This week, Nashwa chats with Executive Director of the BC Civil Liberties Association and author of the upcoming book Border and Rule, Harsha Walia.
They unpack the insidious nature of Canada being framed as “better” than America when it comes to marginalized people. The conversation highlights the faultlines of Canada’s immigration system especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite precarious and dangerous working conditions for Canada’s migrant workers, they have no guaranteed access to the vaccine; we hope listeners become signatories of and share the Vaccines For All campaign to ensure full access to the vaccine regardless of immigration status.
Nashwa and Harsha also touch on the NDP’s motion in the House of Commons to designate the Proud Boys a terrorist entity will and can actually harm marginalized communities. They also touch on one of Canada’s most popular exports, its grotesque Canadian models of migration.
The two wrap up with a discussion of how in our small worlds we can do the things that the government/state will not. They want to find ways to rethink how to be with each other and this episode reminds listeners that we have a collective struggle, to recenter what we all long for, and what we all owe each other. Walia helps us rethink borders and an imagined Canada—we re-imagine what could be and the radical possibilities that await us when we fight for one another in a demilitarized world.
Guest Information:
Guest of the week: Harsha Walia
Harsha Walia is the author of the upcoming book Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism. She is also the award-winning author of Undoing Border Imperialism, co-author of Never Home: Legislating Discrimination in Canadian Immigration as well as Red Women Rising: Indigenous Women Survivors in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Harsha has organized in migrant justice, anti-capitalist, feminist, abolitionist, and anti-imperialist movements for the past two decades. She has been involved in grassroots movements including No One Is Illegal, Defenders of the Land, and Women’s Memorial March. She is the past Project Coordinator of the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre and current Executive Director of the BC Civil Liberties Association.
You can buy her first book Undoing Border Imperialism here.
You can buy her highly anticipated second book Border and Rule, being released in February, here.
We highly recommend people check out her 2012 article in Briarpatch entitled Decolonizing Together. You can join Harsha and D.G. Kelley for the launch of her book on February 11th for a conversation on about global migration, racial capitalism, and the ascendent far right.
Additional Resources:
Some readings that compliment this episode :
We Must Dismantle The Security State, Not Expand It by Harsha Walia
Don’t Expand the War on Terror in the Name of Antiracism by Arun Kudnani and Jeanne Theoharis
Whiteness as Property by Cheryl I. Harris
What could a progressive alternative to the failed “war on terror” look like? by Arun Kudnani
Calling the Capitol riot ‘terrorism’ will only hurt communities of color by Diala Shamas and Tarek Z. Ismail
Behind Closed Doors: Exposing Migrant Care Worker Exploitation During COVID-19 by The Migrant Rights Network
Production Credits:
Hosted by Nashwa Lina Khan
Music by Johnny Zapras and postXamerica
Art for Habibti Please by postXamerica
Production by Nashwa Lina Khan and Johnny Zapras
Production Assistance by Raymond Khanano
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Episode 19 with Harsha Walia