The Black Lives Matter Global Network

The Black Lives Matter Global Network and the Oromo "uprising": I believe there is a connection.



Photo of jailed Oromo instigator, Jawar Mohammed, in a t-shirt with the Black Lives Matter slogan "I Can't Breathe."

...Ethiopian social media had its share of controversial debates driven by diaspora activists and media, particularly in Minneapolis, Minnesota; the location of George Floyd’s “I CAN’T BREATHE” last words, as a white policeman suffocated him to death. Minnesota was one of the places the Ethiopian Prime Minister visited in 2018, due to its significant Ethiopian population, particularly of ethnic Oromo. ZEHABESHA media, the top Ethiopian media based in Minneapolis, covered local protests. And popular Oromo politician Jawar Mohammed, also from Minnesota, wore a t-shirt displaying “I can’t breathe.”[Source]

Ethiopia's Children

Photo from PM Abiy Facebook page
One tree sapling at at time

PM Abiy instructs Million by planting one tree sapling at a time, to re-forest Ethiopia, and to secure the rain that grows the wheat for the daily bread for his future.

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PM Abiby, of the historic, and biblical, country of Ethiopia, released recent photos of his newly adopted son, Million.

Million is a relatively common Amhara name, but it doesn't make it any less poetic.

Ethiopia has been the centre of international adoption for many years, with rural, impoverished women giving over their infant children to beckoning western women who cannot have children of their own (age, anyone?). Of course, there is also the "third world saviors" syndrome, as was the case for the most famous Ethiopian orphan adoptee, Anjelina Jolie, who found a vulnerable mother to give up her infant daughter.

Million's adoptive mother, PM Ahmed's wife Zinash, saw him in a local orphanage in Addis Ababa, held him in her arms, and immediately started adoption papers. He, PM husband, accepted her decision.

It was as much a political move as a personal, familial one. Let Ethiopia's children stay in their own country. Let them grow up to be Ethiopians.

Update: Empty Outlines and the Multi-Culti-COVID-Era

The article Empty Outlines and Multi-CUlti-COVID-Era has been slightly updated, with some extra commentary, especially near the end and in relation to art and artists in Canada.

Empty Outlines and the Multi-Culti-COVID Era

I wrote earlier about textile designer Chung-Im Kim, who teaches at the Ontario College of Art and Design:

Kim's designs are a combination of these "deconstructed-reconstructed" works of postmodern art and works that reference her Korean/Asian background.

As an artist, when I embarked on a new, and challenging, art discipline, I took time out from the normal in-class instructions and went out into the outside world to research, and understand, this new discipline.

I had just finished at Ryerson University, not graduating, but completing what I had set out to do: study, understand, and create films and photographs. My films (and videos) were exhibited in various galleries around Toronto, and including in exhibitions in France. And I had compiled a large collection of works based on a variety of photographic methods.

One method that intrigued me was silk screening, or more precisely, working on textiles. I did my first screen prints, which I titled Toronto Gables, in a small silk screen laboratory, with make-shift lights and printing boards, in one of the program's photography labs.

When I left Ryerson, I started looking for ways to advance this knowledge, including taking workshops in a downtown member-run centre Open Studio. And soon after, I started taking courses in the Ontario College of Art and Design's continuing studies program, for textile art, and specifically, repeat pattern techniques. I took the same course for four consecutive sessions, paying the $200/course fee. Kim was the instructor for all, as I describe here.

As I wrote here:

I wondered later why she [Kim] never introduced us to the endless list of "white" designers. All artists, however limited their education, at some point come across some textiles which are too breathtaking to ignore. I don't think she was intellectually limited. Nor can she use the "excuse" that she is an immigrant. She had lived in Canada by then too many years to not even have casually wandered across some of these works.

I believe it was (is) this inherent dislike of whites. Perhaps not individual whites, and certainly not the leftist whites which now make up Canada and America who hate "whites" or white civilization themselves, but the white people as a collective, the white civilization, the white mind.

Kim's designs are a combination of these "deconstructed-reconstructed" works of postmodern art and works that reference her Korean/Asian background.

Kim did leave something behind, though, which became a source of investigation for me.

I had been to visit Kim's exhibition in Toronto, and saw a group of her textile works, including the two below.


'meditating'
1998
78" x 31"
industrial felt, silk dupioni,
fibre reactive dye,
silkscreen printing,
machine & hand stitching


'following tradition'
1999
78" x 23"
industrial felt, handmade felt, fibre reactive dye,
machine & hand stitching

I think the one that initially struck me was Meditating. It looked like the waxing and waning of a moon, but rather than depict an actual waxing and waning, Kim flattened this moon-like structure. And rather than flip the "reflective" image - the orange moon-structure, starting with the "flattened" first and ending with the full round one, to give the image a more interesting dynamic - Kim left each side of the "progression" of the structure the same.

The second image that struck me was Following Tradition. It looks like a take on the maple leaf, or some kind of leaf, once again with a mirror image that is not quite a mirror image, of shapes that are not quite leaves. Perhaps "tradition" means the Canadian "tradition" of maple leaves.

I thought seriously about why a skilled textile designer could not make clear and concrete images.

As I write here:

Their [Kim's] ethnic references are too far away, and they are too alienated from their current country [Canada], and all that is left is the "structure" of the image: its shape, its empty outline.

I think this population, responding to false and exaggerated reports on a virus that hardly can be called a pandemic, is the result of an incredible, alienated, "multicultural" legacy, where cultures have no language with which to speak to each other, to denounce falshoods, and attacks on their well-being.

And how do you dare say the government is a liar if your existence depends on the government, and did so prior to such a societal event? Even as they suffer, these good "Canadians" still believe the government WILL save them, and those that have any inklings of a doubt are told by everyone and everything around them to just keep quiet.

But I believe a third group is the opportunistic ones, who have come to depend on grants and funds for their art projects which otherwise not see the light of day.

They cannot tell the truth, otherwise they incur the wrath of this government, which gives them the easy money they have become experts at acquiring, and are on various committees and organizations which look out for them, and for each other. These same people could "snitch" on them. Truth-telling becomes a dangerous sport (and art).

For all their fervent "anti-establishment" and "anti-[Canadian]tradition work," they are dependent on "government," and carefully glean what art will displease this government and what will not, and work accordingly.

It takes courage, and independent thinking, to go against this grain, including to say "I don't want your money."

Or, "I don't believe your story."

Welcome to the Multi-Culti-COVID-Era.


Steve Heinemann, Chung-Im Kim's "partner," contemplating eternity while self isolating,
from a post I wrote here

Chung-Im Kim and Her Textile Designs' Korean Ancestral Loyalties

Here are the most current designs from Chung-Im Kim, textile designer, and associate professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design.

I believe that Kim has nothing to emulate, nothing to draw inspiration from, in the Canadian landscape, but rather looks back thousands of miles, and cultures, away to her Korean background.

As I wrote in my August 2018 article:

Kim's designs are a combination of..."deconstructed-reconstructed" works of postmodern art and works that reference her Korean/Asian background.

