No One Is Illegal Radio reports about the frontline struggles for justice, dignity and self-determination by migrants, refugees and indigenous peoples. On this month's edition of No One Is Illegal Radio:
-- Supporting migrants at the US-Mexico border: interviews with activists and reporters: Brenda Norrell (Tuscon, Arizona), Mike Wilson (member of the Tohono O'odham nation) and Jay Johnson-Castro (Del Rio, Texas)
AND
-- "Smuggling, trafficking and open borders"; an interview with activist and scholar Nandita Sharma, author of "Home Economics: Nationalism and the Making of "Migrant Workers" in Canada"
LISTEN to the January 2008 edition of No One Is Illegal Radio HERE.
::: Voices against the US-Mexico Border Wall :::
On last month's No One Is Illegal Radio, we heard from Ofelia Rivas, an activist, elder and grandmother from an O'odham village near the US-Mexican border in Arizona. According to Ofelia: "Migration is a natural-occurring thing. People have migrated all over this land since the creation of this world. No fence is going to stop that." (Interview linked HERE.)
This month, we hear from three more voices of resistance to the US-Mexico Border Wall, and in support of migrants.
BRENDA NORRELL, based in Tuscon, Arizona, publishes the Censored Blog which reports on under-reported news about Indigenous Peoples, border injustice and international human rights. Brenda has been a reporter in "Indian country" for 25 years, living for 18 years on the Navajo Nation and working as a staffer for the Navajo Times. In this interview, she addresses the various movements against the border in 2007, describes the impacts of the border fence being built in southern Arizona, and recalls the Indigenous Border Summit.
MIKE WILSON, currently based in Tuscon, is an indigenous O'odham. He is a humanitarian worker who, in defiance of the Tohono O'odham tribal government, leaves water and maintains water stations for migrants moving north across the border. Every year, an average of 75 migrants die on O'odham lands in southern Arizona, usually from dehydration and exposure in the treacherous desert. In this interview, Mike describes his humanitarian work, the deaths of migrants on O'odham land, and the complicity of the tribal government with the Department of Homeland Security.
JAY JOHNSON-CASTRO, based in Del Rio, Texas, is a member of Border Ambassadors. In 2006, he marched more than 200 miles between Laredo and Brownsville, in opposition to the Border Wall. As part of Freedom Ambassadors, Jay has also been active in opposing the Hutto Detention Center in Taylor, Texas, where children are detained in a private prison facility. In this interview, Jay speaks about the community at the Texas-Mexico border that is being divided by the Border Wall, as well as the conditions in migrant detention facilities, including the detention center in Raymondville, which has been described as "the largest concentration camp in the world".
Background:
-> Censored Blog: www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
-> Humane Borders: www.humaneborders.org
-> Map of deaths on Arizona-Mexico border (2000-2004): www.humaneborders.org/news/images/migrantdeaths_0004.jpg
-> Border Ambassadors: www.borderambassadors.com
-> Freedom Ambassadors: www.freedomambassadors.com
-> Photos of Raymondville and Hutto detention centers: www.subtopia.blogspot.com/2007/02/circus-of-detention.html
::: "Smuggling, trafficking and open borders"
On this month's show, we also hear from NANDITA SHARMA, an activist and scholar currently based in Hawaii. Nandita helped to organize the "Open the Borders" conference in 2002, and is the author of "Home Economics: Nationalism and the Making of "Migrant Workers" in Canada".
In Part 1 of the interview, Nandita takes a critical look at smuggling and trafficking. In her words: "The Canadian government's legislation against smuggling and trafficking is the height of hyprocrisy. The main consequence of anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking legislation is to make the lives of migrants more vulnerable and their journeys more precarious. Traffickers are not the main problem that migrants face; the main problem that the vast majority of the world's migrants face is restrictive immigration policies. Anti-trafficking campaigns are the moral regulatory arm of contemporary anti-immigrant politics."
In Part 2, Nandita addresses the themes of her book, "Home Economics", including rejecting global apartheid, and her critique of appeals to citizenship and nation-states in migrant justice work. In her words: "[I add] my voice to the growing social movement for a world without borders, a world where people have the ability both to "stay" and to "move" according to their own self-determined needs and desires, a world where no one is made homeless."
Background:
-> Anti-Trafficking Rhetoric and the Making of Global Apartheid: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/nwsa_journal/v017/17.3sharma.html
-> Organizing for Migrant Justice and Self-Determination: http://www.leftturn.org/?q=node/842
LISTEN to the January 2008 edition of No One Is Illegal Radio HERE.
No One Is Illegal Radio broadcasts live on the first Thursday of every month, from 5-6pm (EST), as part of "Off the Hour", produced in collaboration with the community news collective at CKUT. We're at 90.3 FM in Montreal, and www.ckut.ca on the web. Starting in January 2008, No One Is Illegal Radio will also be part of the Rabble Podcast Network: http://www.rabble.ca/rpn
--> If you are interested in re-broadcasting our programs or interviews, please get in touch at nooneisillegal@gmail.com ... Community and alternative stations across North America re-broadcast excerpts of No One Is Illegal Radio monthly.
--> No One Is Illegal Radio's 2007 shows are archived HERE.
In 2007, No One Is Illegal Radio heard from indigenous activists and organizers from the Mohawk communities of Akwesasne, Tyendinaga & Kahnawake, from the Grand River Territory of Six Nations, the Ardoch Algonquin nation, the Anishnabe Ojibway nation, the Ts'mkiyen nation, the Kwakwaka'wakw nation, the Tohono O'odham nation, as well as from Aotearoa. We spoke with activists in Oslo, Seoul and Whanganui, as well as from allies in Houston, San Diego, New Bedford, Jersey City, New York, Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa. We also covered local anti-border, migrant justice organizing in Montreal.
No One Is Illegal-Montreal is part of a worldwide movement of resistance, fighting for justice and dignity, and the right to self-determination for migrants, refugees and indigenous people. Our campaign is in public confrontation with the Canadian state, denouncing and taking action to combat racial profiling, police brutality, detentions and deportations, as well as opposing the displacement and genocide of indigenous peoples on Turtle Island.
Tune-in live to No One Is Illegal Radio on the 1st Thursday of every month, from 5-6pm, as part of CKUT's "Off The Hour".
--> You can listen live in the MONTREAL-area at 90.3FM.
--> You can listen ANYWHERE online at www.ckut.ca
--> Part of the Rabble Podcast Network: http://www.rabble.ca/rpn
--> If you are interested in re-broadcasting our programs or interviews, please get in touch.
INFO: 514-848-7583 -- nooneisillegal@gmail.com
http://nooneisillegal-montreal.blogspot.com
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