselves, right, by the larger

Palestinian resistance. So anybody want to talk about how to manage that fine line, especially

talking about increasing tactics and economic blockades? Because we've talked on the show

a lot about different tactics. lobbying is generally a safe avenue. I mean, we've seen people get

picked up for asking Krista Freeland questions too closely, but I mean, generally, but there's

different risks involved with doing economic blockades and whatnot. So how do you find that

balance between letting local groups branch out or subgroups act autonomously? Is that

possible within your collective? We always keep the Palestinian demands first and foremost

in our organizing efforts, namely that we are demanding Palestinian liberation. We're not

asking for ceasefire or humanitarian aid. Those aren't the demands that we're organizing around.

Those are steps towards the demands that we're making, but our demands are always going to

be Palestinian liberation and those demands are set by. Palestinians globally. And then,

once, as a national collective and as a collective of people that are organizing around this subject

and around these demands, you know, we might identify an action or a target or a strategy,

but then it's up to each riding to adapt those things to their individual circumstances and

what's going on for them in a way that makes sense, in a way that is most effective, and

that can... considers the risks attached for that individual group or riding. Whether it's

a sit-in, a demand for sit-ins, MP offices, you know, if somebody knows that their MP never

comes to the office, then, you know, they make different arrangements. If they know that they're

riding or their group is not equipped to deal with a certain action in terms of resources,

then, you know, they can scale it down. So it just depends on what that writing is able to

do, but because those demands are always taken from the global Palestinian liberation demands,

we adopted a way that can work with those demands and never compromises them. I just wanted to

build on it. I think, yeah, you're 100% right where each writing has to do their own thing,

even though here it's one city. some neighborhoods you literally, you just can't walk around in

a cofee with. So obviously doing things around your MP is going to be different. Eglinton

Lawrence, you can walk around in a cofee. You're just not going to be very comfortable. Just

not on a bridge. Yeah, yeah, not on a bridge either. So you can walk around in a cofee.

You just kind of have to be mentally and physically prepared. However, for example. we had our

first and so far only little block party in front of Marco Mendicino's office. And it was

really nice because it was a poetry reading and we stuck a lot of the art we had made the

day before from sort of kids and other people that came to do art for Palestine and put it

on his window. And because of where we are, a lot of Zionists ended up showing up. and

they were very loud and rude. However, it was clear that they were confused and they didn't

know what to do. They were like, how the hell do we like disturb a poetry reading? Tell me

why one girl was literally just like twirling in circles. No, and I felt so like strange

about it too. Because so many of them were like really, really young. Like we're talking like

teenagers. Yeah, the Zionists were there that day and that was like, you know, you can see

the indoctrination. It's like you haven't had like the lack of awareness of this, like the

propaganda that has been fed into this. And, you know, I felt kind of weird about that watching

out there. And then there was like the one adult who was toiling with an Israeli flag and it

was... Like they wanted so badly to get a reaction, I think. It was really funny watching them

not get what they wanted from that. That has real vibes of that video that's going viral

now of my brave Jewish wife standing in the middle of the student encampment, just like

terrified. And everyone is just like on it's like snack time or something. Like no one's

doing anything. Some of them are dancing and wondering what's going on and just, oh, wow.

Go ahead. I'm just going to throw in sort of an actually answer your question. And then

sorry, Michelle, I'll give it to you. Um, but our writing, we also like, we like to do a

lot of community building as every writing kind of should try and do. Cause in the end, we're

trying to get everybody on the same page, right? Whether it's about Palestine or policing, we're

trying. However, we are also aware that some things are more immediate. So we try and make

sure that somebody from our writing group, at least one person, is at every direct action

that's happening here, because, like Batul said, disrupting the economy is probably going to

be the way that we get this done. And as we're seeing, that's going to become more and more

common, which, Eglinton Lawrence will be very involved with. I think that's all I'll say,

but, Michelle, go ahead. Yeah, it's interesting we have, we've been working on a similar thing.

We've kind of did this organically just because our group had a lot of people. And I know that

many of the other Montreal groups have been doing something similar where we've been trying

to get more organized to make sure that we send at least one or two people to each thing, because

there's so much happening locally. and as well trying to coordinate it, like when we can't

do that with each other, we have a Montreal-wide kind of group, so we try to talk about that.

But I wanted to circle back and also underline this point that so much of what we're also

doing is education, like what you brought up, Santiago, about you're watching those young

people and seeing their indoctrination, but really that a lot of the actions that we do,

whether they're the more... direct actions or even the kind of like more MP focus things

or, you know, handing out the flyers and so on. There's a lot of different types of work

that the neighborhoods are doing to educate ourselves and educate each other and then educate

our actual literal neighbors, which is different maybe than other kinds of organizing because

it has this neighborhood feeling. We're like talking to people that we wouldn't normally

necessarily talk to around this very particular thing. And I feel there's like a really a big

power in this, these moments, like you said, when you're standing there and you kind of

look and, you know, something ridiculous happens or something dangerous happens or something

inspiring happens and you're with, you know, someone who you live near or you're with somebody

who you're there because they're part of your kind of living space. There's a different kind

of environment around that that's really interesting for organizing, I think, and powerful. Organizing

at a writing level will necessitate that, right? Because we mentioned, I think again, before

we started recording, we always do that, that writings aren't natural communities. They're

drawn to a very specific end. So quite often, you know, they include really diverse ranges

of communities within them. So my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, is the original.

purpose of doing these local level groups using the same boundaries, these kind of unnatural

boundaries, was because you all had shared a common target, a political point. In Ontario,

it's actually, you can count on them having the same MP and same MPPs, which makes it logistically

easier, right? You can go to the door of somebody from any one of these kind of communities within

a writing and maybe you have different scripts for different neighborhoods, but you have the

same target, the same email address and all of that. But you're not partisan though, because

every time we have some people on here talking about organizing at the writing level, writing,

writing. That's usually very specific to partisan politics. And you've been dealing with a lot

of politicians. I was going to speak on just navigating risk levels and activism, but I

do want to touch on also the partisan aspect of what we're doing. For example, I did go

to a debate about two days ago in Milton, which is part of Halton region, which is part of

Oakville. And there was an NDP MPP candidate who was like, hey, can I be added to your WhatsApp

group for activism? Absolutely the fuck not.

