A decade in Toronto - 7

Che and Mahrukh on our weekly bus ride

Che in his new glasses

Immigration is all about losing one’s identity and gaining a new one. It is about finding oneself in a new environment, making friends, trusting strangers. Often, this process is not easy. In our case, we came to Toronto without knowing anyone here. So, we had no choice but to trust strangers. And, in retrospect, it’s worked out well.

In the middle of the Sheridan program, Joyce Wayne recommended me to Antanas Sileika, the dean at Humber School for Writers, to volunteer for its week-long intensive writing program conducted annually in summer. My co-students never forgave me for what they subsequently described was "blatant favouritism." 

The program was to commence in July at Humber’s picturesque Lakeshore Boulevard campus. I dressed in my best official suit to meet Antanas, but by the time I could reach the campus, a brief but intense rainstorm drenched me to my bones.

Antanas welcomed me to the program and placed me in an all-women group led by author Isabel Huggan. I Googled her name and went to the Amesbury library to borrow Isabel's linked short story collection The Elizabeth Stories. Reading it before meeting her made my interaction with her easy. My new acquaintance with Canadian literature – thanks to having browsed through the two volumes of Canadian literature in English that Joyce had insisted all her students at Sheridan buy – also helped.

The Elizabeth Stories is a fine collection of short stories. Isabel was pleased that I’d read it and liked it. Her group, which I assisted, comprised seven women, all working on their manuscripts and all deeply engaged in the process of creating. Isabel’s approach to writing was introspective. And she also gave me my writing mantra: “All writing is rewriting.”

The one session that remains etched in my memory even though nearly a decade has passed by, involved remembering a favourite photograph from one’s life and looking for what is missing in that photograph.

With the Humber Summer Workshop group

The exercise took all the participants in different directions, and many of them teared up when describing their experience of talking about their favourite photograph and then for the first time ever looking for what was missing in the photo. I guess Isabel’s purpose for conducting this exercise was to make all the participants understand the importance of unburdening one’s emotions and be true to oneself.

There were several simultaneous sessions going on at that time conducted by illustrious authors. They included Wayson Choy, Martin Amis, and Nino Ricci. I couldn’t have celebrated my first anniversary in Toronto any better. The Humber School’s summer workshop was perhaps instrumental in many ways in determining the course of my life.

I’ve written about the experience on this blog as well in the Canadian Immigrant experience. 

If you’re interested in reading more, please click on these links:

Mahrukh at 1440 Lawrence Ave W

Becoming a writer

The Laughing Buddha

All Writing is rewriting (Canadian Immigrant column)

All Writing is rewriting (GAB blog post)

Humber School of Writers Summer Workshop

2009 was turning out to be an extremely fruitful year. My interest in writing had propelled me into a new world and I was making new friends all the time. I signed up for several author groups on email and went to a session of Writers and Editors Network at a nice little traditional tavern in Islington.

Jasmine D’Costa was the president of this association. She is a banker from Bombay and has devoted her life to creating literature since she immigrated to Canada. Jasmine’s collection of short stories was published in May 2009 and it was tremendously well received. 

Over the years, she has consistently encouraged many of us newcomers with aspirations to become writers. She published extracts from my novel as short stories in two volumes she edited.

(Read about Jasmine here: Asian Writers; I used the term ‘Asian’ to describe South Asian writers, without realising then than Asian in North America only meant people from the Far East or South East Asia).

At Jasmine’s event at WEN, the main speaker was Robert Morgan, the publisher of BookLandPress. Subsequently, Robert held a workshop on publishing at the Runnymede branch of the Toronto library. Yoko and I participated in the session (Robert Morgan’s tips for writers).

I learnt that BookLandPress conducted an annual novel competition, which was decided on the basis of the first 50 pages of the manuscript. I decided to build my short story into a novel, by giving a backstory to the four main characters.

I fished out an incomplete manuscript that I’d started several years ago in Bombay when I decided to write fiction after reading my friend Richard Rothman’s collection of phantasmagorical short stories. In a small way, I was instrumental in egging Richard to get his stories published.

