A God-Given Earth

I recently posted on VDare's (via Steve Sailer) cut-and-paste post on the rebel protests in Ethiopia.

There is something ugly about race-antagonism, even when it comes from the "victims," which is how Americans see themselves in this world of spiraling protests.

Of course, I don't think Americans, and American whites, are necessarily victims, rather victims of their own doing. They are (partially) to blame.

Regardless of politics, Americans allowed entry into their country people from distant shores and continents, for many decades now.

The question is why.

I believe this is a question best answered with a religious lens.

Americans, and especially American leaders, abandoned their faith in God, their commitment to God's words, and decided that they can make a land of their own making, imagination, and desires.

Since the biggest crime for American thought is "racism," they couldn't use the logical and true argument of race to close off their borders to all these aliens.

Why not (to continue with the "why" question)?

To become a racist is to be evil, to deny the humanity of another human being. So believe contemporary Americans, of all faith, political, social and cultural nuances.

But, God's Bible is replete with stories of race, of families of races, the most important and significant being the Jewish race of the Old Testament, those chosen people.

Through these Jewish ancestors, came Jesus Christ, a Jew himself, who opened up the Bible, and the people of the world, to be equally deserving of the Grace of God, through their acceptance of the Grace of God.

But nations were never annihilated. Families were never cast aside.

We learn our lessons through both the Old and the New.

If Jews, as generations of families, lived such a long and God-blessed existence, then so can we, with our own families, in our own corners of the world.

If America's leaders cannot openly and proudly submit to bowing their heads to the grace and power of God, then they are hurtling their country, and their people, to doom.

I believe this is where VDare, with its erudite, intelligent and clever leaders, have failed. They have decided to make America, perhaps some without realizing so, "a land of their own making, imagination, and desires."

That is why their immigrant stories resonate as horror stories. Ugly and fighting words, without the Grace of God, the humility before God, simply become horror stories.

Those immigrant rabble-rouser leaders will hook on to these words, and convince their communities that American whites are racist and evil. And so continue the headlines with news of bombs of words and steel, with no end in sight.

But through humility and grace, America's leaders, by leaning on the word of God, could convince that Mexican family (with its ostracized bomb-throwing unemployed son), which is making as honest a living as possible with a paycheck that barely covers rent and food, that its members (including those born "American," and that son) have another place, a God-given place, created by their own ancestors. And that they are better off there, even as their lives might change dramatically at first. That they can start to plan for generations into the future, rather than for the end of the month, each month.

How enlightened they could be. And how thankful they would be to realize their Catholic God has forgiven them, with their trail, and trial, of an infinity of burnt candles.

Mexicans, especially those in the rural areas, and more the seniors than the youth, have a beautiful way of describing their place. "Mi tierra" they would tell me: "My land, my earth." This visceral expression is more real and more tangible than "my country," "mi pais."

VDare's sin came in increments. Their immigration influencing capabilities are now basically nil. No-one listens to them. Even President Trump has put on hold his "close the borders" mantra on which he got elected.

As I explain in this post discussing a recent VDare article Is It Time For Americans To Start Talking About The Devil?, the Devil lurks around finding devious, clever ways to derail good works.

...there is no article [on VDare] that is exclusive to the praises of God's excellent hand in this American Nation.

Rather, we now have a full expose on the Devil himself.

And those who refuse and abandon the protection and wisdom of God are easy prey. And their missions will never be accomplished.

The Multi-Culti Mississauga Art Establishment Implodes

Below is a Facebook post from a (now former) staff, Sharada Eswar, at the Art Gallery of Mississauga (posted in full after the dotted lines). This multicultural, Indian woman, writes this article on her Facebook page.

Who knew!

For more on my views, and the anti-west, anti-Canada, AGM, see my posts here.

The AGM is imploding, and that's a good thing!

I wrote about Eswar here, in a post I titled White Out at the AGM:

Eswar talks about her childhood with her grandmother in India.

