The Contentious Conflicts series has served as a forum for facilitating constructive public dialogues on highly resonant political and security issues extending from the campus to the national and global levels. It seeks to examine and discuss the mobilization of public support and political action within Canada on issues that are geographically outside of Canada, but which have a significant impact on Canadian security, defence and foreign policies by virtue of their relevance to civil society groups, NGOs, diaspora representatives and other political organizations.
YCISS Contentious Conflicts and Canadian Society Series:
Screening and Q&A:
Screening the award wining documentary Budrus.
Q&A featuring Just Vision's Nadav Greenberg.
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Robert R. McEwen Auditorium
4:30-7:00pm
Previous Events:
YCISS Contentious Conflicts and Canadian Society Series:
A Panel Discussion on Transformations in the Middle East
Monday, 28 March 2011
4:00 – 6:00 pm
Room 519 York Research Tower
Featuring:
Muhammed Faour - Recipes for Conflict in Lebanon
Robert Latham -Alternative Spatial Imaginaries of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict
Sundus Balata -Reflections on the Egyptian Revolution: Analyzing Causes and Mapping out Future Political Implications
Hicham Safieddine - U.S. Intervention and the Arab Revolts: The Hedging of a Hegemon
YCISS Contentious Conflicts and Canadian Society Series:
Haiti: The Mobilization of Aid, Public Discourses and Political Action within CanadaThursday 11 February 2010
2pm- 3.45pm
Room 519, 5th Floor
York Research Tower (YRT)
York University
The earthquake in Haiti and the subsequent human suffering calls for a critical analysis of the hegemonic representations of Haiti’s history, poverty and political disempowerment. It is in this context that we need to examine how mobilization of aid is occurring through the media, diasporas, NGOs, the military - particularly the Canadian Forces - and other government institutions, and to what effect.
Of crucial importance is the question concerning the politically and ideologically motivated agendas of the international community, one that appears now to be coming to the aid of the Haitians.
On Thursday 11 February 2010, YCISS hosted a roundtable discussion on the current situation in Haiti and its future. The discussion involved the following participants:
Dr Manuel Rozental
Dr Melanie Newton, University of Toronto
Dr Nalini Persram (Chair), York University
A downloadable MP3/podcast recording of the above discussion is available Click here. A recording of the discussion can be accessed directly from this website Click here.
The YCISS Contentious Conflicts and Canadian Society Series:
The Sri Lankan Civil War and the Politics of Conflict in Canada
Wednesday 2nd December 2009
4.30-6.30pm
YRT Conference Centre
Room 519, 5th Floor, York Research Tower (YRT)
The Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have waged a civil war against each other for several decades. The experiences and effects of the violence of this conflict have been registered in the lives of Tamil and Sinhalese diaspora living in Canada.
As part of the YCISS Contentious Conflicts and Canadian Society Series this panel discussion explored how diasporas affected by the Sri Lankan civil war mobilize to shape public opinion and influence official views and policy.
Key questions addressed were:
1) How is the civil war in Sri Lanka represented by the diaspora living in Canada?
2) What are the political options for members of a diaspora in terms of both direct and indirect action and can they exert a positive influence on Canadian foreign and domestic policies?
3) What should be the policy response in Ottawa to calls for intervention or action from diasporas in Canada?
4) How can the diasporas contribute to developing an effective and peaceful response to the problems within the community in both Sri Lanka and Canada?
5) What should be the role of universities in providing a space for the debate of contentious conflicts within Canadian society?
The panel consisted of representatives from the communities affected by the violence, subject matter experts and members of organisations with knowledge of the conflict and its impact on Canadian society.
The panel included the following:
Dr R. Cheran, University of Windsor
Ken Kandeepan, Canadian Tamil Congress
Stewart Bell, National Post
John Argue, Amnesty International
Clem Marshall, Moderator
For a downloaded MP4 podcast of this event please Click here
To view the event on this website please Click here
YCISS Contentious Conflicts and Canadian Society Series:
A Debate on the Academic Boycott of Israel
Moot Court, Osgoode Hall
York University
Monday, 11 May 2009
4:30-6:30pm
Boycotts have emerged in recent decades as a means of developing grassroots opposition to certain politics and practices. Often these boycotts are directed at firms or industries in the name of environmental or humanitarian goals. In the past few months, framed as an attempt to build on the successes of a similarly structured campaign against historic South African apartheid, calls for the boycotting of Israeli academic institutions have been raised in Canadian universities as a response to the military action in Gaza.
Boycotts raise fundamental issues for universities and other academic institutions: how do boycotts affect a university's commitment to free speech and inquiry? To what degree should public universities be considered as state institutions, and are they appropriate targets for boycotts which oppose state policy? Are boycotts a sustainable and peaceful way for intellectuals to intervene in conflicts or are they counter-productive?
Following recent seminars on the boycott theme by Omar Barghouti and Edward Beck, YCISS invited the community to come together for a respectful yet rigorous debate about the questions that the boycott issue raises for Canadian universities.
