I Dream of Billboards Burning

Striking a match between social justice artivism and oppositional cultural practice

Tagged: Africa

2

opinion / reviews / widge's videos

· by · 7 Aug, 2009

Africa, Canadian Mining Interests, Human Cargo and Re-education

[Montréal, Québec, Canada  18°C] Last night, I watched the five last episodes of the 2004 six-part television series, Human Cargo, directed by Brad Turner. I watched it on DVD borrowed from the well-stocked video library at La Grande Bibliothèque. The winner of seven Gemini Awards, including best director and best miniseries, the series follows parallel stories and characters closely related to human migration issues. The series is set mostly in Vancouver, where migrants seeking refugee status in Canada deal with the Immigration and Refugee Board’s (IRB) corruptibility, and in Burundi where a civil war between Tutsis and Hutus, exacerbated by...

0

Montréal / Sudan / travel

· by · 1 Apr, 2009

Sudanese-born Canadian May Fly Home on Friday (updated)

[Abyei Town, Abyei Transitional Area, Sudan 40°C] Abousfian Abdelrazik is a man from Montréal whose been living in ‘temporary safe haven’ in the Canadian Embassy in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, since late April 2008. He has been in Sudan since March 2003, when he went to visit his mother. According to a timeline of his case, Abdelrazik was arrested six months later and detained for ten months before being released. Documents obtained under the Privacy Act (.pdf 169Mb or ZIP 52Mb) and available from the website of the People’s Commission on Immigration Security Measures indicate that Mr. Abdelrazik, a Canadian...

8

photography / Sudan / travel

· by · 24 Mar, 2009

Immunization in Lurcuk Village, Tonj North County, Southern Sudan

[Warrap Town, Southern Sudan 40°C] Eight of us climb into the Land Cruiser and leave the World Vision compound at around 11h00. We drive to the brick storage room, where refrigerators store vaccinations for the immunization program that takes place in different villages every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in Tonj North County. We load tables and chairs onto the roof of the vehicle; carefully place coollers of vaccines against meningitis, tetanus, measles into the back, and toss boxes of syringes, gauze and rubber gloves under the vehicles back benches. Five children congregate by the passenger door to get a closer look at the khawaja: me the white man in the front seat. Half of them are naked. All of them reluctent to shake this khawaja’s hand, despite customary protocol.

3

photography / Sudan / travel

· by · 17 Mar, 2009

Miscellaneous photos from Northern Bahr el-Ghazal

[Malual Kon, Bahr el-Ghazal, Southern Sudan 42°C] Tomorrow morning, I leave Northern Bahr el-Ghazal and head south to Tonj county in Warrap State. Apparantly a more remote part of Southern Sudan.  As I leave, I leave you here with a selection of photographs of places I’ve visited and people I’ve met while in the area. (I will add more soon)