More information on Eswar here, a 2019 post at Reclaiming Beauty I titled: White Out at the AGM

"...In her Brampton [Ontario] living room, a Ganesha statue sits on a side table...Now, Eswar is bringing her grandmother's ancient stories, and some contemporary South Asian tales, to life in the GTA [The Greater Toronto Area, which includes Mississauga]."

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Eswar's Facebook post on June 22, 2020:

This is a fairly long post, so thank you for your time.

Until December 2019, I was leading a community engaged arts project at the Art Gallery of Mississauga (AGM). A project that I conceived and birthed, and was nurtured lovingly by the racialized and marginalized communities of Mississauga. A project that received funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation (a grant that I wrote) to the tune of over $420,000. A project that used stories as a common denominator, to bring together the diverse cultural groups and the racialized communities in Mississauga and beyond, engaging with ideas of self-representation to question colonial narratives. A place to share stories, laughs and the heartbreaks associated with them. There were plenty of laughs alright, and heartbreaks a plenty. A project that consumed my very being, every single day for over three years. A project that I had to abandon because the then Treasurer (and I believe, currently the Chair) decided that he had the right to be a bully, an obnoxious and aggressive force that undermined this initiative. An aggression so toxic that to this day, I fear going to Mississauga, lest I see him again.

It began as a pilot project in 2017. It was a runaway success. The community wanted their voices heard, their stories told and I decided to expand the project. In 2018, things began to change. A number of events dramatically transformed the working environment at the AGM. We were told that the Gallery was financially unhealthy and the very existence of the Gallery was at risk. The one silver lining was receiving the Trillium funding for my project. However, things escalated in 2019. I witnessed, along with my colleagues and many members of the arts community, an alarming deficit of clear communication, leadership and respect from the board and the directorship of the AGM. But all of this paled in the face of patriarchy and white supremacy that was rampant in the Board. The then Director was asked to leave and the predominantly white governance Board decided to become an operating board (there was no public announcement about this shift, nor was the membership informed). A Board that had no clue on how the arts world functioned, let alone how community engagement and relationships are built and nurtured. With no Director to act as buffer, the staff were at the mercy of the Board. Staff were constantly micro-managed and belittled. Things came to a head when the last remaining full-time staff’s position was suddenly and mysteriously dissolved. I say suddenly because despite the position being part of the new 5-year strategic plan approved by the Board and the then Chair & Interim ED, it was dissolved soon after.

At first it seemed as if I would be spared but how wrong I was! Within weeks I was subject to aggressive emails demanding why the artists I had contracted for the project were paid so high (mind you this was a funder approved budget and were being paid as per industry standards); why are there no European voices in this project (one of the main objectives of border crossings was to make room for communities and voices that were until now absent); and then some questions that were beyond the scope of my job description and expertise, though I tried to the best of my ability to answer them all. Emails, so aggressive that I began to dread logging into my computer. I was made to feel incompetent, incapable of doing minor tasks correctly and peppered with questions that felt more like inquisitions. Then there was the gaslighting behaviour. On one occasion I was asked about a missing camera that had “supposedly been bought” for the project – in spite of me insisting that there was no camera bought, I was repeatedly interrogated, making me feel like a criminal. Finally, I was told that if the camera couldn’t be traced, it was my job to lodge a complaint with the police for insurance purposes. It reached a point where I began to question my own sanity, my memory, my actions, my thoughts. After much heart wrench and soul searching, I resigned. I left the project and everything that I had worked towards to that point behind.

Until today I have chosen not to make a broader public statement of the toxicity that my colleagues and I walked into every single day. So why am I speaking now? I, like several others, left space for the funders (specifically the City) and the community members to voice their concerns about the organization. But I realize that to remain silent out of respect for our community may be taken as complicity in an erasure of agency, which was in no way my intention.

