KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – It was cold and windy yesterday afternoon, but that didn’t stop some 40 people from showing up at the Peace and Freedom Park, across from the Westin Hotel.
The hotel is where the Halifax International Security Forum (HISF) is held. HISF is seen as an opportunity for military types, politicians and lobbyists from some 90 countries in the US sphere of influence to talk about the politics of war and imperialism.
The HISF is partially financed by public money, to the tune of some $3.3 million annually.
The protesters gathered to listen to speeches and a spoken word poem by El Jones, and altogether to show their great displeasure with the HISF, and its efforts to weaken democratically elected progressive governments and promote imperialist wars.
Meanwhile, in Toronto, a similar protest was taking place.
These rallies began in 2009 with a mass picket and a rally when the Security Forum first came to Halifax. It was at that time that the statue was first covered and Cornwallis Park was renamed the Peace and Freedom Park.
Now the statue has been removed, and there is a lesson there, suggests Kathrin Winkler, of the Nova Scotia Voice of Women for Peace.
“We are in a park that reminds us that true change is possible. We are also in a park that reminds us that things move slowly, but that change comes, and that it comes from us,” said Winkler.
Notably absent this year was Alan Bezanson, a driving force behind the yearly protests, who couldn’t attend for health reasons.
“From my warm apartment I send greetings to all of you standing in the cold. Keep up the struggle to dismantle NATO, and to make Canada a zone of peace,” he wrote in a letter that was read at the rally.
Margaret Kimberley, the Editor and Senior Columnist of the excellent Black Agenda Report, here at the invitation of the rally’s organizers, also spoke briefly.
“We must say no to war, no to any kinds of interventions, no to sanctions which are just wars by other means. Every country has a right to its sovereignty, no nation has the right to impose its will on another.
We are not fooled when we are told that a certain leader is a demon, who gasses his own people, commits atrocities. They know that when they tell us the truth about why they intervene the public will reject it, so they lie.
“We are not secure, the rest of the world is insecure because of the United States and its allies. The rest of the world is insecure because of NATO. There is no reason for NATO to exist except to kill and destroy, in Libya, in Syria and fill in the blanks for whatever is coming up somewhere else.
“We know not to believe what we are told of Bolivia. We know that any country that is trying to become independent from this hegemon, when such a leader emerges they are killed, its people are attacked. We are against war, we are always for peace, we are always for the people, we know that you cannot be for the people and be for war also.”
Not one more drop, a poem by El Jones
They say there’s one rule for the few and another for the many
Trillions of dollars for the banks and the poor get not a penny
And they’ve convinced us all that the crumbs they give are plenty
And that’s why people in Alberta elected Jason Kenney
Well that, and that they always have some brown folk as the enemy
When Indigenous people block the pipelines they send the military
And there’s lead all in the water but is water necessary?
And you can’t even afford the plot in your family cemetary
But just blame the immigrants in the media commentary
They’ve got the white folks marching to save the job of millionaire Don Cherry
And whether we wear poppies got the white folk in a frenzy
And in the Toronto mayoral election the third place was a nazi
They voted in Doug Ford because his brother seemed so friendly
And they’ll sell you dollar beers while your pension fund stays empty
Don’t have any savings while your banker drives a bentley
And they hold up billionaires as people we should envy
Children in this country can’t put breakfast in their belly
People on assistance can’t even pay to ride the ferry
They make billions off the weapons that are used against Yemenis
But if you possess a gun well then the courts will give you twenty
But when corporations violate the government won’t condemn them
Because there’s one law for the people but for the rich the laws are bendy
And you end your life in debt and the burden is too heavy
So your kids go off to foreign countries where they end up buried
So to the killers at the top not one more drop
Generals guards and cops not one more drop
And they plunder steal and rob
And they strip us of our jobs
But we will not join their mob not one more drop
Not one more drop of poor and working class blood for their capitalistic wars
So they send the working class to die in wars they can’t find in the atlas
Military surplus goes to cops who use black men as target practice
They keep the oil wells running guarded by private military contractors
While the sanctions they imposed killed millions of Iraqis
In their black site prisons locals tortured by their captors
But then they say that terrorism was caused by other factors
Military budget keeps exploding like a nuclear reactor
While the livelihood of ordinary people broken into fractures
They’ll offer luxury condos to the Toronto Raptors
While the homeless on the street can’t even find a benefactor
When wikileaks showed their war crimes they imprisoned all the hackers
And they fire all the athletes who tell us black lives matter
But the war machine keeps rolling like wheat into a tractor
Hollywood propaganda we’ve got snipers played by actors
And they tell us hope and change came with president Obama
So the people vote again for their neoliberal masters
Don’t even watch the news it’s all corporate paid chatter
All designed for you to serve your children on a platter
Slavery is a choice says another foolish rapper
And now Amazon’s invested so your doorbell is a tracker
Well the workers are on food stamps and death row is getting blacker
Preaching prosperity gospel so you’re brainwashed by your pastor
Corporations making money after every environmental disaster
They sent the UN troops to Haiti and spread cholera in the water
And so there’s endless war and endless blood that splatters
Syria Afghanistan Somalia its all another chapter
And there’s always some brown person that they’ll say is the attacker
And every politician paid by corporate backers
So to the killers at the top not one more drop
Generals guards and cops not one more drop
And they plunder steal and rob
So they strip us of our jobs
But we will not join their mob not one more drop
Not one more drop of poor and working class blood for their capitalistic wars
So now there’s open slave markets because the US destroyed Libya
We took in a few thousand refugees and say we’re saving Syria
Stoke the terrorism from Turkey to Nigeria
And now a military coup that’s taking down Bolivia
They say they’re white and Christian so they cut Indigenous insignia
Bolnasaro in Brazil kills black folk like it’s just trivial
Canadian mining companies in the Amazon with private militia
Rain forest burning but we raise money for the Notre Dame Basilica
Cause white supremacy is spreading across the globe like a bacteria
There’s wars across the border between Pakistan and India
British colonial legacies left conflict in every arena
But they say that we’re just savage and they talk of us as primitive
So Trump builds a border wall just like the walls in Israel
Obama used his drone strikes to send teenagers to oblivion
There’s bases across the world from Japan to the Caribbean
And the powerful manipulate the people to be their useful idiots
Race and religion are their tools to sow division
Populist politicians while rich folk rake in another billion
And the rich buy all the votes while the ballot box is filling
Cause the military industrial complex always makes a killing
So to the killers at the top not one more drop
Generals guards and cops not one more drop
They can plunder steal and rob
They can strip us of our jobs
But we will not join their mob not one more drop
Not one more drop of poor and working class blood for their capitalistic wars
Not one more drop of Black and working class blood for their imperialistic wars.
See also: Tony Seed: Opposition against Halifax war conference spreads to Ontario
With a special thanks to our generous donors who make publication of the Nova Scotia Advocate possible.
Subscribe to the Nova Scotia Advocate weekly digest and never miss an article again. It’s free!
