Refugees Welcome

Earlier today Linda, myself and Marc joined the nationwide rally/demonstration to bring awareness to Canada's lack of response to the current refugee crisis.  There was a surprisingly good turn out of people (probably about 150 people).  There are lots of video and pictures from the march today.  It was really nice to see the people on the street join in or be very supportive of the march.  Overall it felt very positive.

I don't pretend that encouraging Canada to accept more refugees is going to change anything and that there needs to be a deeper change for the suffering to stop.  Canada has played a direct role in this suffering by supplying the Free Syria Army.  The war needs to stop for the suffering to ease.  I know that Alan Kurdi's body will be used to justify further military action in Syria under the lies of needing to stop Assad or Isis or which ever enemy they choose in order to keep the military action alive.  I not sure of why various NATO countries feel the need for a regime change in Syria but I am sure it is part of a bigger plan they have worked out and all Syrians, Libyans, Afghani , Iraqi, Yemen, etc.. will be causalities in their quest for power.  I know it isn't one country that is pulling the strings for the regime change, it is more like an ideology or some bankster elite that are pulling the strings...probably in their quest towards a world government for themselves or something along those lines.  

Regardless of the motive and regardless of the cure, there are people who are suffering greatly and need shelter and that is what today's march was about.  

Here are some pics and videos of today's event:

Short Video

I can see you, Mark and Linda in the second picture. Do you know who organized the rally and what sort of messages they were giving? I have participated in 'No One is Illegal' marches.

The flag in the first picture is the Syrian National Coalition flag. I don't know if this is a meaningful symbol or just the only flag they could get.

Wikipedia wrote:As a result of the ongoing Syrian civil war, there are currently two governments claiming to be the de jure government of Syria, using different flags to represent the state. The incumbent government, led by Bashar al-Assad and the Ba'ath Party, is using the red-white-black United Arab Republic flag in use since 1980; while the Syrian Interim Government, led by the Syrian National Coalition – seeking to overthrow the Assad government – readopted the green-white-black Independence flag in 2012.

I share your skepticism about how the refugee crisis will used by war-mongers - but marches like this are good counter-balances to the racism that gets unleashed when refugees are mentioned. There are no perfect marches, but compassion and solidarity must still be publicly expressed

There is a direct line between that dead Syrian kid (and all the other dead Syrian civilians) and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The criminals who led that war are still around. So are the those people who cheered it on. I wish some of the vital media attention this topic was getting would mention that fact.

The rally was organized by two with support of other groups it seemed (generally no one is illegal}. The other groups were human rights groups, social justice cooperatives as well as some immigrant services. The overall message that they posted was "Calling for compassion, safe passage, and open borders for refugees and migrants. Protesting the Canadian government's complicity with the ongoing plight of displaced people from Syria and around the world." The message they were giving out was that compassion for people must prevail. They had a refugee from Kosovo give a speech and some brothers from Syria also give a speech. The organizers talked for a bit citing numbers about refugees and Canada's response.

I find it intensely frustrating that the link between Canada's actions and the dead Syrian kid are never mentioned...not even once. It seems like such a basic fact and until we address it, there can never be any reasonable debate on the topic in a political or media (seems to be a thin grey line between them) environment.