Two things happened that galvanized me into action -- the first of the two was on June 3, 2020. There was a post from AGM as part of the #BlackOutTuesday in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. I saw the post and laughed. The hypocrisy I thought! A “leadership” that treats its BIPOC staff with utmost disregard and disrespect now expressing solidarity! I was tempted to comment something nasty but desisted. Then there was a post on Twitter that for me was the tipping point. A podcast (a podcast I had produced and hosted) with the Treasurer as guest. I haven’t been able to bring myself to listen to it. It has brought back all the toxicity to the fore, everything I thought I had under control, the fears, the anxiety, the shame, the rage, the guilt at abandoning the community members, who had time and again made themselves vulnerable, trusting me with their stories. The fact that I had to let go of my project, my creation that was second only to my own child, and this bully is still about exuding power!

The Iniquities of Immigration

Below is my post from July 4, 2018: The Iniquities of Immigration
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Immigration is the contemporary world's greatest iniquity. From there arises all the adjoining iniquities, the biggest being multiculturalism. The sin of immigration is as much the immigrants' as it is those accepting the immigrants.

In God's design of our world, there is no immigration, as we understand it in our contemporary world: the mass movements of peoples from one region of the world to another, and more specifically from the southern/eastern regions to the western.

Each people has its own country, its own region, its own place, its own home, built and nourished and sustained by its own people, ancestors and those still living. Each people knows how to maneuver and live with the deficiencies of its particular country, and often loves it more because of these struggles and, many times, the victories, small or large.

By immigrating, contemporary people cut off these ties, sever them and often irreparably. They remain in limbo with memories fading further into the recesses of their minds of that beautiful country which gave birth to them and which they so readily abandoned for a few material comforts. This trauma lives on in their children and their grandchildren.

I make a bold suggestion. Let's follow Moses' example. Let us make an Exodus away from the false promise and to the real promise. Our real promised lands.

"I don’t mind these people, or dislike them. I certainly don’t hate them..."

John Derbyshire, writer at VDare, is using the old and tired language of "I am not a racist...but" argument to defend hs "anti-immigration" stance.

He writes in a confused conundrum of superficial compassion and declared hard line.

In his recent post on the "caravan" that is approaching the southern American border, he writes:

...it’s plain that the biggest cohort of caravanners are unattached young men, a lot of them sporting tattoos.

I have nothing against young men, and not very much against tattoos. Looking at these faces and bodies, though, I do seriously doubt that any of this cohort, if permitted to settle among us, will take up brain surgery, theoretical physics, or the composing of symphonies.

Then later on in the article, he waves his white flag of "I'm not a racist":

I don’t mind these people, or dislike them. I certainly don’t hate them, as the infantile language of the Cultural Marxists would say. Some of them look like nice ordinary people. Check out, for example, William Castillo and his family from El Salvador in the Daily Mail montage. I’d guess Mr. Castillo is a hardworking guy who wants his best for the little boy. Heck, if I were an ordinary working Joe in El Salvador, I’d want to get out of there, too.

He has links to photos of nice family units, who do not very nice things like break sovereign laws and enter a foreign territory illegally. These nice people are criminals.

Of course he blames it on the country he's immigrated to (legally, I hope. Or is that where all his commentary stems form?).

That is another issue. And as with all clever pundits, Derbyshire knows that adding a (lesser, in this case) argument of imperfect American immigration policies will blur the main, important one, which is that this human caravan is composed solely of potential law-breakers. And they willingly joined this human flow in order to break these laws of the United States. Gangs or no gangs, poverty or no poverty, since when has such activity been given a free pass in a real house of law?

When will the immigrants cease to be those alien godheads, even for people such as Derbyshire who purport to do everything they can to prevent their traverse across a sanctified, sovereign border?

Who would Keep the Order?

I was waiting behind this gentleman in Walmart. There was the usual bustle of people in line where we have no cultural or social ties to induce or encourage civil behaviour. For one, many people still communicate in their "native" languages. Stay on line, keep a distance between shopping carts, avoid conversation which can lead to miscommunication, and pay your grocery bills with a friendly "hello" to the physically and mentally overworked cashier.

This old man was clearly in a hurry and, as luck would have it, he landed on a cashier with very limited English (a nice, old Italian woman). She got some figures wrong and he brought it to her attention, politely and quietly. Then, as he left, he saw a pile of cardboard in the way. He could have walked around it as most people would do, but he took the time to push them aside onto a ledge. Then he walked off to whatever engagement he had, without too much hurry and with no irritation.