Robert’s BookLandPress didn’t accept my submission, but that was only to be expected and by now, I was serious about working harder on my fiction. I got Mahrukh to edit the short story that I’d been working on for several months now and submitted it to the Diaspora Dialogues, a Toronto not-for-profit that promotes creative expressions in diverse people, for the short-form mentoring program.

I submitted the short story (The New Canadians) in May 2009 without any expectation of being selected for the mentoring program. But I was pleasantly surprised when I got an email in June 2009 informing me of my selection. It was a moment that I’d been waiting for. 

The Diaspora Dialogues group 

I was among a select few aspiring writers selected by Diaspora Dialogues for the mentoring program; the list included a great group of creative people who have gone on to become acclaimed authors Leslie Shimotakahara and poets such as Michael Fraser, and among them was Dawn Promislow, who is today a dear friend.

Helen Walsh, the head of Diaspora Dialogues, has since then been a constant support in all my efforts to become an author. On several occasions, she has provided me with a platform and put me before an audience. She got Diaspora Dialogues to audio record my blog about my first Christmas in Toronto; she selected me as a speaker at the fantastic Spur festival that she organises annually; she got me interviewed recently when she relaunched Diaspora Dialogues.

And, of course, she’s also had an indirect role to play in the publishing of Belief, but I’ll talk about that later. Julia Chan, then at the Diaspora Dialogues, was also extremely supportive.

I remember when my submission was under consideration at Diaspora Dialogues, I was reading The Assassin’s Song (2007) by MG Vassanji, which I’d borrowed from the Amesbury Park branch of the Toronto library. It is one of the finest novels that I’ve read, and in my humble opinion, one of Vassanji’s best. The In-Between World of Vikram Lal (2003) and The Book of Secrets (1994) got him the Giller Prize. 

Serendipitously, Vassanji was to be my mentor. Mahrukh declared, "Allah only listens to you!" (Needless to say, that assessment riled my atheist sensibilities comprehensively, but for once, I wasn't complaining).

Not entirely unexpectedly, Vassanji turned out to be a tough mentor. He was a Guru in the true sense. I consider him my Guru even today; a status that, I’m sure, he’d find deeply embarrassing, if not entirely offensive.

He’d little patience with niceties, clear, incisive and blunt in his comments. And I was the eager student.

Here’s an extract from the first email I got from him: 

“This story, to be honest, is in the ‘good immigrant’ or ‘grateful immigrant’ mode. It has a message about citizenship. But it is not realistic; it does not dig deep into human motives and behaviour. This, of course, is how I see it. It is the kind of story that may find a place in a community or government magazine. I don't know what you have in mind.”

My interaction with him started in July and continued till September 2009. By then, the story had metamorphosed into a completely different being, vastly improved, with much depth, nearly all the excrescences removed, or at least so I thought. 

In a later episode of this memoir, I’ll write about how he made me rewrite this story, which had become the first chapter of the novel, more than 17 times, and even after that remained dissatisfied.

Read about this unique experience here: Write Stuff (Canadian Immigrant column)

By October 2009, I’d to submit the completed story to Diaspora Dialogues for consideration in its annual short story publication – TOK: Writing the New Toronto. I wasn’t sure whether it’d be accepted, considering there were so many good aspirants. It seemed a long and agonizing wait although it was only two months before I learnt in mid-December from Helen that my story was accepted for TOK 5: Writing the New Toronto, the collection was edited by Helen.

2009 was turning out to be a year that I’d remember forever. Thanks to Joyce’s efforts, I got an internship in Ontario government’s ministry of community and social services. It was a temporary job that held the promise of being turned into permanent after some years. I was out of the internship within a month.

Mahrukh in her Medix uniform

And, it was now Mahrukh’s turn to go to school. She decided that she’d do a program in social work and joined Medix College in October 2009. I’d never seen her as excited as she was when she began her program.

Mahrukh has always remained an unassuming person, who shuns any sort of limelight, and never pushes herself upfront to let the world become aware of tremendous and varied skills. She’s highly educated, has remarkable editing skills, and is a natural people’s person; one of the most affable persons. For the first time, she was determined to get what she knew she deserved.

Of course, she can be completely horrible with me when she gets mad, but that’d be true in any marriage that has lasted two decades and more, and one shan't talk about it now. 

Che at his school concert

Che was already a Canadian and was talking like one. When we told his school teacher that he was now speaking with a Canadian accent, she corrected us and said, “No, he’s losing his Indian accent.” Sometime later that year, he also had to start wearing glasses, at approximately the same age as when I’d had to wear glasses. But, of course, Mahrukh blamed me, claiming that it was my preference for warm lighting in our home that'd caused our son’s weak eyesight.

Finally, we’d commenced our process of settling down and setting our roots in Toronto.

LRC's 25 Most Influential Books

October 13 I attended the 25th Anniversary celebrations of the Literary Review of Canada (LRC). The LRC is a “forum for discussion and debate about books, culture, politics and ideas.” The evening began with a discussion between David Frum and Gary Doer on the implications of the US elections on Canada.

It seems rather strange that just about three weeks before the elections, both the liberal and the conservative elements in Canada seemed certain that Donald Trump couldn’t possibly win. Frum, a neocon, ridiculed Trump (not without justification), but didn’t anticipate any substantive transformation in the relations between Canada and the United States, and neither did Doer, a former Canadian Ambassador to the US. Heather Hiscox of the CBC moderated the discussion.

The discussion was followed by a cocktail reception and silent auction. Then the program began with opening remarks by Hon. Elizabeth Dowdeswell, OC, Ontario Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. And, then the LRC 25 (Most Influential Books) of the last 25 years was unveiled.

In her publisher’s note Helen Walsh of the LRC explains, “We limited our selection to the books the LRC would have typically reviewed in that time frame, rather than the much larger selection of books published each year: approximately 70 percent were serious, general-interest, nonfiction titles, and 30 percent were literary fiction. All were published in English.”

Walsh emphasizes, “The LRC believes strongly that books are the architecture of society. Writers who grapple with the long-form exploration of ideas – in fiction as well as nonfiction – provide a fundamental and irreplaceable function. We salute them, and thank them, for enlivening the public debate and helping us create the kind of society in which we want to live.”

Mohamed Huque has edited the 25th Anniversary edition, and eminent authors have introduced each of the 25 books. Here’s the list:

1. A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright introduced by Charles Foran
2. Kiss of the Fur Queen by Tomson Highway introduced by Margaret Atwood
3. Generation X by Douglas Coupland introduced by Adam Sternbergh
4. Citizen of the World and Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau introduced by Michael Valpy
5. Boom, Bust and Echo, David K Foot & Daniel Stoffman introduced by Michael Adams
6. Shake Hands with the Devil by Romeo Dallaire introduced by Thomas Axworthy
7. Clearing the Plains by James Daschuk introduced by Niigaan Sinclair
8. Shooting the Hippo by Linda Mcquaig introduced by Bruce Campbell
9. Sisters in the Wilderness by Charlotte Gray introduced by Alissa York
10. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry introduced by Rashi Khilnani
11. Nation Maker by Richard Gwyn introduced by Patrick Dutil
12. Fire and Ice by Michael Adams introduced by Dimitry Anastakis
13. The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinked introduced by Erna Paris
14. The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill introduced by Grace Westcott
15. Paris 1919 by Margaret Macmillan introduced by Jane Hildreman
16. No Logo by Naomi Klein introduced by Derrick O’Keefe
17. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood introduced by David Staines
18. The Unconscious Civilization by John Ralston Saul introduced by Bronwyn Drainie
19. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell introduced by Ibi Kaslik
20. The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge introduced by Lawrence Scanlan
21. Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs introduced by Suanne Kelman
22. Blood and Belonging by Michael Ignatieff introduced by Nahlah Ayed
23. The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro introduced by Judy Stoffman
24. The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King introduced by Lee Maracle
25. A Secular Age by Charles Tylor introduced by David Cayley

Art & War

It was Robert Capa’s photograph of The Falling Soldier that changed the perception of people about war photography. Capa shot the photo in September 1936. Wikipedia informs me that war photography began nearly eight decades before Capa’s iconic photograph – in the Crimean war of 1853-56, when Roger Fenton became the first ‘embedded’ photographer to capture the action in Crimea. The entry on war photography claims that first war photographs were shot by a British army surgeon during the second Sikh war in the Indian subcontinent (now Pakistan).  

War photography brought the horrors of the war into the living rooms and on the breakfast table through the newspapers. Photographs such as Eddie Adam’s impromptu shot of General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan shooting a Viet Cong spy on the streets of Saigon, or Nick Ut's photograph of Kim Phuc and other young children running after being caught in a napalm attack changed the complexion of the war in Vietnam, and turned the public opinion decisively against the American misadventure.

(Incidentally, Kim Phuc is now a Canadian, living in Ajax, Ontario).

The Gulf War and the advent of CNN changed not only war coverage but also the media. Technology enabled the horrors of war to be telecast into our living rooms as they happened. Among the most memorable television images of that era are of CNN’s live coverage of the coalition campaign’s bombing of Iraq captured through night vision camera. Peter Arnett, CNN’s reporter in Baghdad, became a globally known journalist. Arnett had also won a Pulitzer for his Vietnam coverage.

The attack on the twin towers, the saturated coverage of the tragedy globally, and the second Gulf War was the beginning of a new era in war photography. For the first time, media’s coverage of the war was regulated, and surprisingly the powerful western media that had set global standards of free speech, acquiesced.

Rita Leistner

In a deeply insightful review (published in Literary Review of Canada, March 2013) of Michael Maclear’s Guerrilla Nation: My War In and Out of Vietnam, Rita Leistner, internationally renowned photojournalist and an author, says, “Humans have always used the most recent technology available to document war – the history of every war has a parallel story of its emerging, dominant technologies. The Crimean War was the first war to be photographed; the Iraq war was the first to be defined by digital cameras and same-day transmission of media by internet and satellite; the Arab Spring changed the game entirely when civilians documented the uprising from within using their own smartphones; today, the World Wide Web is rapidly replacing newspapers and television altogether.”

Rita Leistner was one of the participants at an engaging discussion on Art and War organized as part of the Spur Festival – a festival of politics, art and ideas – last week in Toronto by Helen Walsh and her team from Literary Review of Canada and Diaspora Dialogues.

James Wellford

Michael Kamber was the other photojournalist, and James Wellford, Newsweek’s photo editor, was the moderator.  The discussion was “not just the practicalities and ethics of capturing images in the midst of conflict but also the stories that emerge from it.” When intelligence is mixed with experience and a shared perspective, it results in a scintillating exchange of ideas that is at once enthralling and disturbing because of what is said, and also for what is implied.

Rita and Michael are amazing raconteurs, and James a minimalist moderator who infrequently prodded the panelists to gently guide the discussion into a different dimension (and being a New Yorker couldn't help himself from using the f word at least once during the discussion). Disturbing though it may seem, both the photojournalists agreed that there is a deep aesthetic involved in the depiction of carnage; “people expect to see visually arresting and clinically composed photographs.” Both also agreed that extreme mastery over what was essentially a mechanical craft was essential for success.

Michael Kamber

The discussion was interspersed with photo slides of Michael’s and Rita’s works (mostly in Iraq, but also in other parts of the Middle East and in north and West Africa). Both extensively covered the Iraq invasion and captured the horrors of the war in their own individualistic (and artistic) ways. Nearly a year before the Abu Gharib torture photographs were published, Rita had documented photographic evidence of torture, but couldn’t find any takers for her work. It was only after Associated Press exposed the Abu Gharib torture was she able to get her work widely published. Similarly, Michael also found a lot of his work censored by the US military.

