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MARCH 15 2006 Racist Cartoons, Islamophobia: The Roots & Consequences Free Public Discussion On March 15, MAWO organized a city-wide forum and discussion in order to open up public debate and discussion around the anti Muslim cartoons published recently in a Danish newspaper as a further imperialist attack on oppressed people. Over 60 people came out to the SFU Harbour Centre, downtown Vancouver, to discuss the significance of this attack for the antiwar movement and oppressed people around the world today. The program was opened by Natasha Darwish, a student antiwar organizer with the UBC AMS Coalition Against War on the People of Iraq & Internationally (CAWOPI). Natasha spoke against the justification of the publication of the cartoons as an expression of ‘so-called’ free speech by the powerful media that serves only the dominant powers in the world. Natasha was followed by Asif Ali Shah, a member of the United Muslim Alliance and an antiwar organizer with MAWO. Shah spoke on the defense of Muslims against the racist cartoons as the defense of all oppressed people against imperialist aggression. He explained that in the context of the era of wars and occupations this was an attack on Muslim people as the group of people in the world today already most oppressed and under the most attack by imperialist invasions, wars and occupations in the Middle East especially. Usama al-Atar spoke next from his experience as a Muslim youth lecturer in defense of Islam and emphasized the need for critical thinking about this issue and for people to use their power of mind to consider what this means and not just to react. The final panel speaker was Ivan Drury, MAWO organizer and co-ordinator of the Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice. Ivan explained the cartoons as a weapon of division against oppressed people. He emphasized the need to oppose the attack as racist, Islamophobic and ultimately as an attempt to divide Muslim from Muslim and Muslim from non-Muslim as a tactic to weaken the unity of oppressed people against imperialism. Discussion was lively with participants coming from many different backgrounds and contributing to the discussion on how to understand and then oppose this and all racist campaigns by imperialism. The forum and discussion “Racist Cartoons, Islamophobia – the roots & consequences” was an important political development for the antiwar movement in Vancouver. For organizers and all participants, discussing and analyzing the cartoons in the context of the global situation of increased and expanding wars and occupations placed this phenomena in a framework as an attack on Muslims around the world as oppressed people, unifying non-Muslim people and Muslim people alike in the fight against Islamophobia, racism, war, destruction and occupation.