Kim writes about her textiles and her inspirations:

...the familiar Korean textile never fail to encourage my search --- perhaps it is a consolation that I look for unconsciously living so far away from Korea.

Chung-Im Kim
Bow
2005
8" x 9.5"
Ramie, Hemp, Natural Dyes, Silkscreen Printing, Machine & Hand Stitching
[Source]

About her felt work, she writes:

Searching for a personal vocabulary of images that can speak as a universal language was my core concern when I resumed my art career in Canada after a long break since arrival. This often took the form of a repetition of a few basic essential shapes, adding interest through the use of relief, appliqué, inherent dyed colour and many related techniques. At the same time, I continued to be inspired by traditional Korean textiles --- in both a technical and spiritual sense.

Here are her fungal-like growths which she designs with felt, and which she sells for over $6,000 each. She categorizes them on her website as: Living Geometry


Chung-Im Kim
Mutation III
From the Living Geometry series: No. 5
2015
23.5" x 12" x 3"
Industrial felt, thread, dyed with (Natural Dye) lac, hand stitched
David Kaye Gallery

Post-modern, abstract textile design is a lucrative business, along with associate professorship in leading universities.

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Below is my post, from August 2018 on Kim, her designs, and her loyalties:

At the end of the article, I write;

Their ethnic references are too far away, and they are too alienated from their current country, and all that is left is the "structure" of the image: its shape, its empty outline.

I should add to that:

...its empty outline, ready to fill up with foreign, alien forces.

After all, Kim's fungal protrusions are titled" Mutations."

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I've always, since my Ontario College of Art Design days, tried to master textile art and design. My instructor was a Korean woman. It was then that I intuitively realized that "Asians" had an inherent dislike of whites. I went to "night school" and took only one course for four consecutive sessions. This course was open to the public and not just OCAD students. It became an issue for her after the second course, but I was paying the $200/course fee. If she had any sympathy for me and my ideas, I would have told her that I was there to use the equipment.

By the third session I had developed many of my ideas. I had briefly started doing the geometric border patterns found in Ethiopian dress, but my models for my work were the historical textiles of the Western World up to the early 20th century. Anything beyond that took on the modernists' "destruction of the image" ideology.

The textile instructor, Chung-Im Kim, who I believe didn't have the rigorous "image-making" background required of textile design - including drawing and painting - vociferously pushed me to "design something Ethiopian." Eventually I came to the course randomly and spent my time - evenings and weekends - in the textile workroom, mixing paints, cutting cloth and printing. I did the blueprints at home on a makeshift IKEA work table.

I wondered later why she never introduced us to the endless list of "white" designers. All artists, however limited their education, at some point come across some textiles which are too breathtaking to ignore. I don't think she was intellectually limited. Nor can she use the "excuse" that she is an immigrant. She had lived in Canada by then too many years to not even have casually wandered across some of these works.

I believe it was (is) this inherent dislike of whites. Perhaps not individual whites, and certainly not the leftist whites which now make up Canada and America who hate "whites" or white civilization themselves, but the white people as a collective, the white civilization, the white mind.

Kim's designs are a combination of these "deconstructed-reconstructed" works of postmodern art and works that reference her Korean/Asian background.

ALL non-whites at some point begin to refer to their ancestral lands for inspiration, artistic or otherwise. And the constant, daily reminder that art created by whites has always been SUPERIOR to their art, from their specific non-European or North American region or country (Asia, South America, Africa, the Caribbeans) must ignite their fury.

I believe, though, that I am the exception.

As I write in an unpublished article:

My family and I left Ethiopia in 1973, a year before the “Ethiopian Revolution” which occurred in 1974, when Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed and a communist regime ran the country for almost two decades. I was ten years old. My father secured a post in UNESCO in Paris. My brothers and I initially attended school in Paris, but our parents sent us to England to boarding school a year later.

That dramatic, but fortuitous exit sent me across the globe from France to England and America to Canada. Our first landing point in Paris separated us from the usual flow of Ethiopian emigrants and refugees who set sail for America (and fewer to Canada). We were alone in our havens. My eleven years in France and as a student in boarding schools in England gave me the unique vantage point of discovering the West without the biases and interpretations of other Ethiopians and Africans. I was able to discover them on my own terms. I learned to love the West through the beautiful city of Paris and the paradisaical countryside of southern Kent.

My informal education had taken a Western orientation, but...I eventually obtained Bachelor and Masters degrees in the Biological and Health sciences in the United States. While pursuing my PhD, I lived in Mexico for two years working on my research work in clinical nutrition. The results of my PhD research eventually produced a unique testing method which was published in various academic science and medical journals.

By the end of my doctoral studies [we] obtained residency...in Canada [where] I was finally stable and able to make decisions about my activities without affecting my residency status. In Toronto, I obtained various certificates and qualifications in film and photography. I also studied textile design, and painting and drawing. I was determined to become an artist.

My constant displacement, my rigorous science education, and my artistic training allows me to ask: What is art? What is beauty? And why is Western beauty and art so singular? I have tried to answer these questions over the years.

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Trillium and Queen Anne's Lace
Textile Design
Kidist Paulos Asrat

Year of the Pig

Year of the Pig
[Photo By: KPA]

Above is a photo I took a few days ago (with my zoom lense) of an old Chinese man standing in the main entrance of Mississauga's Square One Mall. He is standing below the banners "celebrating" Chinese New Year, the only ethnic festival in the mall that commands such a large and dramatic presence.



He was alone, probably "walking" around the mall for exercise, as many do. Hs family (a son? a daughter? a grandchild?) must have dropped him off to return later and pick him to take back home. What must it feel like to see such a grand acknowledgment for his country's most important, event but to be surrounded by people who look nothing like his countrymen, and who view this festival as just another quaint event?

He must have found this place of familiarity on his tour around the mall and stopped under the banners. The floor has a seprepsp of Chinese horoscope animals, and he instinctively stood on the pig.

There is a callousness in multiculturalism which affects the most vulnerable: the very old and the the very young.

His family, at one point, made the decision to uproot everyone and everything for pure opportunism to get to the "land of plenty." The material benefits of immigration for non-Western immigrants (including the much-touted Chinese) are beginning to look like minimal, according to various national and regional population statistics.

The damage to the psyche - inability to feel like they "belong," perceived discrimination by the dominant whites who, despite multiculturalism and all kinds of affirmative action rules and regulations still hold the positions of authority and still prefer "their own." Younger immigrants and children of immigrants, rather than blending in wth the mainstream (.e. white) society prefer to be with their own kind: the Chinese wth the Chinese; the Somali with the Somali; the Indians with the Indians.

The cruel works of immigration spawned multiculturalism, and multiculturalism is now officially a failure. And we are left wth an old man looking for a familiar landscape from his homeland in the indifferent space of giant mall in a foreign land.

Perhaps he was born in the Year of the Pig:

So where does the Pig fall on the fortune scale? According to Tai [a Chinese fortune teller and feng shui master based in Vancouver], pigs are definitely considered a lucky animal.
"They are lucky, especially people born in this particular year," he said. "Even if they have some sort of unfortunate thing happen, eventually they will have something happen to save their life, to help them overcome all the obstacles and barriers."[Source]

Will this old man "have something happen to save [his] life, to help [him] overcome all [these] obstacles and barriers?"

Year of the Pig

Square One Mall Entrance
Chinese New Year Banners
Mississauga
February 4, 2019
[Photo By: KPA]

What Luck Have I to be Able to Turn To Chopin's Polonaise No. 7 in A flat major

Convenience store owned by Chinese or Indian immgirants in downtown Toronto

I am listening to Chopin's Polonaise No. 7 in A flat major as I work on my computer.

Meanwhile the residents next door to us are either on the phone or have visitors, which occurs more frequently than not now. The male resident has an extremely loud voice and speaks in the abrupt guttural Cantonese. Over time, we learned that he used to own some kind of convenience store in one of the Greater Toronto boroughs - Scarborough I think, one of those convenience stores run by immigrant families from China or India, which sell cheap plastic goods an overpriced milk.

Several months ago, I made an official report on this behaviour, since their noise (louder than acceptable music, loud phone conversations, loud visitors) disturbed me in the early hours of the morning and late at night. There is some kind of official "no noise" period in the apartment's bylaw which I used to file my complaint. The building supervisor informed them of my complaint, but the didn't pay any attention to it. I returned to the administrator, and they changed their behavior to an acceptable reduction in noise, although still not quiet. The supervisor told me, after I wrote a follow up to all this, stating that I was still not pleased with the arrangement, that if I had any further complaints, to call "security" each time I was bothered. "I don't want to criminalize their behaviour," I said. "It is your responsibility that tenants live as harmoniously as possible alongside each other. You are saying that my concerns are not as important as their desires."

I left his office without waiting for a reply, and dropped the matter.

The neighbors have resumed, but with caution. After all, there is an official file against them. For example, the music is loud for some minutes and then it is turned down. The loud conversations again are short-lived, but the longer ones have moved to a different (and farther) part of their apartment. The early morning and late night noise (music, conversation, phone calls) still occur, but less frequently.

It is as though they work on some kind of odd logic that by reducing the amount of time this behavior occurs, the intensity (loudness, etc.) can be overlooked. But a three minute loud phone conversation at 7am in the morning (or at noon, for that matter) is as disturbing and as disorienting as a half hour one. If I am in the middle of writing an article (which I often am at the early hours of the morning) then my train of thought will be disturbed for an extended period of time whether the louder than acceptable noise occurred for three minutes or for twenty.

Multiculturalism has resulted in different kinds of logic that cannot co-exist, and therefore behaviour is not regulated by empathy for the neighbour, or the colleague, or the mall shopper, but by bylaws and regulations. For example the intensely multicultural Square One Shopping Centre in Mississauga has now armed security staff (i.e. policemen) patrolling the mall, even during the quiet hours. Conflicts could occur in a flash and fights can become an ugly episode when crowds of disconnected people roam around in close proximity to each other.

But this now the reality with multi-culti Mississauga, where each ethnic group lives in its own enclave, and any kind of generalized empathy does not, can not, occur.

So what I do as an antidote to the abrasive sounds coming from across my apartment is turn on my music, not loud of course (although I used to have it at maximum volume when the type of noise occured, partly to cut off the noise and also as a retaliation) but just loud enough, and barely audible outside of my own room, to drown the noise of these neighbours.

Today, I played Chopin's Polonaise No. 7 in A flat major. And something changed in me.

What luck have I to be able to turn to Chopin or Mozart or Brahms in these moments of distress! What great fortune have I to find consolation in these musicians! How blessed am I that I can find beauty in the great art of the West, the great musicians of the West, not as some accessory or some multicultural repertoire, but as a source of true art, true Western art the likes of which no other peoples have produced. How lucky am I to have deep connection with this music, with this civilization!

The Chinese neighbor cannot do that (or feel that) although he plays classical music at times, but also Top 20 pop music, and Latin music, and the weepy string instrument dominated Chinese music, as though unable to differentiate between the classic and the mundane, as though he is following the formula of some Mississauga radio station that gives him "Canadian" content.

Imagine not being able to appreciate Mozart for Mozart, but rather as yet another choice from the multicultural world, a place that many years ago this man decided to move to from his native land, packing his bags and travelling across continents to this Western world, not to be a be part of it but rather to feed off it.

What a disappointment that must be now, this opportunistic decision to leave his intelligence and wisdom behind and to trade it for this perennial dissatisfaction, this endless realignment and readjustment of his identity and his personhood, this numbing of his thoughts and intellect.

Was it worth it?

My Message is Simple: Go to Where You Belong

The Cloisters, New York
[Photo By KPA]


I have always been consistent about my Western civilization part. What all this reflection has shown me is my uniqueness. I don't want to be in the West for opportunistic reasons, but because I am really part of it, because I really love it, I identify with it. I have found no-one else like me and not for lack of trying. And it has made me profoundly empathetic towards those who search for this authenticity. Sometimes I am short towards them, sometimes harsh, and sometimes even hostile. And the level of my anger shows the level of my concern.

Perhaps Larry Auster is the closest example to what I'm trying to do, where even as his Jewishness defined his being, he became a powerful voice for the West and specifically for America, and his message was received all the more because of that.

It is a tough call, what I've dedicated myself to. People will get confused by me, people will reject me, they will call me a hypocrite and a traitor as they bring my race to the forefront and even attack me for it. It has already happened. And I even have an answer, a response, for that: the Amhara race is different from other African or Arab races, and has always looked to the West for guidance. If I am to cite my ancestry, it will be in that manner. And I am the only one to follow it through. My persistence will show my authenticy.

I have developed a tough skin, starting from my childhood. And I have always been independent, which my childhood has also taught me. And I think people will ultimately listen to me. My message is simple: go to where you belong.

Chinese Canadian Veterans' Military Museum asking to receive funds as a Charitable Organization

My previous post, Chinese Aesthetics: Where Harmony and Cohesion Trumps Individuality and Innovation, was my perspectives on what Ricardo Duchesne of The Council of European Canadians wrote in an article he titled The Transcendental Mind of Europeans Stands Above the Embedded Mind of Asians

Recently, I watched The Cable Public Affairs Channel present a November 5, 2018 meeting of The Special Senate Committee on the Charitable Sector to:

"...examine the impact of federal and provincial laws and policies governing charities, nonprofit organizations, foundations, and other similar groups; and to examine the impact of the voluntary sector in Canada."'

Here is the transcript to that session.

Senator Terry M. Mercer, chair of the committee introduced the panel, including

"...from the Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society, King Wan, President"

I have posted below the full presentation by King Wan, and below that excerpts from the Q&A session with him and the senate.

The whole session is an eye-opener on how specific ethnic groups demand governmental funding to advance their very specific ethnic organizations. In this case, it is Chinese Canadians who served in the Canadian military. This particular session is about the funding source for a museum for Chinese Canadian veterans requested by The Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society.