Exactly. So it's been interesting not only navigating interactions. Don't trust anyone that's been

vetted and cleared by the NDP. I'll second that. I was just going to say it's been interesting

navigating not only interactions with unfriendly and hostile politicians, but also with politicians

who are trying to court your community's vote. And also it's important to maintain your impartial.

You're not going to necessarily endorse a candidate because like we've seen, we have so many politicians,

especially in the GTA, who are diverse. They're from different backgrounds. They could be Arab.

They could be Muslim. but they're not necessarily representing the communities that they claim

that they're representing when they finally get to the office or when there's pressure

on them to vote within their party's line. Oh, well, can you drop the name? So yeah, that's

been interesting. I'm thinking about Omar Al-Ghufa in Mississauga. And additionally, when I had

a meeting with Anita Anand in Oakville with her staff's office, when we were attempting

to drop off pledges in relation to the NDP's opposition day motion, the staff member was

speaking to me and said, you know, MP Anand cares deeply about this issue as a woman of

color. And initially, that set off alarm bells for me because that's kind of all talk without

action to substantiate what they're saying. What's it been like trying to leverage these

politicians? Like I want to get maybe an answer from all of you if possible, because here on

the show, well, let's just say the show was born from the dismay of the political system.

So to say I'm skeptical of efforts to lobby politicians is an understatement, right? So

when you talk economic blockades, I'm here. But appealing to folks like Marco Mendicino,

and I understand a block party outside of his house is not an appeal to him whatsoever. I

didn't, but generally, can you speak to what you think those specific efforts have yielded,

trying to get them to at least endorse a ceasefire, the steps that Batul talked about to get to

the ultimate goal. But, you know. We've not seen a lot of movement, no? I'll see you. So

I just wanna go first, cause I am straight off the bat. That's not what we're doing with Marco

Medecino. He's a very racist, Islamophobic person. So we actually went in, like we gathered as

a group and kind of decided that we're not gonna convince this guy who dismisses Muslims and

Palestinians. We are just here to make sure. that there's always something bothering him,

kind of like a mosquito. And we've done that thing. We've sent hundreds of emails and calls

and whatever, and he hasn't responded. So we've already done the formal thing, but we did it

knowing he wasn't like, we didn't know when he was not going to answer. Um, we've gotten

into his office a couple of times. However, it's pretty difficult. They lock it. they get

you to call because no drop-ins allowed, allegedly. And so what they do is when you call, they

look out the window and they decide. So you have to take your kaffir has to be in your

bag at least, or you're not getting in. So we actually saw some staffers this one time when

we walked up with their kaffirs, turn off the lights, close the blinds and go sit at their

desks and put headphones on. So. This is like so familiar. It's so bad. Like, like, they're

actually like, they're so disconnected. And, and, you know, this is this is just his staffers,

he doesn't, when we asked him, when we asked them, well, why can we get a meeting with him,

his staffers said they don't have access to his schedule. And he gets to choose which emails

that he wants to get back to. So they just told us. While he heard your issue, he doesn't really

give a shit. And he also doesn't let us see his schedule, uh, as far as they want to tell

us for obvious reasons. So we're not here to convince this racist guy. A shared calendar

with your MP. We're not here to convince me. And we're just here to make sure that he knows

he's being watched. Whatever he decides to work as in the future, he's going to be watched

then. All these photos that come up with you when you look at reviews for him are our protest

photos or little reviews. We're not the only ones that have had problems with him, by the

way, but that's a whole other story. And then also to make sure that the next people who

run for this writing know that there's a group of people who are going to hold you accountable

and make your life hell from the start if you decide to dismiss Palestine. So our goal is

not like reaching this guy's heart who thinks he has faced discrimination because he's Italian.

It's other things. So I'll let everybody else go, know that everybody knows we're not trying

to do that. Thank you for clearing up. Ours is probably pretty similar to yours, Asya.

I mean, I think that's how we met in the first place, right, in the national organizing, because

we have a similar kind of MP. The MP in my writing is Rachel Bendayan, who's what the... was she

the third or the fourth both lobbied by Sija in the recent report that came out and has

stood with Anthony Housefather and kind of done a lot of work that has upheld Zionism and so

on, but also tries to at the same time present herself, and this was interesting from what

you said, Oakville, and so on, as somebody who really cares very much about racialized communities

and one third. of the neighborhood of Côte-des-Neiges in Montreal is part of the Outremont federal

writing. So there's this idea that kind of there's some people who are good to be in photo ops

with lots of sort of young racialized kids for certain kinds of photo ops, but then like where

the attention that she pays in terms of what she does in parliament is actually to a different

part of the writing. So our group also made very similar decisions about thinking how to

deal with the question we're doing to advocate for Palestine and to work for Palestinian liberation,

given that our MP is a Zionist. It's been interesting because it creates a lot of conversations.

She did a very similar thing. She won't respond to our calls. She doesn't come into her office.

She's been out of her office completely. I won't go through the whole story. You can look at

our socials for that. We've done a big campaign about it. Other neighborhoods in Montreal face

really similar kinds of questions too. We have Trudeau. So the Papineau pour la Palestine

writing, Trudeau is their MP. So how do they organize, right? What do you organize when

that's your MP? We have Melanie Jolie. So the Ahonso Cartier writing, that's AC for Palestine.

is trying to pressure Jolie. So I think that we've had to use lots of different ways of

thinking about what our role as people are when those are our representatives. I think the

majority of the people that I've worked with either came into, like me, came into this not

necessarily believing in federal politics. or have learned through the process of joining

one of these groups and working on the question of Palestine that federal politics doesn't

work for us, that we don't actually have a voice, that we are ignored and nobody listens to us.

