Human Rights on the Line: Direct Action in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands Sunday, 5:30-7:00 Judson Garden Room
With 213 bodies recovered in the Sonoran desert this fiscal year alone and 4,000 deaths in the desert since 1994, with 13 humanitarian aid workers facing criminal charges in southern Arizona, with immigration reform looming in Washington's docket for 2010, never before has the humanitarian crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border been so dire and thus in need of so much attention, education, and action. It is in this spirit that a group of young volunteers with No More Deaths â an on-the-ground, direct action-focused, humanitarian aid group in Arizona â are conducting a tour of the East Coast. Presenting direct action responses and alternatives with regard to U.S. immigration policy and constructs for change, their tour provides an opportunity to mobilize a wide range of allies in an important humanitarian movement of our time. Offering a workshop on the history of the region and the attendant border militarization industry, No More Deaths volunteers will use multimedia resources and personal accounts of their experiences providing aid along the Arizona-Mexico border to illustrate the necessities of challenging dominant constructions of "the border" and humanitarian aid. In doing so, they seek to illustrate how direct action in the service of human rights can provide a necessary link between critical analysis and tangible social change in resisting the militarization of the borderlands and the dehumanization of people on both sides of the line.
Karen, Gabe, Craig, and Jessica are four young members of No More Deaths who, together, cover diverse areas of experience and operations of the organization. Immigrant voices are central, as two come from first generation Central American immigrants. Through their combined efforts and experiences they've covered media, abuse documentation, desert aid, and facilitation of local organizing, logistics, and hospitality.
Related Audio:
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/15255
Mexican Struggles Today: Solidarity Across States and Borders http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/20975
1968 Revisited: Prospects for a More Coherent Left http://www.archive.org/details/1968RevisitedProspectsForAMoreCoherentLeft
Tearing Down the Walls: A No Borders Camp Reportback http://www.archive.org/details/NycAnarchistBookfair2008TearingDownTheWallsANoBordersCamp
Eduardo Galeano, NYC, 27 May 2009 http://www.archive.org/details/EduardoGaleanoNyc27May2009
NYC Anarchist Book Fair 2007: Insurgent Mexico http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/26977
Raul Zibechi: Autonomy, the State, and Latin American Movements http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/48069
For info about the upcoming 2011 NYC Anarchist Bookfair (9 April) see: www.anarchistbookfair.net
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