A normal country would say: All veterans who served in the Canadian forces are Canadian Veterans and will receive their pensions and charity funds from such a general pool.

But guilt is the great weakner. One of the arguments to allow the Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society charitable status presents is by indirectly referencing the Chinese railway workers who came to Canada's west coast at the turn of the 20th century to start building the cross-country railway system. When they remained in Canada after the work was done, the Canadian government took many years before establishing their Canadian citizenship. That was never the government's plan, but rather to expedite their return to China. This is seen as a great "racist" affront by all Chinese Canadians, and is part of their lore.

All other special interest requests and interactions with the government as an ethnic body is colored by this background. And the government more often than not concedes.

King Wan, President, Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society is a nonprofit organization consisting entirely of volunteers. We have no paid staff, and I am just a volunteer. Thank you for the opportunity to come here to talk to the senators about our situation.

I am not as eloquent as Mr. McRae in that, as a volunteer and in terms of our time committed to the museum, it is all in our spare time. Most recently, we had a big dinner last Saturday night, which is our annual fundraising event where our main funds come from for operations.

I would like to talk about a few things. One is that we would like to share with the senators on the committee here that we would like to see broader cultural giving in our society to provide funding for smaller organizations like ours. We are a small organization. Our only funding is through donations from our members and then sponsors. As I was saying before, the major proceeds that we receive in the year is from our annual fundraising dinner. We are fortunate to have had a large crowd of people attend our function.

We looked at the tax credit that is given to charities, and I found that the current CRA tax credit given to donors is adequate from our perspective because we are a small organization. Those who give us funds will get their normal percentage of tax credit. However, that doesn’t mean that it cannot increase to provide them with a further incentive to donate to smaller organizations like ours.

I would like to see more government programs to support smaller organizations like museums. I know for a fact that there are multiple departments in the government that would provide funding for different charities, foundations and so on, and I think there is opportunity for more, be it from Veterans Affairs Canada, Canadian Heritage or other departments, where they could spend additional funds to provide that incentive for the smaller community museums to pursue their particular objectives.

One of our objectives, again, is narrowly focused. The Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society is mainly to promote and preserve the legacy of the Chinese Canadians who served in the Canadian military. I personally served in the military myself. At the same time, there are not many left of those who served in World War II. We have post Cold War era veterans that also need to have their stories told. Most recently, Afghanistan veterans coming home should have their say and their stories preserved for prosperity for our fellow citizens.

Some of the reporting requirements in the CRA are somewhat cumbersome. I also belong to a number of other organizations where, because they are national in scope across the country, their filings of T3010s and other forms are somewhat of a challenge. When you are dealing with volunteers, people may not be as responsive as people who are paid staff, so sometimes the timing of those reporting requirements is somewhat onerous for those who are working on a voluntary basis.

I also agree with Mr. McRae on a number of issues he mentioned. I learned something from him, as well, this evening, which is the whole concept of charity in our current setup in Canada. I read a lot of submissions that were sent to us earlier through your website. We are fairly progressive, but there are countries like the U.K. and the U.S. that have certain features we should consider emulating or learning from. I am not an expert in those charities. At the same time, I do share some of the more advanced charity-giving policies and procedures.

Again, I want to thank you for giving me the chance to come here to speak to you. I appreciate any comments and questions from you.

---------
Q&A

[About the museum]

Mr. Wan:
We are located in Vancouver — Chinatown. The Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver has a building, and we are a lodger of that building. We occupy a hallway and a small room. Fortunately, since I look over as president a few years ago, we believe in the museum, not only to present something on a one-time only basis, but I believe it has to be refreshed on a regular basis. If you have seen the museum once, you may not go back if there is nothing new to show. For a number of years, we have been changing our theme and focus of displays on a fairly regular basis. To do that requires funding. Although our volunteers are very active and passionate about what they do, at the same time, it requires a lot of effort and funds to create those new displays.

[About the museum's funding sources]

Senator Omidvar:
...You talked about government grants and donations. On an average year, what is the level of charitable contributions you receive from individuals?

Mr. Wan:
We have been fortunate in the last year or so to have one or two major benefactors. For that, we are thankful that we received maybe $20,000 to $30,000 over the last few years.

We have been also receiving some grants from the government. That was back in about 2011-12. We got funding from the Canadian Heritage group. There was a historical community fund that came out, and we were able to get about $50,000 or $60,000 that year to hire someone to help us create some exhibitions, and we were able to use that to get to the Canadian War Museum for a short time.

[About charitable organizations' reporting standards]

Senator Omidvar:
Thank you. If you in an average year get $20,000 in charitable donations from individuals and you have to make a pretzel out of yourself to report on it, do you think that there should be a change in the law that requires variable reporting and depth of reporting based on the levels of contributions you receive? Why should a small organization like yours have to go through the same hoops as the SickKids Foundation, which gets millions of dollars every year?

Mr. Wan:
Exactly. We are small potatoes in terms of the big picture, but we have also been fortunate. When I say $20,000 or $30,000, that is strictly through individual donors and through membership, and we were able to get a bit more the last couple of years. But it is quite correct that small museum charities should not have the same standard of reporting as someone like the hospital foundations that get $60 million or whatever the case is.

[About the uniqueness of Mr. Wan's organization: The Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society]

Senator Martin:
Mr. Wan, it is nice to see you here in Ottawa. It is fitting, with Remembrance Day coming up and Veterans’ Week, that you are representing a unique society in Canada. In terms of the society, is it quite unique in Canada? Are there other such societies? You have a very specific mandate, as you explained. Does that limit your access to funding? I want to understand whether funding opportunities are available to you, or, with a specific mandate, whether it is more challenging?

Mr. Wan:
Yes, it is more challenging because we are narrowly focused on veterans and on a certain ethnic group as well.

The major government funding would come from Veterans Affairs Canada or Canadian Heritage. Those are the two main ones we can get money from. Sometimes the procedures are more onerous, and we are competing against other veterans organizations as well. That is the challenge we have.

[About the bias and decrease in diversity in the approval of charitable organizations]

Don McRae, Charity Researcher:
The research that I have done shows that, over the past couple of years, the number of charities in Canada has remained stagnant. Since January, we lost about 200 charities. When I was going through my career, the number of charities increased every year. I wanted to find out about that.

CRA is being more restrictive in terms of their approval rate of registrations. I like numbers, so give me a minute. From 2002 to 2006, the approval rate was 74.5 per cent for charities. That changed and went to 44.8 per cent from 2014 to 2017-18. The rate has gone down approximately 30 applications per 100.

The revocations have increased in terms of how many charities lose their registration. If you fail to file your T3010, you lose your registration. You can get it back with a $500 penalty, but the rate of re-registrations has gone down. I did a study that looked at it from 2002 to 2014, and it went down by about 10 per cent. It is decreasing that way.

I also go through and see who the new charities are. By and large, the new charities are not as diverse as our Canadian society. I find that problematic. It hasn’t changed that much from when I was doing my job.

[On the national benefits of a localized (or ethnic) organizations, and why they need government grants]

Mr. McRae:
The problem with the [Canada Revenue Agency] regulator is that it keeps on reinterpreting some things like public benefit...I would say that one of the reasons why CRA thinks they are not charities is because of perceived personal [as opposed to public] benefit but, in a country like Canada, we can’t look at philanthropy as one whole thing. There is a spectrum of philanthropy. When you have newcomers coming to Canada, the first thing they want to do is support their family. The next thing they want to do is support their clan, to use a Scottish term...There is a spectrum of philanthropy, and people move. My research, when I was working in Canadian Heritage, showed that ethno-specific organizations move their philanthropy from local and focused on their own to being greater, and that takes time. In order to get them to that greater thing where there is no perceived personal benefit, we need to help them along the way. If we can get rid of restrictive agency agreements, that’s one way, but we need to try to move the definition so that some of those people are not seen as outsiders.

Senator Seidman:
Mr. Wan, I saw you nodding, so I will ask if you want to add to that.

Mr. Wan:
I think Mr. McRae was quite right in saying that. The museum has been established for 20 years, so we are somewhat mature in terms growth. Initially, it was the Chinese Canadian veterans. As I mentioned, we expanded to include other veterans activities, such as the Battle of Hong Kong. Canadian soldiers went overseas to help. We talk about Indigenous veterans. As they grow and have that foundation, they can build on expanding it to encompass all Canadians.

[On the government's obligation to fund organizations like the Chinese Canadian Military Museum Association]

Mr. Wan:
Better access to greater funding would certainly help our organization, being a small museum, to grow and expand. I think that is very important. At the same time, it would require some effort from the government or some other organizations to make those things happen for us in order for us to gain access to this funding.

[Senator Duffy on "every Canadian" and moving beyond ethnic groups]

Senator Duffy:
Thank you both for coming. Fascinating. I would encourage our viewers to visit Mr. Wan’s museum online. I’ve had a look. The stories that you tell there are amazing, about amazing Canadians, including Douglas Jung, who was a war hero and a spy. They are phenomenal stories about how this country was built, and every Canadian, not just those of Chinese descent, should hear about these amazing people.

Email Interaction on Publishing a Book on Mississauga

Spikey Non-Christmas Tree outside of Holts Luxury Department store
at the main entrance of the Square One Mississauga Mall
the hub of activity in Mississauga
[Photo By: KPA, December 4, 2018]

---

On Thursday Nov 29, 2018, at 12:10 PM
To: Ricardo Duchesne
Kidist Paulos Asrat wrote:

Dear Dr. Duchesne,

I frequently read the articles on the website Council of European Canadians, and I have read your book Canada in Decay.

I have been collecting and filing data on Mississauga, Ontario, for about three years now, to publish a book on the city.

I have been living in Mississauga for about five years, having lived in Toronto before that.

My years in Mississauga exposed me to multiculturalism and it steady and nefarious progression into the Canadian life and landscape. Mississauga is conveniently ignored by major cities like Toronto and Ottawa, and is a destination for Third World immigrants who flock here looking for cheaper housing and a safe suburban life, away from the "big city" problems of Toronto. Mississauga now has one of the largest non-white population in all of Canada.

Mississauga's leaders' intentions are starkly displayed at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, where I was a frequent visitor and recorder of the art and artistic activities promoted and programed by the gallery.

About a year ago, I asked one too many controversial question at an AGM gallery event about the lack of Western art on display at the gallery, and subsequently, I received an email from the galley's (still current) director, Mandy Slater, a white woman, to cease my "antagonistic" behavior and not to frequent gallery any more, with my name submitted to the Peel Region Police and the Mississauga Security division, should I not comply. I haven't entered the gallery since then. But the AGM's prolific website provides me with all the information I require on the gallery's exhibitions and programming to follow and monitor their activities. As well, most of the staff post photographs and commentary on their various social media sites.

Since then, the AGM has been making progressive changes in the gallery's structure and organization, and especially so in the past few months. One of the dramatic changes has been the removal of Kendra Ainsworth, its one (of two) white staff. The other is Mandy Salter, the gallery's director, recently hired only about a year ago. All the other administrative and curatorial positions are [KPA edit: since] filled with non-white, mostly Indian (Asian) and Muslim staff. Most are also relatively new to these posts, stretching back about two years for the most senior.

The AGM's purpose of this newly restructured gallery is is to "build a whole new kind of art institution" as I wrote to a correspondent recently. What I mean by this is a gallery that exhibits and promotes works by non-white, non-Western artists.

I have a background in the arts both as a practitioner and as a researcher. I studied photography at Ryerson University, and painting and textile design through various courses and workshops in Toronto, including the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto.

I started a blog called Camera Lucida in 2005 to "explore and shed light on how art, and culture and society converge."

Several years later in 2013, I started a blog I titled Reclaiming Beauty "to document the contribution that beauty had made toward our Western Civilization," where I still continue to blog.

I believe that the AGM is building an institution that can expand into other regions in the province and the country, as a successful example of an art institution that reflects multicultural and ethnic art, and a gallery which has pushed to the sidelines, and even out of the gallery, works by what now Canadians are being regularly told "racist" white artists, and especially those which reflect a Canada of half a century to a century ago, which of course are almost exclusively white artists.

Mississauga's history originates as a "new city" built around the 1970s, as an ambitious vision by a white Canadian, Bruce McLaughlin, to separate this already existing small town from the influences of Toronto, and to build self-sufficient and independent city. Immigration and non-Canadian residents were far from his, and his colleagues' minds. The AGM itself was established in 1987, as a separate gallery, independent from big-city influences, or even the then encroaching multiculturalism, and its inauguration was celebrated with the visit of the Duke and Duchess of York in July 1987.

I will present this historical material in my book on how a once confident city, with confident citizens, now has devolved into this multicultural outpost, almost forgotten by other regional centres, but which is quietly restructuring society and culture.

At some point it will gain some power and start to promote successful and prosperous multiculturalism as an example for other Canadian cities to follow.

The reality, though, is that Mississauga is far from success and prosperity, with some of the highest poverty rates in Ontario recorded in the city's non-white ethnic neighbourhoods, and a non-existent, true, "mosaic" of mixed multiculturalism, with an increasingly self-segregating population separating itself by race, ethnicity and religion. And the various socio-ethnic groups do not work together, in art or other cultural and social programs, especially where their "identities" are involved, and some are even antagonistic towards each other (Indian Hindu and Muslims, for example).

And the AGM would not exist were it not for the close to the third of a billion of dollars in governmental grants it receives annually to promote this artificial mosaic of integrated multiculturalism through its art exhibitions and art programming.

I propose that we co-author such a book, perhaps as part of a larger subject of the practical realities of multiculturalism in Canada, and use Mississauga as one (perhaps the most important) example of how things really do function when multiculturalism is the Canadian government's policy.

Sincerely,
Kidist Paulos Asrat

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Monday, December 3, 2018, 11:11:24 AM
Ricardo Duchesne <...@unb.ca> wrote:

Hello,

Why not turn this into an article for CEC? You already have a good draft, and need to have an introduction, and a few other revisions to make it into an article. This is a topic I am interested in, and would like to see this developed into article.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Monday, December 3, 2018, at 6:09:37 PM
Kidist Paulos Asrat wrote:

Thank you for your suggestion.

KPA
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wednesday, Dec 5 2018, at 6:47 AM
reclaimbeauty@gmail.com
To: Ricardo Duchesne


Dear Dr. Duchesne,

Thanks once again for your helpful comments.

Nonetheless, I will independently write and publish the book on Mississauga rather than produce a very much condensed article.

Mississauga is a unique place. It warrants a full book: a demonstration of how society devovles as rulers and leaders lose confidence in themselves and a government-mandated plan (Multiculturalism) to change society is forced on all policy makers, which they have to comply with if they want to keep their jobs and have some future to look forward to (retirement, children well-educated, mortgages paid off, etc.).

There was something exciting and fresh about Mississauga when it started out as a city built from the ground up - literally.

The saddest part of this bright history is the current demoralized population, both white and nonwhite.

For example, non-white residents and immigrants relate to their ancestral countries much more so now than a decade or two ago. Most of them are bitterly disappointed in Canada, where they have been unable to "integrate," despite tremendous efforts by government officials and policies to assist them to do so. And their children, the Canadian-born second generation, who are experiencing the same lack of integration, are militant in blaming the "racist" white culture that they fervently believe is denying them their "rights." Thus there is no integration, but increasing ethnic and racial self-segregation. And there is also a new (albeit weak) trend of a repatriation and return "home" by some.

But I believe all this is a good thing, a good sign, demonstrating the failures (and cruelty) of multiculturalism, not just to critics like me, but to ordinary people, which is forcing them to search for, and discover, authentic ways of living.

Here is where I can show systematically how we can all salvage what we have. Those who return to their countries of origin can reclaim their ancestry and abandoned homes. And those like me can reclaim the city as it was once envisioned by its pioneers.

I believe that Mississauga, because of its strange "outlier" geographical position, is a perfect blueprint to demonstrate all these points.

Thank you once again for your communication. All the best in your projects.

Sincerely,

Kidist Paulos Asrat

Diversity in Writers: Will the Real Jeeves Please Stand?

The article below is from my Camera Lucida blog posted on December 7, 2005 (twelve years ago).

Then, I started to examine what multiculturalism meant to non-White Canadians (Americans, British etc.) and my views have remained exactly the same today as shows my article a couple of days ago Thanksgiving.

Note: The links to the Amazon.com book lists are not current. Ishiguro, Smith and Rushdie are prolific and have produced books through 2018, and they continue to write in the dystopian style they adopted early in their careers. I recommend changing the Amazon.com search by "publication date" to see their current activities, and the rave reviews all round, including:

- Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant, published in 2015:

Ishiguro has created a fantastical alternate reality in which, in spite of the extremity of its setting and because of its integrity and emotional truth, you believe unhesitatingly. - The Financial Times, February 2015

- Salman Rushdie's 2017 The Golden House, published in 2017:

The Golden House” has been billed by its publisher as Rushdie’s return to realism. Yet the New York City on offer is so gilded and remote that the novel reads like what one’s impressions would be if all one knew of it came from back issues of Vanity Fair magazine. - The New York Times, September 2017

- Zadie Smith's Feel Free:

“…You will have to take liberties, you will have to feel free to write as you like…even if it is irresponsible. - Zadiesmith.com

(Note: Rather than use "truth" as the target, Smith, like all dislocated people, who gravitate towards dystopia - and violence - choses "irresponsible" instead. She knows words and her word choice is not an error.)

All have won various prizes and perhaps the most prestigious is Ishiguro's Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017:

Kazuo Ishiguro
The Nobel Prize in Literature 2017
[...]
Prize motivation: "who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world." - The Nobel Prize in Literature 2017

Jeeves of course died in 1975 (born in 1881), and his ghost did not write the 2018 listed books. Rather, they are contemporary reprints which probably do not do the aesthetic credit that the older versions did to his craft.

First edition
Author: P. G. Wodehouse
Publisher: George Newnes
Publication date: May 1919 [Source]

---

Diversity in Writers: Will the Real Jeeves Please Stand?

England has witnessed several years of non-English authors who keep winning literary prizes, or just literary acclaim. Zadie Smith was recently in the headlines, Salman Rushdie has managed to outlive his fatwa, and another less famous but prolific writer, Kazuo Ishiguro, has written yet another book from those fair British Isles.
I’ve read books by all three, even tried more than one of each. And all leave me less than enthralled, slightly confused, and struck by a lack of authenticity. I find their characters to be caricatures. Both Rushdie and Smith go for hyperbole, while Ishiguro goes for exactly the opposite.

I’m beginning to wonder if non-British writers, however much they were born on the Island, can really capture the spirit of the land.

“Remains of the Day” by Ishiguro has a gloomy, undecipherable, remorseful butler try to recapture something of what he’s lost during all those years of selfless service. Actually, I recant my observation about Ishiguro’s understatement. What could be more of a hyperbole than this?

Then there is P.G. Wodehouse, with the inimitable Jeeves. His adroit butler who really always does save the day, after a lot of scampers and near-disasters along the way. And he does get to have his day at the sea-side also, and quite frequently.

I think Wodehouse captured his character with affection as a butler who certainly is not going to be bossed around by any Lord! No remains for him to collect.

Sometimes I wonder; if you don’t have your full emotions invested in a place, how can you write positive things about it? Like Rushdie, Smith and Ishiguro, who seem to deny a possibility for a future in their books, and press on with their circular exaggerations trying to find meanings for themselves.

Ishiguro’s 2001 book “When we were orphans” is about an Englishman who mysteriously lost his parents as a young boy in Shanghai. He returns as a professional detective to solve that ultimate mystery. It reminds me of these writers, trying to find clues about their past by digging into words.

Ishiguro’s latest book forfeited the unapproachable Far East, and his ancestral home, for something even more alien. It seems like he’s completely given up on ‘his’ England. “Never let me go” is about a Utopia (or a dystopia) on cloning. No more real people, real places or real stories for Ishiguro in the advent of the 21st century.

Why doesn’t this progression of his thoughts and stories not surprise me?

Quote from an interview with Ishiguro on "When we were Orphans":

There's a certain kind of branded, packaged atmosphere of Shanghai: this exotic, mysterious, decadent place. The same in Remains of the Day. It was a case of manipulating certain stereotypical images of a certain kind of classical England. Butlers and tea and scones: it's not really about describing a world that you know well and firsthand. It's about describing stereotypes that exist in people's heads all around the world and manipulating them engagingly.