This is the white man that multiculturalists are demonizing and slowly pushing out.

Who would keep the order once he's gone?

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.

Posting from Camera Lucida: 2012

Below is a 2012 posting from my Camera Lucida blog, which I've posted in full.

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Friday, March 23, 2012
How Immigrants are Destroying Toronto (And Canada)


Minister Rona Ambrose (second from left)
surrounded by employees and volunteers from
Changing Together: Centre for Immigrant
Women Association in Edmonton, Alberta
September 2010

From the first two paragraphs of the article with the photo:

Edmonton− The Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women, announced Government of Canada support for a new project that will help end violence against immigrant and refugee women and girls, and held a roundtable with stakeholders involved in the project.

"This is an important collaborative project between Changing Together and the Edmonton Women's Shelter that can truly make a difference in the lives of immigrant and refugee women, who are victims of domestic violence and human trafficking," said Minister Ambrose.

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The Thinking Housewife has an article on the Violence Against Women Act. She writes on violence between couples:

[M]ore than 200 studies have shown that women and men are equally guilty of verbal and physical aggression in the home. Domestic violence against women is extremely serious and women are injured and murdered by their spouses or intimates more often than men. But conflict is often initiated by women.

Many years ago, I worked for an immigrant agency. My role was a "counsellor" to assist new immigrants with integrating into Canadian life. After several years, I quit, cold turkey. Everyone was surprised. My "clients" as we called the people we gave service to, gave me good reviews. And I seemed to have had a modicum of success.

I quit because I felt that the kinds of immigrants I was seeing, mostly from Latin America (I speak reasonably good Spanish) and at that time many Somali and Ethiopian refugees, were not assimilating, and I didn't see them assimilating, into the Canadian society. Near the end of my post, I openly said that many of these immigrants/refugees should just return to their countries of origin.

During my years in the immigrant agency (early to late 1990s), new "women's issues" agencies started sprouting up to cull the government funds that were being allocated to women immigrants and refugees. Greedy and clever immigrant agencies discovered that there was money to be made on "violence against women" programs from these funds.

Now, a normal society would look at women as part of a unit of a family, either as a wife, a mother, a daughter, a grandmother, etc. But these agencies focused solely and only on women. And since their whole approach was divisive, they only ended up taking care of divisive issues.

What more divisive than "violence against women?"

I would say that most immigrant/refugee marital problems are related to the difficult financial and social problems these families experienced. And added to that, many of the men were not used to having their wives in such prominent roles, and sometimes more superior roles (from learning the language faster to getting jobs sooner, etc.). I would say that the women also behaved less traditionally subservient and possibly more antagonistically, with their new-found confidence (and attention). If violence ensues from these changes (I cannot say from my experience who initiates the violence most of the time), the women have a myriad of agencies and shelters to run to, while the men are left bewildered, angry and of course targeted as criminals.

I've had at a few men (often the situation is to embarrassing to talk about for men) recount their ordeals to me in detail, starting with a psychological blockage that doesn't allow them to continue a normal life, to missing their children. They were also profoundly ashamed that they were now known as wife batterers. I never went into the "violent" situations, but it was clear to me that the men lost the most.

I would start saying to my colleagues that such "violence" is becoming an epidemic. Many of these families wouldn't be experiencing such turbulent family lives back in their countries of origin, where there were a myriad of cultural and familial checkpoints to make sure this didn't happen.

First there was the family as a whole. In Ethiopian families (I cannot speak for other families, although I would think the situations are similar), older relatives, fathers and grandfathers (and uncles) played tremendously important roles in making sure that families were as harmonious as possible. Complaining wives did have a say. And a wife who was battered was the most protected of them all.