And so we've learned a lot about federal electoral politics in doing the work. So that's been

a really cool part of this, like organizing is to really understand not just how it can

work for you, but how it actually can't. I agree. That's been the biggest story of these. efforts

to organize around federal writings is the complete refusal to even engage with protesters, with

concerned community members, with anybody that they don't agree with or don't want to give

an ear or a platform to. And there's no recourse to it within the democratic system. There's

nothing to force them to meet with us, even though we're their constituents, and that's

supposedly what their job is. It's very frustrating, but then in that process, I think we've come

to realize that they're... we do still need to place pressure on them because that pressure

builds up to those higher ups, like Melanizio Lee, like Trudeau. Because, for example, like

Randy Boussineau is a liberal MP. He's, I believe, yeah, the only liberal riding in Edmonton.

And his campaign was built on, like, LGBTQ community support. But then when... Queers for Palestine

or other groups try to reach him or organize around that like to say like this is the community

that you Mobilize to vote for you to give you this seat and you're not listening to our demands

on Palestine. I mean, it's completely Complete block out there's no engagement still and so

You know, he's seems like he's resigned himself to not being reelected anyways, and so he doesn't

feel any pressure so Outside of this system where the concern of the politicians is their

next office, there's not really a way... Democracy doesn't work, and we've seen that. What does

work is agitation, what does work is disruption, what does work is economic blockades and economic

disruptions. Those things... actually feed into the pressure that we're building up and building

up and hopefully hoping to kind of pressurize the system as a whole. So you know even while

we organize around these individual and specific MPs and writings, the real goal is overall

pressure and to sustain it and to build it up as long as possible so that it pops and something

gives. I want to put that on a t-shirt. Like, democracy doesn't work. What does work is agitation

and disruption. This could be the tagline for our podcast. We're going to, we'll credit you.

But it, none of this surprises me. I think like a lot of people who've been involved, like

have understood that democracy doesn't work for them. But there are still a lot of people

that are learning this for the first time or the extent of its futility. And I find that

heartwarming because I want nothing but to pull people out of the fucking legislature and into

the streets. Honestly, because, you know, even, you know, anybody who's ever been involved

in the NDP, that's that was your first clue that it doesn't work for us, because even the

ones that say that, oh, no, we work for you specifically. They don't. So it's very like

I could see Santiago smiling too. Well, you know, the t-shirt comment, but his head always

whips around when someone's like, no, agitation, disruption. He's like, yes, yes. Because we

start talking about sending emails again. My head's going to explode. Not that I'm not talking

about you folks. That's a dig at the NDP trying to solve the CAFEA ban in the Ontario legislature

at the moment. But but also. One more thing about NDP organizing, I guess. Let's just shit

on them for a second. Well, just one thing that's kind of refreshing in this conversation that

was a pain back in when I thought NDP organizing was an answer was, like, the writings were

super disconnected when you were doing that. It felt like little islands and stuff. And

you were kind of subtly discouraged from talking to anybody in any other writing or organizing

together. So just like. kind of seeing how that's, you know, with this kind of organizing, you

know, it's writing based, but it's not limited to like the physical writings and that there's

all this communication going on. That's already like so much more powerful and more effective

than what happens in the NDP. Just wanted to share that real quick. Oh, so I saw your hand

up. I did just want to add, like I'm from the Southern United States originally. That's where

I was born and raised and spent most of my life, so. It's been really interesting for me to

go from seeing politicians who don't care if you have clothes on your back and will make

it very clear to your face that they feel that way to kind of these performative, placating

politicians who will say things that sound very nice and sound like they care about you, but

in reality, they don't. I did just want to mention like an anecdote because we were talking about,

you know, these disruptions that are economic blockades or that things that are actually

more effective when you realize. you know, engaging in democracy and bureaucracy can only take

you so far. We've had a lot of interesting and difficult conversations within our own organizing

group regarding navigating relations with the police, if we should inform them of our protest

routes, if we should inform them of our activities, give them a contact for our group. No, no,

no. I hope that's the answer you all came to, yeah? No, but that's a good education. It's

good education to do. Right. You all are doing like the that's the best education, right.

People to people like saying no, like this is how we have to organize. This is how we have

to move forward. It's when you have such a big umbrella, though, that can be a tough conversation

with some folks. Right. We talked to a group at a St. John's and they had money stolen from

them from a treasurer. But they are an anti-police organization. Right. They believe in social

justice. So those two things are not compatible. And they, but they, you know, they again have

a really collected group, a wide umbrella, some people that would consider themselves, you

know, small L liberals. That's okay. You know, they do the work. But or even maybe our anti-police,

like from an understanding that they do only harm, but still wanted vengeance in some way,

you know, like still had to work that out of their system. It wasn't just naturally the

group came to the decision that no, they wouldn't. to charge them and they wouldn't go to the

police and they would find other ways to navigate it. So the navigating needs doing but just

for all those people out there that are listening, the answers from me would be a hard no. I see

how you're going to deal with me. It's difficult. No, I think Oakville actually had something

to finish and then I'll go off. Yeah, I was just going to add, you know, it's difficult

when you have someone in your group who's like, hey, my brother is a cop and he's 100% pro-Palestine.

not all cops are that bad. And then it kind of snowballs into a longer conversation about

group safety. And I think something else that is connected to this topic that I just want

to touch on very briefly is, when we discuss these subgroups or people taking their own

initiatives within our organizations, it kind of makes you think about to what extent can

we protect our branding as a group? For example, we had a subgroup kind of in our umbrella that

was arranging for a small demonstration at our town hall. And I looked at the group chat of

that group and people were saying, oh, are we going to storm the town hall building? And

when you think about that, there's no marshals. They don't have the same protocols that we

have with Oakville for Palestine. And it kind of makes you feel like, OK, so to what extent

can we protect our branding and our image and ensure that we're always keeping each other

safe, be it with without law enforcement? Yeah, there's definitely a concern about that, because,

