The Indo-Canadian Workers Association (ICWA) is pleased to release the 2024 commemorative calendar, which is dedicated to the people of Palestine, and celebrates their 75 year long, ongoing struggle against Zionist settler colonialism and apartheid.
The significance of the ICWA calendar
The ICWA has been releasing a commemorative calendar every year since 2008. In previous years, we have used our calendar to honour and show solidarity to various causes, events, and milestones, with themes primarily centred around India. Hence the last five years have seen the ICWA calendar featuring the 2021 Indian farmers’ protests, revolutionaries of the Ghadar Party and the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, amongst others. The photograph for the 2024 calendar has been deliberately chosen to highlight the loss and displacement that Palestinians as a people have faced, and their eternal, and rightful longing for return.
Why we support the Palestinian cause?
Palestinians have been living under increasingly brutal occupation since 1948. They have been brutalized, marginalized, and made refuges in their own land. The Zionist state of Israel has kept eating away into Palestinian territory through illegal settlements, enabled through the Israeli military and with the tacit support of the United States government and its Western allies that sadly includes Canada too. This, despite there being a groundswell of support for Palestinian liberation in almost all Western countries today.
The current Israeli campaign in Gaza, purportedly in response to the deadly attack carried out by Palestinian fighters aligned with the Palestinian group Hamas, that regrettably claimed more than 1200 lives, has thus far killed over 13000 Palestinians, almost half of them being children. The campaign has been criticized by international agencies like the United Nations and Human Rights Watch and the United Nations General Assembly has even passed a resolution for a permanent ceasefire, once that was passed with overwhelming support. However, Israel, supported by the West, has consistently refused to heed to international pressure, and carried out its indiscriminate bombing campaign of Gaza, targeting hospitals, schools, United Nations’ facilities and news media at will. Over 50 journalists and tens of United Nations aid workers have also been killed thus far. The actions of Israel have been called out as reprehensible by all neutral observers, and the UN General Secretary has himself referred to this collective punishment of an entire people by Israel, and especially the acts of targeting hospitals and civilians, as war crimes.
ICWA believes that a system of apartheid, fueled by anti-Arab racism and a colonial mindset, exists in the current Israeli political establishment, something which can ultimately harm the Israeli society itself in the near future. Hence, the ICWA believes that as a progressive organization, it becomes our moral imperative to stand firm with our comrades in Palestine.
The ICWA calls on the Israeli government to immediately cease its genocidal campaign, and allow aid to flow into Gaza, where the situation is currently beyond dire. The ICWA also calls on the Canadian government and political class to heed the very strong voices within Canada that are horrified at the sight of innocent people, especially little children getting murdered in a war they have no power over but are sadly its greatest victims. Canadians are known globally as a just, progressive, and peaceful people, and hence can never digest their government’s shameful support for what is turning into a genocide being committed on an occupied people by an apartheid state. Hence the government of Canada must immediately demand a ceasefire and freedom for the Palestinian people.
Great job and great efforts salute to all of you