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    NGOs and empire

    This article is excerpted from Paved with Good Intentions: Canada’s Development NGOs from Idealism to Imperialism, released April 2012 by Fernwood Publishing fernwoodpublishing.ca

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    The Juliet stories

    The simple, graceful prose of the book’s first half is crafted by a careful, knowing heart; Snyder, like Juliet, lived in Nicaragua as a child, when her parents moved there to protest the Contras.

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    Decolonizing together

    Given the devastating cultural, spiritual, economic, linguistic and political impacts of colonialism on Indigenous people in Canada, any serious attempt by non-natives at allying with Indigenous struggles must entail solidarity in the fight against colonization.

  • Magazine

    Canadian mining on trial

    As a court battle ensues between the Salvadoran government and Canadian mining company Pacific Rim, the disappearances and murders of anti-mining activists are a tangible manifestation of the lack of respect for individual and collective rights in the face of highly lucrative development projects.

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    Recipe for disaster

    Monsanto is among a handful of powerful multinationals that, with the support of Western governments, including Canada’s, are priming Vietnam to become a hotbed of biotechnology development, with potentially devastating consequences for its land and people.

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    Open for business

    Afghanistan, and the surrounding region, has been in the crosshairs of imperial expansionists for centuries. In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I set the East India Company on its march northward through India. This expansion of the British empire was confronted in Afghanistan in the early 19th century by the southward expansion of the Russian empire, instigating a series of wars known as the “Great Game.”

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    Lebanon rising

    Farah Koubaissy lifts a megaphone to the cheers of a crowd in downtown Beirut. The 24-year-old student, blogger and community organizer sports a calm smile, a keffiyeh scarf and a camera.

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    Letter from the editor

    George Orwell wrote that in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth can be a revolutionary act. Similarly, in an age of lies-passed-off-as-truth (the propaganda model), truth-passed-off-as-lies (satire) has a power all its own.

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    Taking stock of Canadian mining

    Marcia Ramírez hopes to set a precedent in Canadian courts that will benefit peasant farmers and indigenous peoples across the Global South. A community leader in her mid-20s, Ramírez is one of three Ecuadorian plaintiffs suing the Toronto Stock Exchange for over $1.5 billion.

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    The battle for the atmosphere

    December 2009’s Copenhagen climate summit fell far short of expectations. Explanations for the failure to reach a legally binding, fair and ambitious agreement to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions are legion but, in the end, the summit produced little more than the hastily negotiated Copenhagen Accord, a face-saving effort that does not commit nations to any binding emission reduction targets.

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    Canada’s imperialist project

    Canada has been active indeed on the world stage of late, but hardly as the force for good many Canadians imagine their country to be. Since June 2009, Canada has supported a coup in Honduras; three Salvadoran activists who were organizing against Canadian mining company Pacific Rim Mining Corporation have been assassinated…

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    Walking backward into battle

    It was well after midnight when we got off the yellow school buses and stepped into a field of thick Alberta mud. The sides of the large field kitchen tents nearby were billowing in the cold wind. Our kit had just been chucked to the ground from the buses, each item landing with a wet thump. Maple Defender, a week-long training exercise, was designed to give us a taste of the war in Afghanistan, as far “down in the weeds” as it was possible to get without actually being there.

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    Six pillars of a progressive Canadian foreign policy

    High-minded rhetoric aside, Canadian foreign policy is largely designed to serve hegemonic Canadian corporate interests abroad. To bring Canada closer to the status of a “peacekeeper” or “honest broker” here are some specific policies that the peace and social justice movement should pursue.

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    Peace begins at home

    The U.S. imperial project in Afghanistan has faltered. The government created by the United States lacks credibility and legitimacy. The vast majority of the people remain poor. The drug economy is dominant. Despite an increase in NATO military forces, the armed resistance led by the Taliban is increasing in strength. So what should Canada’s response be?

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    “Legalized Imperialism”

    “Neither imperialism nor colonialism is a simple act of accumulation and acquisition. It�s not just a matter of going out there and getting a territory and sitting on it. Both of these practices are supported and perhaps even impelled by impressive cultural formations, that include ideas that certain people and certain territories require and beseech domination.” — Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism