This day. Hurricane Juan

(Part of a series) This Saturday, September 29, marks 15 years since Hurricane Juan ripped through Halifax in the middle of the night toppling trees, smashing boats and knocking out power for many days and even weeks in some neighbourhoods. Wind speeds of up to 178km an hour were recorded at McNabs Island in Halifax Harbour.

‘Removing Cornwallis,’ it’s been a long time coming

In support of the “Removing Cornwallis” activities in Halifax, Nova Scotia – July 15, 2017 from 12:00 to 15:00 hours

By TONY SEED

On November 21, 2009 some 200 people gathered in a rally in Cornwallis Park to oppose the inaugural Halifax International Security Forum (HISF), a warmongering agency based in Washington, DC and funded by the Department of National Defence and Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. They took the collective decision to rename it Peace and Freedom Park as their very first act, an act carried out in consultation with Mi’kmaq elders such as acclaimed historian Dan Paul.

They covered the statue of Edward Cornwallis with a white sheet. The anti-war rally was organized by an ad hoc committee consisting of activists from different affiliations and background, which became No Harbour for War.

On the Causes of the 1967 Israeli-Arab War

Interview with Dr. Ismail Zayid, President, Canada Palestine Association, June 2007 by Tony Seed for Shunpiking Online

HALIFAX (5 June 2007) – THE 1967 war commenced forty years ago on June 5, 1967 by Israel against the Arab States carried in its wake an aftermath which became of great concern both to the Middle East and to the world at large: the military occupation by Israel of the West Bank of Jordan, the Sinai Desert and the southern heights of Syria; the expulsion or flight of over 250,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homes or refugee camps and the destruction of many more of their villages; the subjection to Israeli domination and oppression of nearly 3.5 million Palestine Arabs in the West Bank of Jordan and the Gaza Strip; the occupation of the Christian and the Islamic Holy Places and the attempted annexation of Jerusalem; the shattering of the economy of Egypt, Jordan and the occupied territories and finally the interruption of navigation through the Suez Canal. 

In Memoriam: Ritchie Oakley

February 20, 1945–April 6, 2013

ON APRIL 6, Robert Ritchie Oakley, 68, left us forever when he passed away in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Ritchie was a well-known Maritimes musician, band leader, and a longtime friend and colleague. His life was rich, reflecting the work and persistent struggle for a livelihood of a cultural worker and talented music producer who refused to be moulded by the stamp of the official establishment in the service of U.S. cultural domination; he came to affirm the dignity of Maritimes and Canadian cultural creators and indeed of the working people against the heartlessness and soullessness prevailing in this sphere of society and in turn was victimized by its cultural cabal, mainly through a wall of silence. Nevertheless, Ritchie Oakley’s creative talent and body of work was such that in 1995, the Nova Scotia Country Music Association honoured Ritchie as songwriter of the year and instrumentalist of the year. In 1998 the Music Industry Association of Nova Scotia named him producer of the year. In 2008, the East Coast Music Awards designated him one of the winners of the Stompin’ Tom Awards, tributes bestowed for “unsung heroes” of Atlantic Canadian music.

Flashback: The 1998 Halifax Transit strike

THE disinformation blaming the current Halifax trasit strike on the 763 workers and their union, Local 508 of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local (ATU), presents their struggle for their just demands as a unique local event in isolation from the neo-liberal, anti-social offensive by the state across Canada against public sector workers. The transit strike is also presented in an ahistorical prism, as if it is something entirely new. For the information of our readers, we are reproducing an article written at the conclusion of the summer 1998 strike from Nova Scotia’s Shunpiking Magazine.

Robbie Burns, Grand Falls, Mackenzie and Gaza

25 January 2009 marks 250 years to the day since Scotland’s national poet was born. PETER EWART* reflects on the legacy of Scotland’s celebrated bard whose polemics against the exploitation, injustice and oppression of his time enraged the establishment and won him enduring love from the peoples of all lands.

The statue of Robert Burns in Halifax’s Victoria Park Square is the centre of innumerable political rallies, as this one in October 2006 against the apartheid wall in Occupied Palestine | Photo copyright 2006, Howard Harawitz, All rights reserved.

MANY PEOPLE IN THE MARITIMES have Scottish blood in them, and the same holds true for people across Canada, especially in parts of Ontario and northern British Columbia where I reside. Indeed, at one point in Canada’s history, Scots were the third largest ethnic group, and they have certainly played an important role in the development of the country.

A good number of these men, women and children are descended from the hardy Scots who were scattered to the wind in the 18th and 19th Centuries, sometimes driven out of their homes and forced off their land, sometimes imprisoned or exiled, other times leaving poverty and hardship, in search of opportunity and a better life.

Third Halifax Symposium On Palestine, 2009

The Tragedy in Bathurst

By TONY SEED*

HALIFAX (31 January 2008) – SOME teams wear black armbands. Some players wear their teammate’s number on their shoe. Just before tip-off that Sunday afternoon, John Prince, generally a man of few words, stepped into the circle, briefly explained a tragedy that had just occurred the night before in Bathurst, New Brunswick, and asked for a moment’s silence.

In Memoriam: Veerasingan Dhuruvasangary, 1950-2006

Originally delivered as the Eulogy, Toronto, Ontario, 10 December 2006 by Robin Oakley with Tony Seed, and edited for publication

Yet another prototype

(December 29, 2006) – Veerasingan Dhuruvasangary passed away on 2 December 2006 in Scarborough General Hospital in Toronto, Ontario. A scientist, an inventor, writer, artist, internationalist and a beloved friend, we called this modest, unassuming man Dhuruva or, more often than not, Inventor.

Born in Point Pedro (Jaffna), Sri Lanka in September 1950, he used to say “I had two fathers: my birth father, and Russia.”

In Memoriam – Veerasingan Dhuruvasangary: A Reflection

Yet another prototype

LEGACIES: LIVES LIVED – PAST / PROGRESSIVE | An occasional series

By TONY SEED*, Monsoon Journal

Veerasingan Dhuruvasangary, B.Sc, M.Sc, M.Phil, P.hD, was a scientist, an inventor, a writer, an artist, an internationalist and above all, a beloved friend; we called this modest, unassuming man Dhuruva or, more often than not, Inventor.

CIC Award for Media Excellence – Letters from Colleagues across Canada

25 November 2006

Tony Seed,

Editor & Publisher,

Shunpiking Magazine, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Dear Tony,

Congratulations on receiving the Award of Media Excellence 2006 from the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC). For many years we have been journalistic colleagues and kindred spirits in building an independent media that tells the truth and provides Canadians with information relevant to their concerns. Your journalism, embodied in the ongoing work of Shunpiking Magazine and elsewhere, is at the same time fully partisan in its unrelenting defence of the rights of all, and most especially, those singled out for attack by the Canadian state and world reaction.

CIC Award for Media Excellence 2006

Speech of Acceptance by TONY SEED

Dr Mohamed Elmasry, CIC president, presents award to Tony Seed of Shunpiking Magazine

THE Canadian Islamic Congress 2006 Award for Media Excellence was presented to Tony Seed of Halifax on 30 October in Ottawa. Shunpiking Magazine’s editor and publisher was also invited to address the CIC’s Annual Gala Dinner – held in the West Block of the Parliament Buildings – on the topic of “Muslims and the Media.”

Invited guests included community activists and Muslin delegates, politicians, senior government officials, Ambassadors of 26 Muslim countries as well as professional and business leaders from across Canada.

Legacies: Lives lived / past progressive – Peter Bowman

• PETER BOWMAN, Editorial, Shunpiking Magazine

• My Thoughts on Pete Bowman by MARRIE BERKELAAR

• Biography by The Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone

25/90 & An Ghaeilge: Honouring Bobby Sands and James Connolly

A REFLECTION BY TONY SEED

Mac-Talla, annual Gaelic supplement of Shunpiking Magazine, May 2006

THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY of the Easter Rising in Dublin and 25th anniversary of the H-Block hunger strikes in Belfast have become times of great celebration for the Irish people and are being commemorated throughout the world, including Canada. Activities include marches, seminars, public meetings, plays, films and exhibitions. The actions of those who stood up and fought for independence in 1916 and the courageous sacrifice of the ten hunger strikers who gave their lives in 1981 represent the best of Ireland. They typify a valiant spirit that has endured much suffering over the centuries of armed British colonial occupation.

Senate committee on mass media asks Shunpiking to speak

The Senate Committee on the Mass Media has invited Shunpiking Magazine to present its views on the monopolization of the media

HALIFAX (12 April 2005) – THE SENATE committee on the mass media has invited Shunpiking Magazine to present its views on the monopolization of the media.

Maritimers rally against secret trials

The Halifax rally on October 31 against secret trials was held at CSIS offices in the downtown at rush hour and viewed by thousands | Photos by Mark Rushton

Shunpiking Magazine, HALIFAX (November 1, 2003) – Twenty five people vigorously picketed the CSIS office, Maritime Centre, Halifax, for one hour on the afternoon of October 31st as part of the National Day of Action to Stop Secret Trails in Canada.

The action was held during the height of rush hour in downtown Halifax and highly visible. There ws a lot of interest amongst people. Some passer-bys joined the picket and many people in cars also took leaflets.

The fishermen of Palestine: AI report indicts Israel

By TONY SEED

Part Two of a two-part series. For Part One please visit here.

HALIFAX (10 October 2003) – ON 8 SEPTEMBER 2003 the Anglo-American human rights organization Amnesty International (AI), not known for its criticism of Israel over the past thirty years, issued a detailed report entitled “Israel and the Occupied Territories Surviving under siege: The impact of movement restrictions on the right to work.” The 69-page report provides extensive documentation of the deepening of the severe economic and social crisis affecting every sphere of life. Unemployment has soared to over 50 per cent. More than half of the Palestinian population is now living below the poverty line. (1)

Israel’s DFO and the fishermen of Palestine: confiscating the forbidden sea

• Fishermen fired at by Israeli Navy and detained

• Boats, nets and equipment vandalized or seized without cause

• False accusations of “fishing in a restricted area”

• Livelihoods of hundreds ruined

• Essential food denied to the people

• A unique but familiar story to the fishers of Canada and the Third World who live under siege

By TONY SEED

Introducing excerpts from an Amnesty International Report. Part One of a two-part series. For Part Two please visit here.

HALIFAX (10 October 2003) – THIS IS A STORY about what is happening to the unseen Palestinian fishermen of the Gaza Strip on the Mediterranean Sea. Fishermen whose families have been fishing the azure waters of the Mediterranean for millenia – for sardines, tuna and Sultan Ibrahim fish. Fishermen who along with mastering the perils of the sea must now face cold-blooded, land-based monsters mutated by imperialism. Fishermen who face brutal restrictions, seizures and closures, strangling an already devastated sector of the traumatised economy of Occupied Palestine.

Introducing Shunpiking Online

Welcome to our first online publication!

Shunpike shun.pike n (1862): a side road used to avoid the toll on or the speed and traffic of a superhighway – shun.pik.er n– shun.pik.ing n Encyclopaedia Britannica

(August 6 / Revised August 18, 2003) – SINCE the launching of Shunpiking on 3 December 1995, our magazine has matured and developed to become a vibrant news and quality information source for Nova Scotians, readers across Canada and not a few readers around the globe.

 Now we are launching Shunpiking Online on the World Wide Web to complement and extend the reach, topicality and timeliness of Shunpiking Magazine.

Halifax Symposium on Palestine, 2003

HALIFAX (March 24, 2003) – The first HALIFAX SYMPOSIUM ON PALESTINE – A LAND, A PEOPLE – A HISTORY, A FUTURE was successfully held on the weekend of March 15-16 at Dalhousie University. Over 30 people registered for the Symposium and, including the social function “An Evening with Palestine,” more than 60 people participated from four areas of Nova Scotia in all the proceedings and events.

The atmosphere at the venue of the Conference was warm and lively. Everyone listened with rapt attention as representatives, from eminent historians to student youth, shared their knowledge and experience with the participants. There was a feeling amongst that something new, something very positive, was beginning to take shape, and they are participating in the creation of this new.

The Symposium, initiated by Shunpiking Magazine with the support of six other political and educational organizations including the Canada Palestine Association, was held to broaden the understanding of Palestine at this critical period on the basis of elaborating and discussing themes from the recently-published, book-length Dossier on Palestine.

Halifax Symposium on Palestine, 2003 – Opening Remarks

TONY SEED, March 15, 2003

Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

ON BEHALF of the different sponsoring groups*, we are convening this morning the HALIFAX SYMPOSIUM ON PALESTINE – A LAND, A PEOPLE – A HISTORY, A FUTURE. It will deal with one of the most pressing issues confronting the world today – Palestine and the right of the Palestinian people to self determination, the ceaseless striving of the Palestinian people to exercise control over their own lives which lies at the epicentre of the entire resistance of humanity to imperialist war and subjugation.

This Symposium is open to everyone who wishes to address their concerns or hear the views of others, regardless of their ideological opinions, political affiliation, national origin or any other consideration. Designated speakers who are knowledgeable in their field have been invited to address central issues through presentations or a panel and to provide information for discussion. Several Palestinian student youth have also come forward to come and speak about the problems they are facing as students in defence of their rights.

Dossier on Palestine – A Land, a People

A BOOK-LENGTH SPECIAL EDITION, Dossier on Palestine, from the editors of Nova Scotia’s Shunpiking magazine is already being acclaimed as the only publication of its kind in North America on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This original work is compiled with a host of excellent articles, ranging from up-to-date first person reporting from journalists, front-line doctors and activists to commentaries and in-depth essays on the situation. With unusual force and compelling effectiveness, this material brings stubborn fact and compassion at a decisive historical moment. Between its covers, a brilliantly diverse, enraging and engaging investigation of the latest Palestinian uprising unfolds, rich in essential insights.

Speech on Eid Mubarak introducing the Dossier on Palestine

Tony Seed, editor and publisher of the Dossier on Palestine, addresses 1,500 members of the Chebucto Mosque on Eid Mubarak

TONY SEED, Eid Mubarak, December 6, 2002

Brothers and Sisters,

Eid Mubarak. Assalamu Alaikum (peace greetings)

On behalf of the staff of Shunpiking magazine, I sincerely thank you for this opportunity to speak with you about the Dossier on Palestine on such a significant occasion.

In very brief, the word “shunpiking” means to shun the turnpike, those big American toll highways of so-called progress and the civilization of the west, and to take the back roads. For us, it is a metaphor for discovery. We distribute our magazine from one end of Nova Scotia to the other.

The Dossier on Palestine is a gift for the world’s people. It is not one man’s work but a collective and unique work, some six months and more in preparation, a labour of love, friendship and seeking of truth, a deed of the people of Halifax, of people who hail from various national origins and faiths.

Dossier on Palestine: A media of progress, enlightenment and freedom is possible

SHUNPIKING MAGAZINE hosted a special forum on the occasion of the publication of its new, book-length special edition, Dossier on Palestine, on 28 October 2002. Dr. Ismail Zayid, president of the Canada Palestine Association, longtime activist and a contributing writer, and Tony Seed, on behalf of the editorial staff, both provided their views on the significance of this initiative. Both presentations were repeatedly interrupted by applause. Despite the fact that the book launch was organized with only two days notice, fifty one people attended the lively function held in the hall at St. Antonios Antiochan Orthodox Church in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Participants expressed tremendous enthusiasm and a high regard for the quality of the information, historical context, photo essays, maps and information graphics, and perspectives contained in the 96-page work, of which 20,000 copies were printed as an initial press run. Initial orders were placed for 4,050 copies of the Dossier, which retails for $Cdn 5.00.*

We are reproducing the text of the address by Tony Seed, editor and publisher of Shunpiking Magazine, to the forum.