I mean, you can't stop other people from organizing within. the city, you know, and taking up their

own actions. But, you know, I mean, certain times some people are not happy with the level

of disruption or the level of agitation that's happening. And you don't really know if they've

considered the risks effectively. And then other times there's people that are willing to, you

know, take a more liberal approach and think that there is some type of positive to be gained

from that, from engaging with. MPs engaging with cops and things like that. And, you know,

like, it's just a balancing act of trying to advise or keep an eye on other groups and ensure

that, you know, Palestinian demands are not being compromised, first and foremost. And

then secondly, that safety and risk is being considered because not everybody has the same

risk tolerance. And that's just something that needs to be considered when making these types

of organizing decisions. And I'm not a dictator, like I can't stop anybody from doing their

actions. I just, if I am aware of it, I'm like, have you thought about this? Do you have a

plan for that? Yeah, I just kind of wanted to throw in that I do think having both the, you

know, disrupting the economy. but also pressuring politicians and gathering the community. I

think they need each other, to be honest. I think educating the community, building a relationship,

seeing that, you know, making sure that people know that Palestinians are real people, Muslims

and Arabs are real people, and sort of reaching out to neighbors and building those connections

helps, especially when mainstream media. does this really, really terrible coverage and really

racist coverage of Palestinian demonstrations. And then especially the demonstrations that

do bother people. They hold up traffic or holding up a train. While stopping the flow of money,

which angers people about when they understand. there's a lot more empathy and I think historically

we've kind of witnessed that having those two hand in hand is really good. As for the policing

thing, I, in my group's opinion, and I feel very confident saying this on behalf of Egman's

and Loris' and Don Valley is, we don't think it's safe to do anything with the police. There's

a reason why we have marshals at all the protests, at all our little events. It's because we have

to protect our members from violent Zionists and from whatever other group. But we also

have to protect them from the police, which to this day, the police has harmed much more,

many more people at our events than they have helped. So everyone might not agree because

that is true. There are literally cops in this movement who are related to like organizers.

So maybe not Toronto specifically, but there are. And I think that's really scary and harmful.

And we're kind of working on how to introduce, explaining to people that the police is not,

they're not your friends. And we're kind of working on doing something to integrate that

into communities that are not super exposed to all this stuff. For example, Arab immigrants

usually come here and they think, well, this is a democracy. Their authority sort of, you

know, it must be good. The police really must be there to protect you. So you should show

them respect. And a lot of these immigrants end up having to do a 180 once they see what's

happening right in front of their face, once they see their community members being harmed

and in a couple of cases now permanently injured. So when you do that outreach, which I'm hoping

will be kind of one of the bigger things that we do, we're gonna be talking to different

communities and seeing what they understand about policing and what might actually reach

them. So once you build that community, you can do the economic actions even more. Yeah,

I think that was it for me. And that definitely brings true. It's like you have to build up

that community awareness. I've been seeing that so much of the Canadian public is completely...

out of touch and out of tune with the political machinations that run the country. And so that

education piece is so important. Like you said, Asya, about informing people of what the effects

and what the outcomes of these actions can be and also bringing people into an understanding

of empire,

and policing the links and systems in between all of those different things so that they

can understand why Palestinians are protesting in Canada or why people are protesting for

Palestine in Canada. What does Canada have to do with it? That's a question that still gets

asked. Why we don't work with the police and what are the outcomes that can come from these

different types of... disruptive actions. So I totally agree. Sorry. Just I want to let

you ask your next question, but I just want to throw in that. I don't know what the rest

of the policing organizations in Canada are, but TPS trains with the IOF. They train with

the people that are committing the murder. Like, like why do you think the police is going to

protect you if they're using the training using, you know, being used to commit a genocide?

What are TPS going to learn from that? Does that mean they're going to be using those tactics

on you? Like it just takes a little bit of reflection to go into that. But yeah, go ahead. And organizers

out there that are having these tough discussions because, you know, you're bringing people in

that just haven't gotten there yet. Like we don't want them to always have to face a baton

or see their friends get smashed before they get to that point. You need to hold that line.

There needs to be discussions, but you need to create. police free zones in order to have

safe organizing spaces. They cannot be allowed in your organizing spaces period or else you

are actually excluding a ton more people. You're gonna exclude undocumented people, you're gonna

exclude sex workers, you're gonna exclude anybody that's been criminalized for any reason. They

will not feel safe in your spaces. So if you think that's one loss, one less person at your

action, one less skill to draw upon, let it go. Let it the fuck go. Not everyone needs

to be brought along. That's police included. I just had to interject there that cause the

idea that there's groups out there organizing for Palestine that have police in them. I mean,

some of them you have police in them and you just don't know, but you don't need to let

them in just through the fucking front door. That's not cool. So please get there if you're

not there already. We've got a playlist for you. We'll share it in the show notes. A million

and one reasons why we keep us safe and the police absolutely do not. But yeah, that's

become a real reality for folks organizing in the Palestinian Solidarity Movement. And wanted

to ask you folks, because we probably won't get a chance to talk about it separately, but

we're seeing a lot of... campuses in the United States and here in Canada, McGill comes to

mind, that are taking over spaces on their university, encampments, occupations, you can call them

whatever you want. And some are being met with incredible police resistance. But I was saying

to Santiago today and anyone that would listen to me that I am incredibly impressed with not

just their fortitude. and commitment to the cause, because these aren't your usual suspects,

right? But their skills in repelling police attacks, they have practiced. They know how

to line up, they know how to grab one another so that they can't be grabbed. They know what

to do when someone does get grabbed by the police. They are bringing umbrellas and shields. They're

building barricades. I get tingles. talking about it, anybody building a barricade, it's

got great vibes for me, honestly. I'm sorry. I'm excited. But on the flip side, you have

to make sure people are prepared for this. And if you're talking about economic blockades,

you can guarantee that means some of your members and your comrades that you're organizing along

with will get hauled off by police or in a confrontation of some sort. Are you doing stuff as organizations,

as organizers, to prepare your people for this? I think a lot of this is actually being recycled

from BLM, where we're seeing the guides they made and how they repel police, how they protect

each other. And we even saw it kind of being used yesterday when they de-arrested somebody.

I can't remember what university it was, but they were able to do that. And. And now we're

receiving these PDF guides left and right, as well as like Instagram sort of slides to tell

you, here's how you protect yourself. Here's how you protect yourself from batons. Um, here's

how to protect yourself from, um, sorry, the smoke. I forget what it's called. Um, yeah,

it's your cats. And here's how you hold a line when you're pushing and here's how you hold

a line when you're being pushed, which is crazy. But I think, like, I'm honestly, I'm really

excited as well. I'm hoping people learn these things. Our writing specifically is the only

thing right now that we're working on to prepare for that is this sort of the Police It Out

Your Friends social media campaign. And I think some bigger groups will be interested in seeing

that. And a lot of our content is actually inspired and based off of a New York group. But I think,

Batul, can I throw this to you? Because I know U of A kind of did something the other day.