And yet, rather surprisingly, both were not totally opposed to embedded journalism. “Without that (protection offered by being embedded) you couldn’t possibly last till the first afternoon,” Michael said rather impatiently to a question about the ethics of embedded journalism from a member of the audience.

Both reacted differently to the extreme physical and emotional stress they encountered on assignment. “I wanted to shoot everything, without really thinking about what I’d use. You realize that you’re in a part of history that’s soon going to pass,” Michael said, and confessed, “I was terrified the whole time. My hands were shaking when I took the photographs.” (of a soldier who was cut into half from waist when he stepped on a hidden explosive).

Similarly, Rita also confessed to emotional trauma but insisted on returning to the war harbouring the hope that just by capturing the carnage, you believe that somehow you can stop it in some way; that brutality could be stopped or scaled back after the photographs were published. Both also agreed to absolute necessity of protecting the context of the photographs and rights of the subjects of their photographs.

Michael’s photographs from Liberia and Rita’s photographs from the asylum in Sadr city (a Shia suburb of Baghdad) were the images that conveyed – without the necessity of words – the true meaning of war and art.

The video recording of the debate:

(Panelists' photographs from Spur website: spurfestival.ca

TOK 7 Writing the New Toronto

Diaspora Dialogues released TOK 7: Writing the New Toronto yesterday at Gladstone. 

TOK 7: Writing the New Toronto
below covers of TOK 1 to TOK 6

This is the last TOK of the series, and has short fiction and poems from a new bunch of emerging writers and mentors. Helen Walsh, president of Diaspora Dialogues and the editor of all the TOK books, moderated an interesting panel discussion between three mentees – Zalika Reed-Benta, James Poputsis and Yaya Yao – and two mentors – Olive Senior and Moez Surani – who are among the contributors to the new collection. The discussion was interspersed with readings by Zalika, James, and Yaya. 

The TOK launches annually also serve as an alumni reunion with several mentees, some mentors, and Diaspora Dialogues staff in attendance. The indefatigable Natalie Kertes, working quietly to make sure that the launch was perfect. 

The launch It’s time to get and give updates, and share notes. Leslie Shimotakahara, Joyce Wayne, Brandon Pitts were among the many friends who were at the launch. 

I was in TOK 5 (in 2010) and therefore is the best of the seven books.

From 2012, the Diaspora Dialogue’s mentoring program will focus on full-length manuscripts. For more details, click here: DD 2012 Mentoring

Yaya Yao recited her poem 'where you’re going'

It’s reproduced here:

where you’re going

one ocean one
continent
from the place you were
born you are
dying, suspended
over university and elm
in February

with expert hands
chang ping aims into flesh long
needles
the tip connects to
the point opens
into the pathway and you
follow, she drapes a thin silk scarf
over your trunk
leaves the room for a
tea from timmy’s

she says to family, 3 to 5 a.m. the body
is weakest, it will happen
then, he is
tired his body is not
holding water call me
tomorrow

the path
you have taken:
shanghai to hong kong
hong kong to montreal
montreal to

toronto
parkdale to little portugal
little portugal to university and elm
university and elm to

3 a.m.
to 5 a.m. tides withdraw
from each meridian, that ocean
here to claim you, now as always in
between.

TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 6

TOK 6

On April 20, nineteen writers from different neighbourhoods in Toronto will celebrate their writing in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 6 at their book launch in the Gladstone Hotel Ballroom.

For many of the writers, this anthology of new Toronto-set short stories and poetry is their first publication – the result of participating in Diaspora Dialogues’ annual free-of-charge mentoring and commissioning program.

Through an open call and juried process, these talented emerging writers were mentored by established writers over a number of months. Both the emerging and established writers were invited to create and submit original Toronto-set work for the book.

Emerging writer Pradeep Solanki, who contributed his story “Vivek” to the book, says that “the desire to be a writer had always been with me but it took a near-death experience to alight that fire. I would heartily recommend this program to any writer serious about getting published. It is certainly a leg up on a path that is often steep and slippery.”