The Best of East and West

[Updated with links to Asma Arshad Mahmood's postings (KPA October 28, 2022). The original article was on November 2018. I recently discovered the title "Thanksgiving" was posted on Mahmood's website, with a link to my posting here on my long-running website Reclaiming Beauty: Saving Our Western Civilization. I am not sure why she posted it. Perhaps it was to show her followers that she IS indeed "home" in Canada, contrary to my]: 

Apart from the usual "Canada is multiculturalism" and "We're Canadians," non-White immigrants have spent their residence in Canada adapting Canada to the lands they left behind. They were never "home."  ] 

 

I am updating this article, with more current, more detailed information on this clever woman who has convinced the Mississaugan, and Canadian, community that she IS "home" here, even as she left her Pakistani home behind.

I contend that she never did, and that my assessment of four years ago was correct. If anything, Mahmood is even more "back home" in Pakistan than she was a few years ago. 

Here are my more recent posts on Mahmood, with some updated commentary.

The "Thanksgiving article is linked here (this webpage),  as well as directed via Mahmood's webpage.

1. Art Sabotage (November 9, 2021) - Article excerpt: 

a youngish girl slurping blood through her hand, while holding a goat (a lamb?) on the other.

After the initial horror - blood, and young animals - I realized that this is clearly a "Christian" theme of the Lamb of God, the sacrificial lamb of God, surrounded by a halo, which Mahmood has translated into her own fetish. And hers is a kid (a goat) not the sacrificial lamb that Abraham offered to God.]

2. Traumas and Multiculturalism (May 2, 2022) - Article excerpt:

Mahmood appears in [a] video, where she shockingly reveals how she herself was molested, by unidentified male family member, when she was also a very young girl.

This molestation was known by the family at large, including Abu's wife, but was kept hidden, and quiet, to prevent public humiliations of these seemingly upstanding members of the Pakistani community. 

I wrote of Mahomod's strange paintings, with unidentifiable figures, their faces muted and "hidden."

Surely, this is a reaction to her trauma.

And I wonder in what other ways this trauma manifests itself, besides her frenzied activities to bring "art" to Mississauga: the art and culture she left behind in the country that betrayed her.

This multi-culti depository that Canada has become brings us such people as Mahmood, whose inner turmoils we can only begin to fathom as they are (may be) revealed in discreet confessionals meant for minuscule audiences. I happened to be on of the tiny percentage who caught her words.

I was not wrong about my assessment of her paintings:

Mahmood's paintings are ephemeral sketches of barely-there people.

 

3. Asma Arshad Mahmood: Art Gallery of Mississauga Curator Contender (April 3, 2022) - Article Excerpt:

The Art Gallery of Mississauga has sent out a memo to advertise that they are looking for a new curator of contemporary art.

 

The Art Gallery of Mississauga has tried for years now to present the wishful thinking multiculturalism in its programming, and all it has really done is to showcase individual cultures. 

One would think by now that multiculturalism would really be that, multiculturalism: a blend of cultures.

Of course this is not possible. How do blend together Indian, Chinese, various African cultures, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, etc., etc.?

The fact is that multiculturalism is really appendages onto a historical, traditional culture of the country. There is no blending, but a tenuous coexistence.

There seems to be one contender for this position. 

 

The CBC recently interviewed Asma Arshad Mahmood (which aired in mid-March 2022). Mahmood curated a series of exhibitions which just wrapped at the Art Gallery of Mississauga. The interviewer introduces Mahmood as: "Celebrated Mississauga curator."

Mahmood's four-part exhibition which she titled "...till all are healed," is  on now at the AGM, and works in the series Flowing River, Lotus of Thanks are by local artists whom she asked to paint thanking frontline workers. These works were up for auction to raise money for the pandemic's frontline workers: "to both say a broader thanks and provide income for local artists." 

[...]

The majority of the entries, 20 of the 27 (74%), of the works exhibited were by South Asians, with two white women who have South Asian last names - and are South Asian by extension.

"Lotus of Thanks" is an odd choice for a title. But while Mahmood is Muslim, she interacts with the Indian subcontinent's general culture, where the lotus flower is important (here is a photo of her and her husband after the Hindu festival Holi). 

[...] 

 

So, Mahmood's affiliation to the lotus flower could be for a number of reasons, including to cleverly use its pronunciation to create her message: "Lots of Thanks." 

4. Asma Arshad Mahmood: Art Gallery of Mississauga Curator Contender Staking Out the Territory - (April 8, 2022) - Article Excerpt:

I went to the 2018 Fine Arts Auction in Mississauga, before the big auction gala (I wasn't willing to pay $80 just to attend). Square One was the locale where the AGM attempted to bring art to the masses (if you have $80, that is), but they cleverly had the works on display about a week before the event, and you could bid online.

I took photos of some works, and also downloaded all the artists' works from various sites (the AGM Facebook page, the auction's ticket purchase page, the auction site, etc.).

Mahmood presented her work Whispers in Theatre, and was also part of the literati that attended the gala.

The going price for Whispers in Theatre was $800-900, but it doesn't appear to have sold at the auction.

Whsipers in Theatre has that same ephemeral quality that I described in another of Mahmood's piece here as  "an ephemera, a wisp of unidentified/unidentifiable human forms."

But that is neither here nor there. Mahmood has been staking out her territory in Mississauga from way back. She was Board of Director of the Mississauga Arts Council in 2012, but her main activity has been to promote ethnic-based art and culture events which focus on her own background from the Indian sub-continent, going as far back as 2003. 

Mahmood is not new at this. And Mississauga's arts culture is part of her stake out.

5. Recent Developments: The Art Gallery of Mississauga's Annual Benefit Auction - From the Art Gallery of Mississauga's Facebook page:

From the AGM Facebook page:

 

LOT 08

ASMA MAHMOUD (KPA - Spelling?]

Water carriers of Sindh, 2018 Oil on paper

61 x 76.2 cm

Estimate: $800.00 CDN

Have your chance to bid on this piece at the Art Gallery of Mississauga's Annual Benefit Auction

October 26, 2022 | 6:30pm | Small Arms Inspection Building

Buy your tickets now at  bit.ly/AGM35 (link in bio)

 

The same "an ephemera, a wisp of unidentified/unidentifiable human forms," that I described another of Mahmood's work here (also linked to in post 4 above).

And another of the AGM's "...wishful thinking multiculturalism in its programming, and all it has really done is to showcase individual cultures." which I write in post 3 above, with link to article posted here).

This piece is especially evolved. There are no discernible faces, but blobs of oval/circles - eye-openings and niqabed women covering their mouths and noses.

This is certainly part of the reason that Mahmood revived this 4-year-old piece for this auction, since Mississauga's multi-culti residents are all about covering up for this fake-demic, and why not through "art?"

The niqab, which these women are certainly wearing, is described thus:

...a veil for covering the hair and face except for the eyes that is worn by some Muslim women [Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary]

And the Sindh (administrative unit) in Pakistan:

...the historical home to the Sindhi people is the second most populated administrative unit of Pakistan after Punjab...Sindh is known as Bab-ul-Islam (the gateway of Islam), as it saw the first spread of Islam into South Asia. It has...its roots in one of the world's oldest civilizations, the Indus Valley Civilisation...