Yes, so the University of Alberta, SJP, organized a 12 hour sit-in or encampment on the University

of Alberta campus. From what I saw, there wasn't, you know, admin retaliation. They, we would

love to see that blossom into something more longstanding, but we are worried about resources

and support and sustaining a type of action like that. So A lot of the work that we've

been doing in Edmonton over the past six months has been about building capacity to take on

more actions like that. It just depends on resources and judging what the response will be and what

the risk will be. I think we don't really have a great frame of reference for what risk or

response will happen for certain actions. And so it just makes it a little bit hard to...

plan. I think it was impressive like how fast U of A was able to pull something together.

And I know they don't have the people or the resources the way that Ontario groups have,

but I just I thought it was really great that they were able to do like days ago, a 12 hour

sit in because they probably like they probably just like couldn't sit there and watch everything

happen and not do anything about it. It went into place so quickly. And I think it was the

first North like first Canadian. university to kind of respond to these encampments happening

on American university campuses. And so it's bringing us into that conversation and into

that path and I hope to see more universities in Canada taking on that approach because we

have seen a lot of other campuses protesting and advocating for Palestine and for divestment

for their universities. And similar to the American campuses, you know, there's been very poor

responses. You know, always the scapegoat of anti-Semitism, always the scapegoat of addressing

Islamophobia, but not actually addressing Palestine, anti-Palestinian racism, and not actually addressing

the economic ties between universities, and Israeli occupation, apartheid, and genocide.

And so, SJP has been... the University of Alberta SJP has been engaged in making those demands

and asking those questions for a really long time and it was really amazing to see them

escalate that to that sit-in and that occupation and I'm hoping that the university admin and

the university community at large takes that seriously. Well, that's another economic pressure

point that we didn't bring up, but that I imagine the university groups are still engaged in

and have been since I was there, is the divestment from specifically Israeli arms manufacturers

and the tech that goes with it. A lot of movements started just simply as a divestment from weapons

manufacturers, although it had the intention of stopping the Zionist supply. It was easier

to be couched in a more general divest from weapons because universities shouldn't be investing

in weapons. But as we can see, with the facade of Zionism falling, now it's become a lot more

explicit in the demands that we are in fact targeting Israel and their supply. We had one

anecdote story where we were doing a march in our downtown Oakville. And we were talking

about the fact that we were going to be doing a march in our downtown A member of our group

is a firefighter, and he's had very positive interactions with the police through his work,

because they work very closely together. He's a white male. So, you know, we're doing this

march, and even though he's someone who's pro-Palestine, he's buddying up with the cops. He's saying,

hey, how are you, Joe? And he's, you know, trying to tell them our protest route. And we kind

of had to pull him aside and say, hey, even though you've had this interaction with law

enforcement, not everyone in our group is protected and feels safe. communicating this with the

authorities. So that was kind of a tough conversation to have. And in terms of how we've kept each

other safe within our organization, we've arranged for martial training. We had a pretty big webinar

with a lot of members of our group with someone who's an experienced police liaison. And we

always do have a police liaison on site to talk to the cops, to keep everyone safe. So that's

just some mitigations we've done on our end to prevent police violence against our members.

And it's been pretty effective thus far. I see I saw you grab your head with the thought of

one of the attendees sharing the route with cops like, no, what are you doing? Oh my god,

I've seen this happen and I've seen like organizers shake hand with cops that have taken down friends

of Vine and arrested them. And I just had to walk away because I was like, this is not going

to look good for Eglinton Lawrence if I do something right now. But I know it's like, that's all,

that's just kind of one way through my head. Asya, you said something that I didn't want

to make, you know, my group look bad. And Oakville, you talked about, you know, protecting the

brand. And we kind of understand, I think the people listening, you know, you want donations,

you want to bring people in, you don't want to scare people off. There is a balance between.

In doing that, but one thing that I get concerned about, because like I like. red flags go off

when I hear this discussion happening is... who gives a shit? I mean, you have no idea

what will actually inspire people and draw them to you for one. Right. Look at politics. We'll

confirm that for you. Like the dry ones don't inspire anybody. And the only people fighting

right now is they've got all our attention. Sarah Jama. And please, like, there's also

a real danger holding anything back within your movement. And I know that sounds scary. Like

you don't want people storming the city hall. You're not ready for it. You didn't prepare

for it. Yes, they might be unsafe, but they're adults or they're you. They're where they need

to be mentally and preparedly. You have to let it go sometimes too. And because that was the

beauty of our conversation with the Anarchist Collective is like every single individual

person's desires and needs have to be met in a certain way. And harmony isn't created by

uniformity, right? Like, and I guess your subgroups will allow you to do that with a little more

distance. You can always create subgroups that like have no branding at all, right? Like they

are not affiliated whatsoever. And that can be an outlet for activities that are times

hard sells in the larger group. But holding it back at this point is not an option. People

are really angry. I kind of want to tell the story then from that interview real quick.

And we'll probably won't include this because the audience already heard it, but they were

mentioning about how they were organizing in a small town. It was like Occupy era and there

was a group of individuals in their organization who wanted to do an occupation of the main

town square and how a lot of people, they weren't ready for that. They were like a little bit

scared about. doing that they had concerns, but in the end the chair told them, okay, everyone

who's interested in going to do this, go over here, go talk about this, go plan this, and

you know, let's talk logistics here, right? Initially it was only like your usual folks,

like the ones who are ready to, or you know, your balaclava anarchists, you know, who are

ready to go. But as they like planned this and organized it, it ended up being that the entire

organization came together and ended up supporting it and ended up being a successful occupation.

And it was one of those things where it's like, not everyone was ready for that, but by allowing

space for something like that to happen, it went down. And I feel like our groups are often

held back by not. by not being ready. We think we're not ready, but the part of the story,

I feel you kind of left out there, the detail was the people that were ready or thought they

were ready to occupy a space just did it. And they did it okay overnight, but their comrades

wouldn't let them do it alone, right? They demonstrated it could have been done. And so, you kind of

had to eat your pie and be like, okay, I was wrong. It was possible. But also like you just...