“From a post-war Spadina Avenue to the charred remains of Queen Street West; from a Malton garden to Morningside Park; from a church pew to the TTC subway, TOK Book 6 will take you on a tour of your city that you won’t soon forget,” says Helen Walsh, editor of the TOK series and President of Diaspora Dialogues.

The launch will feature short readings from the book and a moderated conversation about writing the urban space, with contributors David Layton, Rishma Dunlop, Karen Connelly, Pradeep Solanki, Joanne Pak and Phoebe Wang, and a short reading from emerging playwright Claire Jarrold's Rats with Good PR.

TOK Book 6’s contributors include: Jo Simalaya Alcampo, Lynda Allison, Mahlikah Awe:ri, Karen Connelly, Rishma Dunlop, Alicia Elliott, Dorianne Emmerton, Terri Favro, Sarah Feldbloom, Faye Guenther, David Layton, Jennifer Marston, Martin Mordecai, Sheila Murray, Joanne Pak, Alicia Peres, Pradeep Solanki, Phoebe Wang and Joyce Wayne.

Currently Diaspora Dialogues is inviting submissions to its 2011-2012 annual mentoring program from emerging GTA writers of short stories, poetry and creative nonfiction. Successful mentees will then invited to submit to TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 7. Deadline is May 16th 2011. First and second-generation immigrants, and First Nations writers are especially welcome.

TOK 5: Writing the New Toronto

Later this month, Diaspora Dialogues will release the fifth edition of TOK: Writing the New Toronto.

It includes my short story – The New Canadians.
I’ve described my participation in the Diaspora Dialogues’ mentoring program, and the privilege and honour of working with my mentor MG Vassanji on my Canadian Immigrant blog (The Write Stuff). 

I don’t exaggerate when I say that Diaspora Dialogues’ mentoring program gave a new direction and purpose to my writing. I’m sure many other writers have felt the same over the last five years.

Even a cursory browsing through the earlier four volumes of TOK shows how Diaspora Dialogues has nurtured writers from a diverse cross section of Toronto’s multi-ethnic population.

In the Preface to TOK-1, Helen Walsh, Editor, and President Diaspora Dialogues, explains, “In 2005, Diaspora Dialogues was launched to encourage writers from diverse communities to create new work that explored Toronto as “place” in their fiction, poetry and drama. We wanted to create a literature of the city that was current and vibrant and truly reflected the people who live in it.”

Walsh adds, “We wanted to support a range of work that mirrors the city’s complexity, and that brings to life, sometimes overtly and sometimes obliquely, the taste and smell, sights and sounds, of this city as people experience it every day.”

In his Foreword to TOK-1, Alan Broadbent, the then Chairman of Diaspora Dialogues Charitable Society, lists the two objectives with which the organisation was launched:

• To let immigrant writers be heard, and to help them find a market for their work.
• To reflect back to those Canadians who arrived earlier the changing face of their communities and country.

Broadbent adds, “By providing outlets for works that have local settings and themes, we can see our country anew, and see it differently. We think this will deepen our understanding of who we are, and where we live.”

In a country that is made and remade by immigrants, it’s surprising nobody thought of this before.

TOK 5’s launch details:

Location: Bram & Bluma Appel Salon, Toronto Reference Library

Map: http://bit.ly/Lm13

Date: Thursday, May 20, 2010

Time: 7:30pm

You can order the earlier volumes here. 

Image: http://torontoist.com/attachments/toronto_prathnal/2007_16_08TOK1.jpg

A Midwinter Night's Dream - III

The Roof Salon at the Park Hyatt Hotel was dimly lit, although there were many chandeliers. The venue of Diaspora Dialogues’ A Midwinter Night Dream resembled a meeting place in bazaar; the only thing missing was a hookah beside the pillows and cushions strewn across the room.