Sindh is endowed with coastal access, and is a major centre of economic activity in Pakistan. Karachi, the country's largest city at the southwestern tip of Sindh, is the main financial hub of the country as well one of the most populous cities in the world and has both the country's largest airport and largest seaport. [Source: Wikivoyage]

Mahmood doesn't shy away from updating her Facebook and Twitter pages with the various Islamic holidays that she celebrates (although, with the multi-culti magnanimity of one who have nothing to lose (and has indeed gained a lot) she will reference Christmas with a shiny Christmas Tree and "Happy Holidays." Never Easter, though, that unconditional Christian event. How do you Happy Holidays the cross? Once in a while, the paint-splashing Diwali Hindu holiday appears on her tweets.

And Mahmood is serious about Islam.

Here, in the final installment of this update (below), I discuss Mahmood's connections with her native Pakistan, and where she cleverly uses her influence (it is not as extensive as she and media/cultural outlets make out to be), to program events and collaborations with Pakistan.

This was posted in Mahmood's Facebook page on October 12, 2022:

Call For Applications:

BNU MDSVAD, in collaboration with Canadian Community Arts Initiative, presents Be(Coming) the Museum, a research-based project that aims to build stronger relationships between creative practitioners and museums in Pakistan. The project is envisioned as a catalyst to inspire emerging artists to build a sense of connection with museums and their historical collections of art and artifacts.

We will also consider the question, "What is the museum of the future?"

Seminar Dates: 5th and 6th November 2022

Deadline to Apply: 26th October 2022

This open call is open to emerging creative practitioners across Pakistan.

For full application details: Link in Bio

Project Partners: BNU SVAD, CCAI, Lord Cultural Resources and Lahore Museum.

This project is lead by @asmamahmood and @shellybahl

About the institutions cited in this announcement:

- Lord Cultural Resources [link]:

Lord Cultural Resources is the global practice leader in cultural sector planning. Since 1981, we have helped to create, plan, and operate cultural spaces and places in more than 460 cities, in 57 countries and six continents. [Source: Lord.ca]

Gail Dexter Lord...co-founded Lord Cultural Resources with her husband Barry Lord in 1981. [Source - Gail Lord LinkedIn]  

Lord Cultural Resources is a Canadian organization, but they are opaque about their financial arrangements. My conclusion is that museums and other cultural organizations obtain governmental funds, which they then use to pay for the museum consultations services provided by Lord Cultural Resources.
- Canadian Community Arts Initiative [link]:
The clever (or finely tuned "multiculturalist") Mahmood the Canadian Cultural Arts Initiative's Board Member and Senior Artistic Director where she "represents the organization on various international forums."

Canadian Community Arts Initiative regularly presents visual arts, literary, dance, theatre, film and other artistic events for the enjoyment and education of the community. CCAI regularly collaborates with artists and organizations to support artistic activities in and around Mississauga and GTA. 

A more interesting description is [link]:

CCAI is a not for profit organization registered under the laws of the province of Ontario to promote effective role of arts and artists in Canadian community.

 

And especially this part:

CCAI aims to enhance the community's awareness of the many arts and cultural practices in Canada and encourages expansion of the arts by creating opportunities for practicing local artists.

 

What does "local artists" mean? What are "the many arts and cultural practices in Canada"?

These are code words for "multiculturalism."  Mahmood uses her Pakistani influence in Canada, as well as expanding it ("expansion" from her CCAI description) to her native Pakistan. Conveniently, she identifies herself as Canadian/Pakistani. But Pakistan is the core of her activities.

   

And all this leads to:

- BNU MDSVAD - Beaconhouse National University Mariam Dawood School of Visual Arts & Design - Lahore Pakistan, Mahmood's current, perhaps most important, project in Pakistan (and in Canada), where a variety of Canadian monies are used to fund a project, a NATIONAL, Pakistani, project, in Lahore Pakistan.

This might yet be Mahmood's Swan Song. I thought previously she was vying for the AGM's director position in the future. But I doubt it. She is too old to scuffle with the multi-culti-literati of Mississauga, young or youngish hyphenated-Canadians; Arabs, Chinese, Blacks, and her fellow non-Muslim Indians.

She has come full circle, getting the best of all worlds: living in a Western society, with all its moneys, expertise, modern systems, and creativity, to shuttle back and forth to her native Pakistan to assist in building its institutions. All at her schedule, and all fees paid.

Lahore Museum, Lahore, Pakistan

This image is also on the Facebook page "Asma Mahmood" which Mahmood has used for the poster to announce the "open call" for applicants for this grant. 

-----------------------

This is the original article posted here, as well as linked to via Asmamahmood.com

Apart from the usual "Canada is multiculturalism" and "We're Canadians," non-White immigrants have spent their residence in Canada adapting Canada to the lands they left behind. They were never "home."

And, these many years later, they realize that they have FAILED in building this "home."

So what are they going to do about it?

Here is a "South Asian" couple which lives a seemingly "westernized" life in the Mississauga area. But they never mentioned the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday this past October 8th on their otherwise prolific Facebook sites.


Arshad and Asma Mahmood
Celebration Square, before of the Mississauga City Hall
TD (Toronto Dominion Bank) Mosaic Outdoor Festival, August 2018
Posted in Facebook

The couple posts extensively on Mosaic - The South Asian Festival of Mississauga, and in the photo above, they are in front of Mississauga's City Hall, before a full crowd which came out for the Mosaic festival on the Celebration Square mall, in August 2018.

The Mosaic Festival of Mississauga, with a major sponsorship by the Toronto Dominion Bank of Canada,

brings together South Asian and Fusion dance, music, and art performances in a mosaic of culture and talent. The two-day event features both local and international acts...

Here's what Arshad Mahmood posted this past October 8 (Thanksgiving):


And Asma Mahmood, an artist who participated in the April 2018 Fine Art Auction by The Art Gallery of Mississauga, and not as prolific a Facebook poster as her husband, also made no mention of Thanksgiving. But she did "update" her Facebook photo a couple of days later, on October 11.




Asma Mahmood
Whispers in theatre, 2018
Acrylic on canvas board
29.9 ins x 24 ins 76 cms x 61 cms
Auction work
Estimate: $800–900

Below is an excerpt from an interview in View the Vibe of the couple, and how they founded the Mosaic festival in 2006.

This year's event took place on August 3 and August 4, 2018

...Arshad and Asma Mahmood decided it was high time Mississauga had more high-profile arts and cultural events that reflected the backgrounds and interests of the city’s inhabitants. Along with a group of like minded friends they established the Canadian Community Arts Initiative (CCAI), and, soon after, Mosaic, a SouthAsian multidisciplinary arts festival, was born [in 2006].
[Source: Tastemakers: Ashad and Asma Mahmood, View the Vibe Magazine, July 21, 2014

From TD Mosaic web page:

Mosaic is supported by the City of Mississauga and has received funding from Department of Canadian Heritage, Ontario Trillium Foundation, Province of Ontario, Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Tourism.