It was natural, right? Once your comrades were in there doing it, then it became, okay, we're

doing it. They've pulled us along. So sometimes those fringe people that scare us or those

actions that seem ridiculous are actually the ones that pull the movement along. And a movement

like this just can't stall. Right? Like that is just not an option. And you can't have people

thinking that they don't have an outlet, like just in general, not even within the Palestinian

solidarity movement, just like if we're talking about bringing everybody into it. It's those

right wingers that are given outlets, right? Like and targets and escalating options that

are coalescing around something, something fucking ridiculous. But they're coalescing, right?

And they're getting their anger out. And, you know. You don't want to learn much from them,

but that is a lesson. I think there's a lot of truth to what you both said and, you know,

the story that you provided. I think we don't want to be like a corporation that's wagging

our finger in their faces and giving them a cease and desist for using our logo or anything

like that. But I do believe at its core, we need to always center Palestinian messaging

with the people as with the people who are in the diaspora here need and want from us to

be saying and iterating. I do think that, you know, sometimes it's. If you're part of activism,

it's okay to also take a step back if you know that you do not have the strongest messaging

to provide, that you're not fully in the know of what to say. I think of two instances, I

went to a rally a couple of weeks ago at Pierre Poliev's, I think it was some kind of Nathan

Phillips Square Israel party. Like a bring them home rally. Yes, the bring them home rally.

And there was a speaker there who is not Palestinian and I was not very familiar with. who said

some anti-Semitic messaging that I would actually deem to be anti-Semitic and not just legitimate

criticism of Israel. And I saw a lot of Palestinians who are in the GTA were very infuriated by

that because it's very easy for Zionists to then misalign the entire movement when they

latch onto these examples. And the other day I was at a rally and someone asked to borrow

my megaphone. And the first question I asked is, what are you planning on saying? And of

course it was something extremely egregious and ridiculous. I mean, I think it's important

to not gatekeep to the point where nothing is getting done and we're just being control freaks

and we're being like Starbucks suing their union over using their name versus, you know, controlling

our messaging, making sure that we're organized and steadfast in what we want to achieve. I

just want to clear up that when I said I need to take a step back, it's because I was very

angry in the moment.

group that we have. So we know if anybody does something, we're going to back them up. We

know who this group is. However, I knew that if I did something, if I got angry and I said

the wrong things, it was going to create problems for no reason. It's a lot better to go talk

to this organizer afterwards, which is what I often do. Or I talk to somebody who is kind

of a bit higher up or does the organizing for the marshalling or things like that. So it's

not that we're being held back, because I think ELDB actually has gotten in a lot of trouble

these last few months for our Farhan Ali post, which by the way, that was about half of the

tea that we had on this guy. What are you doing with the other half? We are protecting the

people whose stories they belong to. Your TikTok, that- Yeah, I promise you we're- We're not

holding back. However, Oakville is right. We've seen in this movement that sometimes drama

totally takes the message away from what's actually happening. And this could actually cause problems

between organizers because this is really like mentally, emotionally, and physically tiring

when you have people who are supposed to be working with you, questioning you left and

right. It's like it's OK to sometimes protect the peace. Um, but I wasn't really scared of

anything. I think because I did take that to somebody and there was a problem and part of

that problem was taken care of. So it is okay to kind of wait a bit sometimes. Um, yeah,

I think, yeah, honestly, Oakville said it best a lot, a lot of the, like, I don't know what

kind of statement Cija sends to all the politicians to talk about Mount Sinai. But basically, same

thing, like bullshit unrelated to Palestine, big thing that the news can kind of grab and

use. These kinds of things, just like the guy from that Nathan Phillips square, what he did

takes away from it. And it's really important to protect the messaging. Absolutely. But when

you bring up Mount Sinai, I think it's... It's just an example of no matter what you do, there

will be drama created and slander leveled your way and claims of antisemitism all the time.

That's not to say that like you don't let people on the mic that are gonna be spouting actual

antisemitic shit, because you just don't let that go down in any of our spaces, not because

it makes the movement look bad, right? Or not because it creates tension. But yeah, no. My

point to you was not so much like not to start conflict within your movement, but just always

having to... and it's not of your creating, it's of the media and the atmosphere that we're

in where folks have to second guess their tactics, not based on how impactful it might be or whether

they're resource ready, but then they also have to consider what will that make us look like?

What will they say about this location that we've picked outside of a synagogue? or what

buildings are you climbing on, Spider-Man? Will you be photographed from an angle that makes

it look ridiculous? Because that's a lot of overthinking that folks that you're describing,

time, energy, and emotional toll, shouldn't have to be doing. And that's frustrating. It's

a necessity and it's things you might wanna consider, but it shouldn't be necessary. Especially

when we're talking from a Palestinian resistance movement that's an armed resistance as well.

when we're talking about messaging completely, it should be led by Palestinian voices. But

I don't know if there's tactics there that are off the table in terms of ending an occupation,

as in being like any kind of disrespect to the Palestinians themselves, you know what I'm

saying? So, yeah, but is there anything else that you folks had prepared in your notes there

that you wanted to say, maybe a story? Oh. we gotta go back, circle back to the youth. Okay,

Michelle, I'll go, I'm gonna throw to you in a second here. So we had Eglinton Lawrence,

Don Valley on a few months back. I have no sense of time anymore. And it was a room of young

faces. I didn't ask anybody their age, but you know, it was refreshing. And just this last

weekend.

I was able to take my dad downtown to the action outside a union station. And although we didn't

make it in time to see the different delegations group up with one another, I really wanted

to take him down to see you folks. And I knew we weren't gonna make it, so the whole subway

ride down, I talked about you.

His time here is limited, and he's always been an advocate for Palestine and against apartheid.

From when I was a young girl, I understood South African apartheid because of him. And I didn't

know what it would be like. for him not to know where the movement would be going.

And I needed to show him the youth. I was bragging about your signs with the watermelon look.