The ambience inside the room was a combination of A Jewel in the Crown and Lawrence of Arabia. AR Rehaman’s music from Slumdog Millionaire played softly in the background. A pair of tabla was placed in the room, and a few painted cages, too.

The cages were a mystery; they must have belonged to a nautch girl in Cawnpore before 1857. They had somehow reached Toronto.

Autorickshaw, a fusion group that combines jazz with Bollywood, later performed at the venue. 

I met Helen Walsh but didn't recognise her initially because she was wearing a multicoloured mask; Philip Adams was wearing an admiral’s jacket. Writer Antanas Sileika was a literary fortuneteller for the evening and another writer Sean Dixon played an antique banjo and sung a couple of postmodern songs, one of which even had lyrics about taxation.

Then the writers – Michelle Wan, Anar Ali and Andrew Pyper – read from their works. Wan read from her mystery novel. Ali read Baby Khaki’s Wings and Andrew Pyper from his work-in-progress novel.

The view outside was stunning – downtown Toronto’s skyscrapers and the CN Tower – all brightly lit. It reminded me of the Queen’s Necklace in Mumbai from the Oberoi.

I had wanted to attend both days the event was held to coincide with Toronto’s Wintercity festival. I had been invited as a blogger to the event. 

I couldn’t go because I went to Che’s school to see him perform at the concert. My son plays the clarinet well. He’s part of his school’s honour band. You’re included in the honour band when you take your music seriously.  

Image from Diaspora Dialogues' website

Stories of Change

I attended a deeply thought-provoking conference yesterday (October 1).

The 2009 Maytree Leadership Conference was what I call a 'Big Idea' conference.

Thanks to Helen Walsh, President of Diaspora Dialogues, I was invited to participate in the conference.

The theme for this year’s conference was Telling Stories; Creating Change.

John Cruikshank, publisher of Toronto Star, set the tone for the conference with a radical idea.

He said it was time to shake the foundations of the notion that the free market model is the most rational economic model there is, or can ever be.

According to Cruikshank, that was the story of the past.

He suggested that there is a definite role for good governance (not big government) to regulate the economy so that the young, the old, and the poor are not left behind.

According to Cruikshank, this is the story of the future.

It’s an idea that will set in motion changes and create social upheavals across the world; especially in the developing world. (See interview)

I participated in a workshop on pitching story ideas to the media. Jennifer Lewington of The Globe and Mail and Julia Howell, communications consultant, conducted it with alacrity and verve.

Nelofer Pazira, author, filmmaker and journalist narrated her own story in the session on Adversity and Courage: Journeys to Canada Storytelling in Practice.

A story that had the audience spellbound. Listening to her it was hard to imagine that she spoke just five words of English in 1990 when she immigrated to New Brunswick from Afghanistan.

She addressed many dilemmas that immigrants face while settling in Canada. Pazira underlined my conviction that integration is easier, faster and less painful if the newcomer consciously adopts Canadian values.

The evening ended with certificates being awarded to refugee students.

Here is an extract from the booklet Making their Mark Canada’s Young Refugees that tells Ahmed’s story – a story that is shared by hundreds of thousands refugee children.

It’s a fictionalised but accurate account written by Peter Showler, Director of the Refugee Forum at the University of Ottawa.

Somalia:

“Ahmed remained in the camp for nine years. His father did not return and his mother was unhappy. At first he was not able to go to school. There was not enough food. He was always hungry and there was work to do. He helped his mother carry water and collect firewood. He had to go very far to collect wood. His sister used to go with him until the men attacked her and left him beaten. He still carried a dark mark over his left eye that would never go away. His mother sold some of her jewellery to buy a large knife that she said would protect them from the men who came at night. When his mother got sick, he took the knife and kept it under his blanket. The nights were very cold and he often woke up shivering, feeling the knife and he would listen for the men but they did not come. He was fourteen and sure that he would use the knife. His sister was always sad after the attack. People said that she was unclean and she died after the floods that came in the spring and made people sick.”

I read this on my way back home.

I have no right even to think (let alone complain) that I'm being discriminated in my new homeland.