But of course, situations wouldn't reach the "battering" level. Through strict religious, Christian, mandates families were regularly reminded of the importance of roles and hierarchies. Only two generations ago (my grandparents' time), wives would call their husbands by the formal "vous" (I cannot think of a better word in English). A rebellious wife had many advisers (female relatives, sisters, mothers-in-law, and her own mother) to help her through whatever she was reacting against. And she may be right, so either she found a way to convince her husband of her correct, and beneficial, revolt, or other sources were found, from and elder male relative to approach the husband to the local priest, who could act as mediators and advisers. If divorce or separation becomes inevitable, again every social and cultural channel was used to prevent this. Separation was often used (with the wife "travelling" to visit relatives until tempers cooled off) to stall and put-off divorce .

In the end, although such societies look like they are full of coerced, unhappy marriages, they actually have unions which develop mutual trust, and even love.

I always said that those percentages of real violence against women were extremely small. The large numbers that are being touted everywhere I think are one of those liberal, anti-marriage, feminist propaganda, where everything and anything can become "battery" or "violence." The more one can show the inherent evil of men, the more the world can run according to women's agenda, including doing away all that claptrap on hierarchy and the outdated "king of his castle" role of men.

And women are more equal than men, in feminist language. This has torn society apart, made children fatherless (often living with the mother and with another male member who is not their father), made single women and their children poorer, and impoverished men, who often have to supply their income to two families if they remarry (alimony always comes from the man, in this equal world of ours), etc.

And it is especially brutal to immigrants, both men and women. There was a spike in immigrant men suicides in the 1990s (amongst Ethiopians to be exact, since I don't know enough about how other cultures responded to this problem). Many of these women receive welfare or some kind of government assistance, and stay it for long periods. Children grow up expecting government "benefits" which must affect what they aspire for as adults. Etc.

So, my opinion (although it counted for more than that at my counsellor job since it was based on my observations and research) was that we should find ways for these families to stay together. In terms of Ethiopian families, it was to restore some kind of traditional, Christian element, of male hierarchy within the family.

This, I think, is becoming more and more difficult in multicultural Canada, so I still say that Ethiopians should start a "return of the diaspora" movement (I said this once with a group of people, and someone told me that many, from young Ethiopians born in the West, to older retirees, are actually going back in large numbers).

Dependency on the liberal set up hasn't helped. And often, the supporters of radical liberal agendas, like those who speak for "abused" women and who support dramatic solutions like breaking apart families, are often white liberal feminist women, who have found ways to keep their own marriages and families intact (well, I wouldn't want to go in with a magnifying glass, since I will most likely find a liberal, wimpy, feminist male), but are ready to sacrifice others as foot soldiers for their cause.

The less political, and often non-white, women working at the front desks of the immigrant women's support agencies often have stable and what look like happy families (I noticed this, and mentioned it several times at my job), but they promote these ideas of family separation often because it is their job, and they have to accept it to keep their their jobs. But at some point, they too begin to believe the propaganda they are spoon fed (not for them, of course - there's always a hierarchy of recipients in the accusations and realities of battered women). But, they are participating in the destruction of a society simply because they don't, and possibly cannot, say otherwise.

For the sake of liberal rearrangement of society, everyone becomes a pawn, or at least a propaganda soldier. Those at the very bottom of that hierarchy, a hierarchy that is clearly and hypocritically present in the liberal set up, often have the most to lose. And in the case of battered women, it is the women who have somehow been convinced to discard their husbands as abusers, and who have to live a life dependent on another hierarchical superior: a cold and faceless government agency.

Elite Liberals

Elite liberals who enable illegal immigrants ensure that they are housed in poor and working class neighborhoods—seldom anywhere near where the ruling class lives. Settle all immigrants in subsidized housing next door to millionaire and billionaire supporters of mass immigration. pic.twitter.com/GSrxoTJPjw

— Michael Hoffman (@HoffmanMichaelA) December 11, 2018

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.

Imagine Living in a Country...

Kevin Michael Grace 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇮🇪 ⚜ 🇳🇴
‏
@KMGVictoria

Imagine living in a country wherein everything you had been raised to believe became its opposite. And then you were threatened to remain silent, otherwise you would be punished, socially, civilly & if need be criminally. Now you understand Canada
1:30 AM - 23 Oct 2018

Easy come, Easy GO!!

