Up at the front of the march, a giant banner unfurled. Held by at least 10 people, it read “Stop the deportation of Pakistani, Palestinian, Algerian, Columbian, and Ethiopian refugees”. One of the organizers of the demonstration informed me that this banner was made by the family of Shamim Akhtar. Shamim is a Pakistani refugee, a Shia Muslim woman who came to Canada because her family was targeted by Shi'ite extremists in their home city of Karachi, and further intimidated by the post 9/11 crackdown they witnessed first-hand against all South Asians in the USA. Shamim and her family were deported back to the USA in early July, and are currently awaiting their forced return to a living nightmare.

Working with Shamim was an inspiring experience if anything. Whenever she spoke publicly, either on behalf of her family or others in her Pakistani community, there was an air of severe hardship on her face. Often tears would well up in her eyes and flow down a face so filled with dignity. This was a woman who had seen her whole family threatened at gunpoint, survived a trip halfway around the world, faced down the inhumane bureaucracy of Immigration Canada, and still she was fighting. Tired, indeed, but willing to give up, never.

The Ayoub family is another stunning case in the Montreal refugee community. Having fled the intolerable conditions of the Ein El-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon many years ago, they hoped to find a bit of peace in Canada. However, faced with a deportation order last January 2004, they felt they had no choice but to do what several refugees are doing nowadays and claim sanctuary in the basement of a church in the neighborhood of Notre-Dame de Grace.

The Ayoubs (Nabih, Therese, and Khalil) are elderly Palestinians in their late 60s and early 70s. They want nothing more but to die in peace, with a shred of happiness and pride. The government of Canada won't even grant them that. Instead, they are relegated to the dank basement of a church.

I recall visiting them in that church once in early June. Later in the evening, one of the Ayoub brothers joined us outside in the parking lot for a cigarette. “This is the furthest I can go,” he explained, and then he went on to joke, “and if I see the police coming, I jump into those bushes!” I was surprised that he could pull even an ounce of humor out of such an oppressive situation, but then again, if you live in the basement of a church and spend most of your days playing solitaire or jigsaw puzzles as the Ayoubs do, you need to make some light out of it.

But again, listening to the Ayoubs, you can see and hear their exhaustion. The ongoing struggle for status cuts far deeper into these people than a wrinkle or scar ever could. In the case of the roughly 40 Palestinian refugees in Montreal who are fighting their deportations, the situation carries even more weight, as many of them have been living the refugee experience their whole lives. A well-known saying amongst them is “born a refugee, lived as a refugee, don't want to die a refugee”. The struggle is intense and seemingly everlasting. On one side you have human beings willing to go to amazing lengths, to pack themselves into over-crowded boats, to leave family and friends, and start from scratch a world away. On the other side you have characters like Judy Sgro, Canada's immigration minister, a downright racist woman who this past August appealed to churches across the country to stop providing sanctuary to refugees because they could be harboring “criminals and terrorists”.

As people living in Canada, we need to decide who's side we're on, and we need to do so vocally and loudly. The demonstration on September 18th was a step. Refugees in Montreal, Toronto, and other cities are tired. They are tired because they are amongst society's hardest working, and now society's hardest struggling too. Their demands are simple and tangible – an end to deportations and to be granted landed status in Canada. The refugee experience has been described as a “life of waiting”. For all their waiting, we owe them our respect, but we owe them more than that. We owe them dignity, compassion, and yes, their papers. And if those don't come, we owe them a fightback.


Link: refugees.riseup.net

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