Columnist corner

Interview by Fayaz Soomro & Pitamber Roopani

Introduction: As Honorable Jack Layton, the leader of Canada’s NDP said: “For 20 years, people in Toronto have known that Marilyn Churley is a fighter who gets things done.” People like Marilyn Curley come into the world to bring something good. They are the agents of change. They come with a strong sense of integrity.

The energy, skill, and integrity, distinguish Marilyn Churley as one of Ontario’s most respected activists and political representatives.

As one of Ontario’s most prominent environmentalists, Marilyn has been at the forefront of some of the most important and influential environmental legislation in the history of the province. Her Safe Drinking Water Act, designed to prevent another Walkerton tragedy, forced the previous Conservative government to bring in a similar bill based on her work.

She co-founded Citizens for a Safe Environment to close down the Commissioners garbage incinerator and stop sewage incineration and, before being elected to the public office, was the Executive Director of the Canadian Environmental Defense Fund.

First elected to Toronto City Council in 1988, Marilyn was an early leader in introducing measures to deal with global warming by finding the Energy Efficiency Office at Toronto City Hall – an important initiative that is helping Toronto meet its Kyoto commitments.

In addition to her prominent work on environmental issues, she has been front and center in the fight for affordable housing, accessible day care, adoption disclosure legislation, equality rights for women and minorities, and support for arts and culture.

Marilyn was elected to the provincial legislature in 1990 and re-elected in 1995, 1999, and 2003 by some of the widest margins in the province. She was the first female Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, the first female Deputy Speaker of the Ontario Legislature, the NDP’s Deputy Leader and critic for the Environment, Women’s Issues and Democratic Renewal. Marilyn was also named Best MPP by The Magazine several times.

The following is Marilyn Curley’s conversation with us at SANA Get-together, Malken community center, Markham.

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[Indus Asia Online Journal, IAOJ]: Thank you for joining us, Marilyn Curley.

Marilyn Curley: You are welcome.

IAOJ: The cost of University Education is too high in Ontario. What plans do you have to reduce it?

Marilyn Curley: Education is a right for every one. It is yet another Liberal and conservative parties’ promises to fund it properly but they never fulfill their promises. We will lower down the tuition fees and give grants to needy students to complete their education.

IAOJ: Immigrants Education from their back homes has not been accepted in Ontario. What plans do you have to accept the new immigrants’ foreign credentials?

Marilyn Curley: The conditions of new immigrants and their quality of life are getting worse and worse. They are living in a terrible poverty because they are not getting jobs according to their education. It is now identified that new immigrants and women are making less. It is like, our immigration system has tricked the immigrants. It is like we are making lies with them because when foreign trained immigrants arrived here they never get job according their education and skills. NDP has plans to give them some training and fix these key problems and will stop discrimination. My impression is that for it we need a system in place to produce the solution. NDP demands at least more than $10 per hour and controls the inflation. NDP has plans to invest more in supportive housing. If Liberals and conservatives came again, this will continue and we will lose everything we had.

IAOJ: Conservative government is changing immigration policy. What response do you have about that?

Marilyn Curley: We are against giving the immigration Minister, the sweeping arbitrary power to move people up-off waiting list, limit immigrants ability to re-unite with overseas family members on compassionate grounds, let officials prioritize temporary foreign labor over family class and economic class immigration. It is like getting cheap labor without giving them any rights. On this issue NDP is organizing an IMMIGRATION FORUM on Sunday, June 29, 2008, from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm at 9 Dawes Road W. (West of Victoria Park, South of Danforth). If the South Asian and especially Sindhi community, feels strongly about this issue than they should volunteer with the NDP. We believe working together with different communities for better, peaceful, prosperous and green Ontario and Canada.

IAOJ: Huge shortage of doctors in Ontario. What plans do you have to consider the experience of foreign doctors?

Marilyn Curley: More than 4 million Canadians are currently without a family doctor and it is a serious doctor’s shortage and due to it, presently working doctors, nurses, health care aides and support workers are feeling too much work load. Which messed up patients’ meds and other errors? It is yet another promise by Liberals and Conservative which they broke to properly fund the health care system and it was Paul Martin who promised more funds to health care but he cut the funding to health care, in result we are experiencing huge shortage of physicians and waiting lists. We believe in the public health care system and we want to keep health care in public so the Ontarians don’t lose money from their pockets. That’s why NDP is calling for set up improvements in health care and senior citizens facilities. Why big companies get tax cuts but not hardworking Canadians.

NDP has plans to start shadowing programs in hospitals for foreign trained immigrant doctors so they can get Canadian experience and get jobs in hospitals.

IAOJ: Private companies are Outsourcing Canadian jobs and jobs are going out from Canada. What plans do you have to stop that?

Marilyn Curley: I don’t know exactly how many jobs are going to other countries and I don’t have figures. Therefore, I am sorry that I’m unable to give you any statement about it.

Interview date: June 14, 2008

Markham, Ontario

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Sindh & Sindhi Connection

By: Fayaz Soomro

It is indeed a great privilege for me to write for Sindhishaan and come into contact with Sindhis who are living in India with the connection of my janambhoomi Sindh. Sindh is the most effected part of the Sub-continent and Pakistan, which has suffered on account of the migration during partition, when over 1 million Hindu Sindhis migrated to India. It is unfortunate that their psychic wounds and ruptures remain unknown to most of the world. These ruptures still continue to devastate the lives of countless Sindhis. For those Sindhis can never be the same as they were living in Sindh before. Some scars heal with time but others continue to disfigure their minds up to now.