Here's post at The Council of European Canadians (I've embedded the video):

Here are very reasonable and realistic proposals from The Mark Collett Podcast on how we can dismantle multiculturalism and prevent further mass migration into Western nations. As Mr. Collett says, we have said a lot about the problems we are facing; it is high time we start "suggesting solutions that are peaceful, morally acceptable and actually viable". Take a listen:

Here is one comment:

Was it peaceful when this multiculturalism was forced upon Whites with coercion, lies and duplicity?
When democracy means all important decision are kept out of the political process at all costs.

Being taken advantage with mass immigration of non-Whites is called 'peaceful'?? Well reversing it with deportation is equally just and peaceable.

That some will choose to be violent to stop it only belies the inherent violence in the original agenda. Its just coming to light when its actually addressed.

The elites agenda has always been, force non-Whites in as covertly and quickly as possible. Hoping that this makes any reversal or reseparation to the previous freedom impossible. We must reject this. It is possible, and required. Period.

Access to White people is not a human right.

Remigration 2018: Easy come, easy GO!!

Exodus

I have been a stranger in a strange land.
Exodus, 2. 22

From a post on June 2018

---

This is an email I sent to a correspondent:

My cousin...was here the other day with her children as well as her brother and his wife.

It is interesting. She stopped her memoir as she entered Canada. I was right about her reticence to write about her Canadian "experience."

[...]

She told me she is [now] writing a "fiction.

[...]

She brought up "identity" as part of her concern in her book...

I told her that "identity" in Canada was always going to be an issue for her (and people like her, although I didn't say that).

"Ethiopia is going through some kind of renaissance. Why don't you and your family figure out a way to return? To go 'back home?' You came here through the most difficult way possible (they crossed deserts and countries before reaching Djibouti and finally coming to Canada as "refugees.")

Don't worry about culture and language. Both, especially for Ethiopians who live the culture daily, are easy to regain. Your children (they don't speak Amharic but understand it) will easily pick it up.

A country is a big thing. Everyone needs one."

She (and her brother) were listening to me intently.

I am glad I attended the dinner. I was curious to see what she would do after her "memoir."

[...]

I also said that in general that people like my father, important people ("big people" in the Amharic literal translation) could set an example and make the exodus back home. My parents have bought two houses from the inheritance house (which they sold at a fantastic price to high-rise developers) in Addis Ababa. They go back now every few months. They have invited me again in November [Note: I wrote this a year ago but it still stands for a November "invitation"] but I have declined the invitation.

They could set an example for all these destitute, culturally bereft Ethiopians by returning (to Ethiopia). A courageous exodus.

Ethiopia is undergoing a "renaissance," I told them at the dinner. "After famines, revolutions, communist governments, ethnic wars, it still stands. Ethiopia, and Ethiopians and specially the Amhara, are resilient. It has withstood incursions and invasions through the centuries. The Amhara are still Amhara. Ethiopia is still Ethiopia. You could be part of this renaissance."

My father was quiet but I could see that he was stunned. He didn't expect me to say these things openly, although he knows my views.

I didn't plan this either. It was as though I HAD to do this. And I'm glad I followed this direction.

My cousins left without rancor or ill-feelings. I have told the truth, and they know it.

Interestingly, the last part I said, "Ethiopia, and Ethiopians and specially the Amhara, is resilient," is almost a direct quote from what her father said to them as they started their journey across the desert, which she discusses in her interview with the CBC. I hadn't listened to this part of the interview until today.

She says about her father (my father's now deceased brother):

He grew up hearing about Ethiopians defeating a common enemy and keeping Ethiopia independent for centuries. Ethiopians were very proud people then and I'm sure they still are. So he has that in him. This desert wasn't going to defeat him. He's done it. His ancestors have done it before. And that kept us very strong, because he was 100 per cent sure we would make it.

I am simply telling her to make that journey in reverse, so much easier now that they have so much more than those clothes on their backs when they crossed that desert.

Then they can be Ethiopians once again.