Dossier on Palestine – Contents

THE TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editorial: Standing for Justice

Introduction to the conflict Palestine: Fifty years of ethnic cleansing and dispossession (p. 4) Dr. Ismail Zayid

REPORTS:

• Operation Defensive Shield

• Palestine from near and far (8) Amnon Kapeliouk

• A crime against humanity?: UN Report on Jenin (10) Editorial team

• ‘If I have any regret, it is because we didn’t destroy the camp’: confession of an award-winning zionist soldier (12) Independent Media Centre, Israel

Standing for justice

EDITORIAL, Dossier on Palestine

The struggle of the world’s peoples for self-determination has assumed greater dimensions and intensity. Standing in the forefront are the valiant Palestinians. For decades, in extremely difficult conditions, they have been waging a titanic battle to return to their homeland and realize their inalienable rights to freedom and independence. Some five million refugees have been waiting for more than fifty years to return to Palestine.

Moreover, the Middle East continues to be an arena of repeated acts of intervention and war.

‘I’m getting off the turnpike’ – shunpiking and Shunpiking

On 14 January 2000 the late David Henry of CKDU Radio ArtsSpeak and a co-proprietor of the Economy Shoe Shop spoke with Tony Seed about shunpiking and Shunpiking. Their discussion is reproduced below and is edited for publication.

Ambassador Carlos Fernández de Cossío of Cuba visits Shunpiking

Carlos Fernández De Cossío is Ambassador of the Republic of Cuba to Canada. This photo is from a meeting with the editorial board of Shunpiking magazine, 30 October 1999

Shunpiking magazine was honoured by a friendly and informative visit from Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Ambassador of the Republic of Cuba to Canada, on Saturday, October 30, 1999 during his four-day visit to Nova Scotia. Following a brief lunch, Ambassador Fernandez carried a lively two-hour discussion with editorial and production staff.

Shunpiking is Nova Scotia’s discovery magazine, and the third largest print media in the province. While the number of articles on international questions has been few, our editorial mandate involves not only Nova Scotians discovering our own province and region but also the world. Nova Scotia and the Maritimes share deep historical ties with Cuba and the Caribbean. [1] Thousands of Canadians have visited Cuba in the recent period and appreciate its indelible achievements.

Nova Scotia Confidential

Not Guilty: The Trial of Gerald Regan

By Stephen Kimber

Stoddart, 299 pages, $32.95

Reviewed by DEBORAH SEED,* Shunpiking Magazine

This review was written on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the Montreal massacre of 1989.

When a new employee gets hired in an office, school, factory or store, she often finds out soon enough who are the men to avoid, especially at the parties. There exists an unspoken code in any work place, a code shared by many of the women and some of the men, that warns the new employee about the lechers and bosses who take liberties with their underlings. Translated into speech, a gesture or look means “Watch that guy!” or “Keep your distance. Dangerous when drunk or alone.”

A lot of women in Nova Scotia, however, apparently didn’t get the warning about Gerald Regan. According to Stephen Kimber, author of Not Guilty: The Trial of Gerald Regan, “Nearly three dozen women – baby-sitters, office staff, job seekers, law clients, reporters, party workers, a legislative page, even a corporate executive – had told police what seemed to be strikingly similar stories detailing how they’d allegedly been attacked by Regan over a forty-year period between the fifties and the nineties.”

Let’s turn Nova Scotia into a school of new journalism

6211 North Street: Our fourth anniversary

WITH THIS ISSUE we complete our fourth year of publication. Shunpiking Magazine came into being with a demonstration edition in November, 1995, and our first edition was published in December, 1995. We will resume publishing with our February-March, 2000 edition.

It is clearly evident that, after four years, there is no other publication in our region like Shunpiking. And that the need for a magazine that is healthy and positive, that seeks to address the concerns of Nova Scotians and that discusses issues without fear or indifference, still exists.