The panel-style debate explored themes of academic freedom and repression in relation to calls for an academic boycott of Israel, with an emphasis on the role and responsibilities of Canadian universities.
The guest speakers included:
Dr. Abigail Bakan Professor of Political Studies and Women's Studies, Faculty of Arts and Science, Queen's University
Dr Howard Adelman Professor of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, York University
Dr. Clive Seligman Professor of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Western Ontario
Dr. Alan Sears Associate Professor Sociology, Faculty of Arts, Ryerson University
A recording of the above debate is available. Click here
Academic Boycotts and Contemporary Conflict Seminar Series
Boycotts have emerged in recent decades as a favoured means of grassroots opposition to certain politics and practices. Often these boycotts are directed at firms or industries in the name of environmental or humanitarian goals. In the past few months, framed as an attempt to build on the successes of a similarly structured campaign against historic South African apartheid, calls for boycotts have been raised in response to Israeli action in Gaza. These calls have included a request for the boycotting of Israeli academic institutions. Boycotts raise fundamental issues for universities and other academic institutions: how do boycotts affect the university's commitments to free speech and inquiry, which are central to our functions? To what degree are public universities state institutions, and so appropriate targets for boycotts which oppose state policy? Are boycotts sustainable and peaceful ways for intellectuals to intervene in conflicts, or are they counter-productive?
With this series, YCISS invites the community to explore these and other issues by presenting a range of perspectives for consideration and discussion. The spirit with which we offer this seminar series was articulately expressed by the president of Georgetown University http://president.georgetown.edu/sections/speeches/35089.html.
Academic Boycotts as the Creation of Counterproductive Efforts for Peace and Antithetical Constructs to Academic Freedom
Edward S. Beck
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
3:30-5:30pm, Room 305 York Lanes
Dr. Edward S. Beck, Co-Founder and now President Emeritus of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), is currently Professor in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Walden University. He has served on the faculties and administrative staff of Penn State University, New York University, and Rutgers universities among several others. He enjoys affiliate appointments at Haifa University and Bar-Ilan Universities. He received his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania and Bachelors and Masters Degrees from New York University. He has served as the President of the American Mental Health Counselors Association, on the Board of the Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, and as founding editor of the Practice Section of the Journal of Mental Health Counseling. He is the author of numerous articles and chapters and specialized in professional standards and ethics. Currently he is working on a multiculturally oriented book whose working title is: Counseling Jews as a Diverse, But Distinct Multicultural Minority.
He has been a past Community Relations Council Chair for his local Harrisburg Jewish Federation and has been active in AIPAC, ADL and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.
Ed has watched SPME grow from a Yahoo groups listserv of just a few like-minded individuals in 2002 to an organization that has had the participation of 44,000 college professors, including nearly 40 Nobel Laureates and 60 University Presidents, taking important stands on issues of academic freedom and raising the level of the narrative of the Arab-Israeli conflict from polemics to scholarship across the disciplines.
Boycotts as Civil Resistance: The Moral Responsibility of Intellectuals
Omar Barghouti
Monday, 2 March 2009
1-3pm, Room 305 York Lanes
Omar Barghouti is an independent Palestinian researcher, commentator and human rights activist living in the occupied West Bank. He is a founding member of the Palestinian civil society Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Campaign as well as a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). He contributed to the philosophical volume, "Controversies and Subjectivity" (John Benjamins, 2005) and to "The New Intifada: Resisting Israel's Apartheid" (Verso Books, 2001). He advocates an ethical vision for a unitary, secular democratic state in historic Palestine.
A growing debate around the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement has reached North American shores, with prominent unions, civil society organizations and public figures joining the movement to sanction the Israeli state and related institutions for systemic violations of fundamental Palestinian human rights. Since the recent assault on the Gaza Strip, this movement has made important advancements, including endorsements from the President of the UN General Assembly, Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, intellectuals like Slavoj Zizek, Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak, John Berger, and Etienne Balibar (among others), as well as the Congress of South African Trade Unions, a number of student unions and social movements worldwide.
The BDS movement poses an important challenge to intellectuals. In contexts of colonial oppression, intellectuals who advocate and work for justice cannot be just intellectuals. They cannot but be immersed in some form or another of activism and to organically engage in collective emancipatory processes. In short, they are challenged to be *just* intellectuals. The questions remain: Is there a role for intellectuals and ordinary citizens to play in solidarity with the oppressed or is peace in the region dependent on allowing the diplomats and negotiators of The Middle East Quartet to negotiate a peace between chosen actors in the region? Is this a sustainable movement that can build on the successes of the similarly inspired movement against South African apartheid or is it engaging in counter-productive actions that threaten to undermine delicate peace efforts in the region as its critics claim? Furthermore, how are those who reside in Canada, seemingly removed from this conflict, most constructively able contribute to the establishment of a lasting peace in the region?