It's like they're branded. The people can find them. They can see like I'm in Toronto, Pike

Park. Oh my God, and wander over there and meet one another. And they were holding a delegation

meeting ahead of time so people could like meet people from their neighbourhood, like the most

organic way of organizing. It's like textbook what you folks are doing. It's like all the

things we've talked about.

It's so promising to see it led by such young people with such a huge understanding that

like folks my age right now took so much longer to come around to and like, you know, you walk

on the work that came before you, right, but I feel like you youth are now at this point

where you're fucking ready. And watching those university students fight with police. And

and just seeing politicians just like give up the facade. It's not a desperate moment, you

know what I mean? It was a very promising moment. And then, and I want to thank you folks for

just being that demonstration that I could show my dad that, like there is a torch that is

being carried on, like, and it is, it is big, you know, and they're bringing a lot of people

along with them. So do you guys want to talk about the fact that most of the youth, most

of the groups seem to be led or spearheaded by people that are quite young, at least compared

to me. Actually, I want to talk about something you said first, and then everybody else can

talk about the youth. But that's funny, because like, when I go to demonstrations, or direct

actions that are pretty risky, I always think it's really cool. And I want to talk to the

people who are in their 70s and 80s who are there, because I'm like, Oh, my God, like you

lived 78 years of your life, and you still have like hope. And it must be so amazing to see

what it's like seven years ago versus today. I mean, they saw like actual change. So I actually

think it's really nice because I'm like, I hope I hope I still have that kind of life in me

in like 40 years. If we're still around. But yeah, I think you said that to me, Asya, when

we first met on one of these kind of calls. So, you know, I don't know if I I'm not 70

yet. You know, I'm getting there. But I want to pick up on it because I actually really,

I really appreciate you sharing your story, Jess, but also Asya's point, right? There is

this something right now in the movement that is so inspiring and important, I think, because

it's multi-generational, genuinely multi-generational. And when you go in the neighborhoods, the neighborhood

groups are multi-generational and they're also youth-led. And the youth are doing all the

things, right? The youth are very organized and working very, very hard. And I keep going

to meetings and I am the oldest person in the room by double. And I'm talking to people who

are so brilliant and just have so much knowledge and so much spirit and energy, but also like

organizing skills. And so there is this like very strong youth movement which I think is

so strong because the people are great. but also and also because they're building on the

movement that came before, right? Because there have been generations of this. And whereas

maybe our generations weren't as organized or weren't as mobilized or weren't able to do

all of the things, all those things that we and the people before us did laid a groundwork

for these brilliant young people to come in and just run, right? And to be able to move

very quickly and to put it together. in really, really intelligent ways. So it's both, right?

And it's working in a lot of these spaces and I see it a lot in the neighborhoods because

the neighborhoods are, they're very youth energized and they're very youth organized and there

are lots of older people plugging in as well. That's definitely true in our context and it's

true in the nationwide as well. So I think that it's something that's very, important and empowering

about the neighbourhood organizing. And we've talked a lot about it in our group, but also

in Montreal groups in general and in just other groups when we meet. And the watermelon signs

is how I met my first folks from Toronto in Ottawa. because we had our neighborhood banner

and they had their neighborhood watermelon sign. And we went up and we're like, we're a neighborhood

group from Montreal. And they said, we're the neighborhood group from Toronto. And then we

met and then we connected afterwards online. And right, so like it's working right here.

So I find that one of the most important things to kind of keep coming back to. Anybody else?

No, yeah. I was just gonna add, personally, I'm 23 and I'm one of the admins and leaders

of Oakville for Palestine. So a lot of our group is very young, you know, we're mid to late

20s. And I think a lot of what has disrupted decades of Zionist indoctrination has been

the power of social media. You know, so many of our boomer relatives that were always saying,

oh, you're on your phones all the time. Just connect from technology with there's definitely

some truth to that. But also, we're now seeing technology being used in a way that's disseminating

information that's disrupting the mainstream narratives. that have been built and crafted

and billions of dollars have been funneled into them. People are now going on Instagram and

seeing someone in Gaza saying, hey, here's my kitchen where I used to eat breakfast every

morning. This is what's happened to it. And people are now starting to have the wheels

turn and having those narratives disrupted that they've been fed for so long. So I think a

lot of it is the power of independent journalism, the power of social media getting the messaging

out there. and the power of how we've been able to also leverage it for our organizing through

educational materials, through actions. Very recently, we had a Zionist in our community

in Oakville. He went to a secondary school of a Catholic school here in Oakville, and he

distributed his book called Israel Repairing the World to all of the students. So when we,

sorry, go ahead. All of them? Like the school let him? to all of the students who are in

this grade seven history class. So when we heard about that, we said we need to take some kind

of action because the same indoctrination tactics are now being used and we have concrete evidence

of it. So you know we took some photos of the book, we uploaded it to social media, and within

days we got thousands of people who were able to use our action network and send letters

to the Catholic school board, to the school administrators, and now we're finally getting

some responses. we're working on getting a Palestinian educator and historian to come and speak to

the class. So, you know, it's all about how we've been able to use the age of technology

that we're in and how we've been able to get Palestinian voices to be centered rather than,

you know, what's been sold to the public for so, so long. That's horrifying to think, like,

how many times that might happen and folks don't get a hold of it. Can I add something? Always.

So I think it has like what Oakville mentioned. It makes sense why the US is working on banning

TikTok. We'll see where that goes. They're not gonna disappear. They're just gonna find a

new app. Like they're just gonna have to get used to it. But the other thing, I know you

keep wanting to talk about you, so I'm sorry. I keep wanting to not talk about you. No, let's

move on. Don't worry. That's good. It's good to, it's good to. I feel like I always, always

have to mention this. like the ideologies and opinions that I have are 100% because of my

grandparents, my mom. That's because my grandfather fought in our independence war in Algeria,

and he was captured and released, and he didn't snitch or anything. Obviously, that history

was passed down to my mother, and my mom passed that on to me. As much as I would love to say

that the youth are discovering everything, I think a lot of our history when it's taught

to us really, really is the reason that a lot of people today understand what's going on.

