Harsha Walia is a Vancouver based social activist involved with refugee rights and women’s issues in the Downtown Eastside (DTES). She spoke with Am Johal at Blake’s Coffee Shop in Vancouver.

Am Johal: I want to talk about your work with No One is Illegal and some of the issues you are now dealing with in Canada.

Harsha Walia: It is crucial to understand the local consequences of global forces such as militarization, occupation, economic globalization, and the “War on Terror.” There is an important struggle on the “home front” for migrant justice, which is a struggle against racism, against poverty, against exploitation, against law enforcement brutality, and a struggle to defend the dignity of the survivors of Western imperialism. This analysis extends to understanding the context of colonization and displacement of indigenous people on Turtle Island.

In the current context we are seeing increasingly repressive enforcement with a growing number of detentions and deportations, paralleled with a growing security apparatus including armed border guards and anti-terror legislation. At the same time, cheap labour continues to be ensured through an expanding guest worker program since free trade agreements such as NAFTA and the Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement continue to allow free movement of capital and cheap labour, but deny free movement of people.

With the situation of the attempted deportation of Laibar Singh, it seems the mainstream media have sensationalized the story a great deal. Can you speak to some of the underlying issues and provide some context?

The struggle of Laibar Singh was the subject of a great deal of media spin, and the reasons why become apparent when we understand the significance of this situation.

Firstly, he took sanctuary in a Gurudwara, the first known case of sanctuary not in a church. There is much greater skepticism around Gurudwara sanctuary, with the prevailing discourse being about “harbouring an illegal,” compared to the tradition of church sanctuary which has largely been respected and in fact lauded as a humane act. This double standard demonstrates a lack of respect for a non-dominant religion practiced primarily by racialized people.

Secondly, the actual physical prevention of [Singh’s] deportation at the airport was unprecedented, serving as a powerful inspiration and revealing the power within communities who are at the front lines to educate and mobilize themselves.

Thirdly, the campaign was largely led and supported by working class Punjabi Canadians. Their organizing and courageous defiance of the Canadian state is a moment of disruption from the ‘model-minority syndrome’ that frequently defines the identity of racialized immigrants. The racist backlash that has ensued has only proven this point as the community is reminded of their subordinate position as “outsiders” through frequent media commentaries about being “ungrateful” and returning “to where they came from.”

Can you speak about foreign worker programs in this economic context and the social implications that are involved?

Globally, WTO’s existing General Agreement on Trade in Services guidelines, though not yet enacted, basically lays out a global guest worker program. In Canada, there are more people under Temporary Employment Authorizations than permanent residents. Both the U.S. and Canada are planning on rapid expansion of guest worker programs in the next few years through the Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement.

As we know, businesses and corporate interests are driven by profits. The increased mobility of capital through free trade agreements is driven by and in turn supports a drive towards increased labour flexibility. Yet at the same time, particularly in the post 9-11 climate, the nation-state has fortified itself with increased restrictions on migration. You want to control borders and get the “illegals” out, but you need their cheap labour âe” this becomes the dilemma of a “Fortress” society.

Migrant workers are central to resolving this. Firstly, they are one of the most vulnerable pools of devalued labour. The core of their vulnerability lies in their precarious legal status of being deportable which allows them to be hyper-exploited. Secondly, the state is able to exercise repressive social control through denial of basic rights afforded to citizens. Thirdly, the sanctity of a racialized cultural and national identity is maintained by legalizing the “foreign-ness” of migrant workers, which then feeds into the racist cycle required to dehumanize them in order to justify their deplorable conditions.

Many progressive responses focus around the idea of “protecting the Canadian workforce.” Unfortunately, this basically legalizes the foreign-ness of migrant workers and sees them as separate from “us”, as “undesirables” who are not part of our community despite their incredible sacrifices. We have to view the phenomenon of contract labour migration in a global perspective as global capitalism works across borders. Yet the borders serve the interests of capital by sanctioning this two-tiered level of citizenship through the legalization of indentured labour programs.

Can you talk about women’s resistance in the Downtown Eastside?

My work in the Downtown Eastside is as a paid worker, which is a significant privilege and I, myself, am not above the criticisms of working in this ‘poverty industry.’

Most people view the DTES from a charity perspective of “helping the poor” and there are a significant number of NGOs and service-providers that operate here. But there are profound political, economic, and social justice struggles within the DTES.

The DTES is often called “The Road off the Rez,” highlighting the displacement and dispossession of indigenous people as a direct result of the ongoing legacy of colonization. For indigenous women this is particularly evident as the racist and sexist Indian Act highly regulates life on the reserves, forcing a growing population of indigenous women into urban ghettos such as the DTES.

From a global economic perspective, legislated poverty in BC is no different than the World Bank-imposed Structural Adjustment Programs: increasing privatization of basic services such as healthcare; flexibilization of labour with the training wage and increased dependence on temporary labour; cuts to social services such as legal aid, welfare rates, supports for single mothers and seniors; and lack of affordable housing. Therefore, government policies have contributed to an increase in poverty, while at the same time the government criminalises victims of its own policies through heavy policing and incarceration as a mechanism of social control.

In terms of the impact on women, lack of housing and child apprehension are two significant issues, often working together: women are often forced to stay in abusive relationships in order to have a home, yet they risk losing their children for being in an unsafe environment. If they leave an abusive relationship and are in shelters or on the streets, they face an incredibly precarious situation âe” including street violence âe” and the strong likelihood of losing their children.

The Power of Women group at the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre have a list of demands: safe, affordable, and secure housing; raise in welfare rates of 40 percent; priority on housing lists for survivors of violence; universal childcare; living wages and abolition of the training wage; rent controls and stronger tenancy protection; immediate withdrawal of Project Civil City; protection of existing low-income rentals and more social housing in order to halt and reverse gentrification; and finally, that not a single person in the DTES or any other community be displaced as a result of the Olympics.

Am Johal

Am Johal

Am Johal is an independent Vancouver writer whose work has appeared in Seven Oaks Magazine, ZNet, Georgia Straight, Electronic Intifada, Arena Magazine, Inter Press Service, Worldpress.org, rabble.ca...