That's why you have a lot of African, Southwest Asian kids who already are like, yeah, I mean,

I'm Tamil. This happened to our people. I can connect it to here. I'm Kashmiri. I'm Congolese,

I'm Sudanese. Just everybody who's been colonized at some point can, not always, clearly for

some politicians here, I don't know why Rishi Sunak is the guy that came up in my head, but

clearly people like that are not always going to learn. They're not always going to make

that connection. But I think it's really important that even though some previous generations

were not able to take it to the goal, they... They basically passed on the goal and made

sure that we could do something to help keep pushing for the liberation of all these places

that are colonized. And yeah, anyways, that's yeah, I just wanted to throw that in because

I think that's like I think that's so important. Also, it's very cool that a lot of the kids

in the Ivy Leagues are just like, like seriously rich kids. who probably have some friends that

are connected to this whole issue. They talked at some points and are now doing something

about it. Okbel, I see your hand up. Let's think of kind of like final thoughts, whether it's

like from your neck of the woods or whatnot. And then yeah, we'll make sure we hit everybody

on the way out. Sorry, I just want to add, like when I was growing up in America, I was taught

in school that Palestinians celebrated after 9-11. We were given so much anti-Palestinian

racist material, and I was being the only Arab, the only Muslim kid in class, I was the only

one to kind of stick my hand up and say, hey, something's off about this, teacher. Can you

work with me on this? I was like 16 years old. So, and I'm seeing a lot of my friends who

were in the same classrooms who were fed the same indoctrination materials, posting online

about Palestine and joining these encampments in the US. So it's really heartening to see,

you know. You have to remember these people are also unlearning so much propaganda that's

pushed in the United States and it's codified in the United States education system in order

to enable Zionist interests and keep the welfare state of Israel funded and supported for generations.

But in terms of final thoughts, we're just keep I want everyone to remember that even though

we are youth led movement. I think a lot of people always push for oh, we need to disrupt

Trudeau, we need to focus on these very high level politicians. But a lot of the important

organizing work happens at the local level, and it gets lost in translation. That's how

we end up having very toxic, very harmful local politicians, because people are not coming

out for the elections, they're not participating in who is actually in their writing. So I think

my main message would just be for all of the youth to not only be energized and activated

for, you know, our- big dog politicians and the decision makers in terms of foreign policy

and what's impacting people in Gaza because we need to also focus on local level organizing

and ensuring that we're putting the pressure where it counts in our own communities. It's

really great that you bring it up like that, Oakville, I love it. Like this idea of us working

more in our communities. Like I said, kind of this, what I opened with is like, I was really

skeptical of organizing around a federal riding and I wasn't very excited to think about. pressuring

a local politician who I knew was a Zionist, it just didn't really interest me. But the

more I got working in my neighborhood group, the more I realized, you know, it's about that,

but it's also not about that, right? It's about building our power in our neighborhood. It's

about meeting our neighbors. It's about bringing everyone together. And if I can circle it back

also to both of your points, Oakville and Asia, you know, it's about working young people and

old people and middle people. And all of us together, coming together and using our different,

those of us who have the intergenerational knowledge, just to bring our intergenerational knowledge

to the table, bringing Algeria to the table, bringing all of these different kinds of experiences

and knowledges and backgrounds that we have to fight for the, in this case, the liberation

of Palestine. And the liberation of Palestine, it's linked to the liberation of all of us,

right? It's to all of us living in a better world. it being free from occupation and colonialism.

So if we think about it in those terms, all of that together is kind of what the neighborhood

groups are doing. That's like, you know, very big picture, but it's really about that, like

everyday local, small steps with it. So I appreciate that a lot, yeah. I feel like I'm a terrible

one to close off with because I just wanted to bring in Brampton. I was really excited

about their group because there are... Like some of the people leading that group, it's

just a couple of people, they're literally straight out of high school, maybe first year university.

And they literally went in front of city council yesterday to, they all wore their kofi'as and

they presented about how even though some of their MPs were responsive, most were not and

that the city actually has a responsibility to do something about this because Brampton

has companies that send parts that are eventually used to kill people in Raza. And it was, they

did, they, they did a really good job. I, I just want to make sure that they hold those

city counselors accountable. because they were very open to what they brought to the table.

They were very responsive. The mayor even was like, welcome. You guys can be in here with

your kofias, why not? Queens Park. So they kind of made a dig, but at the same time, I'm waiting

for the results. But I know that the Brampton kids have a lot of energy. So I'm actually

pretty excited about them, especially since Brampton was like one of the first cities to

recognize. to call for a ceasefire like way back. So the only other thing I wanted to say

is, even if these writings are not gonna be the solution, I think making little groups

is so great because it's just like anything else. It's networking, you don't all have to

do the same thing. Everybody has their own little goals. Our goal is to bother Marco and make

sure that nobody takes him seriously. Other people's goals are to actually... For example,

I think Davenport got their MP to call for an arms embargo like a month ago. So, I think

we all have different goals. However, when we talk to each other, everybody can trade their

skills and their information. And this helped Eglinton Lawrence a lot. Like the only reason

we're here is because we learned from other people. So, I hope that groups keep growing.

I hope everybody shares the land back. goal for everybody, especially since Indigenous

people here have actually been at the front lines of the pro-Palestinian movement. Yeah,

somebody else should wrap up. I for real just had little thoughts that I wanted to throw

in. That's okay. I think as a collective there, the last three comments really did, I feel

like you guys summarized the interview back up for the audience. And so I'll just leave

it with a huge thank you. to the folks here in the studio, as well as all of your comrades

that helped get the work done. I know there was a bunch of people that could not make the

time slot for today, and that just means I'll have to haul a whole bunch of you back in here

a couple months from now or whatever to talk about your latest shenanigans and the fight

for a free Palestine on the local level. So thank you very much for taking the time to

come in here and keep disrupting. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption.

Thank you for joining us. Also a very big thank you to the producer of our show, Santiago Halu-Quintero.

Blueprints of Disruption is an independent production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on

Twitter at BPofDisruption. If you'd like to help us continue disrupting the status quo,

please share our content. And if you have the means, consider becoming a patron. Not only

does our support come from the progressive community, so does our content. So reach out to us and

let us know what or who we should be amplifying. So until next time, keep disrupting.