Sindhi Hindus left the shores of Sindh and migrated to different parts of India and the world but the bond with Sindh- Sindhi language, and Sindhi culture keeps us connected all over the world. For centuries, Sindhis have maintained their collective existence and over centuries they have developed and maintained a language known as Sindhi. Sindhi is one of the ancient languages of the world and it is spoken in India, Pakistan, USA, Canada, Europe and Asia. It is the language which is spoken by more than 40 million people worldwide. Sindhi language and culture play a significant role in uniting the Sindhis all over the world.

No doubt, the Sindhi Sabhyata is experiencing hard times in history and concern for the existence of Sindhis as a community and Sindhi language are very high. The status of Sindh ad Indus civilization which existed 2000 to 3000 years before Christ, when Sindhis used to grow grains and live in well built houses and Sindh was leading the world is now completely lost. But the conditions were not as bad as up to pre-partition. Before partition, Sindh was linguistically one territory and Sindhi language enjoyed domination in every aspect of life in Sindh. But the post-partition realities are very harsh for Sindh and Sindhis as a whole. When a large chunk of educated Sindhi Hindus migrated to India and the huge influx of immigrants from India and other provinces of Pakistan came to Sindh and changed the whole fabric of Sindhi society. As a result, Urdu language is now predominant in the big cities of Sindh.

In the above context, it is true that Sindhi language is passing through a difficult time but when we see the history, we know that it is not the first time that Sindhi language and Sindhi Sabhyata has faced threats. When Arabs invaded Sindh, Sindhi faced Arabic challenges, then Parsian and then English but Sindh and Sindhi language faced all the challenges and survived. Though, we do know that Indian and Pakistani governments are not sincere to promote Sindhi language and culture, still I am hopeful that Sindhi Sabhyata will get its lost status back and Sindhi language will survive. Sindhi language has its own rich culture, with a vast body of classical and modern literature and history.

As far as the survival of Sindhi language in India is concerned, the situation is much worse than Pakistan. Sindhi Language is crippled in India. Sindhi language, culture and literature are almost going to die. There are hardly any Sindhi medium schools imparting education in Sindhi language and Sindhis are becoming nothing more than just a caste.

Before partition, a little community of Urdu speaking peasants from India migrated to Mauritius but still their community is well alive and they are able to write and speak in Urdu. Not only that, but they are also organizing International Urdu conferences for the promotion of Urdu language since many years. If they could preserve their language and culture why could not the Sindhis in India? I hope that the rich history of struggle for the survival of Sindhi language not only keeps it alive but also energizes Sindhi language, if we can start a movement of awareness for the importance of Sindhi language as a uniting tool or bond of our community.

We are lucky that information technology has brought us closer to each other. The cheap sources of communication are providing us so many opportunities to share ideas and thoughts very quickly to promote our language and culture. Due to information and technology, the barriers of geography are becoming irrelevant. It is such a big opportunity which today’s technology is providing us to develop interaction between Sindhis all over the world.

My friends, as the New Year 2007 comes closer, let us pray and light the lamp for the prosperity of Sindh and Sindhis in the coming years and also to light the spark of promising ourselves that we never forget our contribution to our very own Sindh and Sindhi language.

Sindhi language and Sindhi literature is a treasure not only for our coming generations but for the world too. It is the moral responsibility of all Sindhis to protect and promote Sindhi language and Sindhi culture for our future generation.

[Please note: This article has already been published in India, the largely circulated Sindhi English magazine SindhiShann, Volume- 5, Issue- 4, December 2006]

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You are the profit my son

From the archives of my memory

By: Fayaz Soomro

More than twenty years ago, when I had passed my intermediate exam and was waiting to get an admission in university, at that time my elder brother Mehboob (now he is the professor of Chemistry) said to me “university is late and it is behind the schedule up-to more than one year and there is a waiting period to get admission in university. In the mean time, why don’t you get an admission in Commerce College. In this way, you could at least learn some thing while you’re waiting and other thing is that it is in evening shift so when you will get an admission in university it will not interrupt your university education.

Therefore, I got an admission in Commerce College and learned some principles of accounting. Once I went to my dad’s (Baba’s) shop at the Market place in Hyderabad and saw him that he is calculating some thing on an old and rough piece of paper. I don’t understand how can you carry on this shop without accounts payable and accounts receivable lagers/books and how you know that you are getting a profit from this business. May be you are going in loss but you aren’t aware about it, I argued with my dad. My father looked at me, smiled and then replied “many years ago, when I came to Hyderabad from Sattarja near district Khairpur, I had nothing at that time but today I have my own house all paid off and you are now grown-up and studying in a college. Subtract my nothing ness (Zero) from you and then count, you are the profit my son. It was a lesson for me whom I never forget and his words still runs in my head even today when he is not in this world. When I think about my life’s journey that where I was and now where I am, it is all because of my dad’s love and sacrifice to his children. I always think and remember about him in my mind. While remembering him, I found the most powerful words of the world. Mom? Love? Sindh? There are many candidates. How about Dad? Have you ever beem considered that word before or not?

Note: This column first published in Indus Asia Online Journal on Nov. 18, 2005

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Balochistan- The battle bigns

By: Fayaz Soomro, Canada

As Balochistan situation is coming to the end of the rope, then it will create the vicious circle of Snowball effects. The Snowball effect is a metaphor for uncontrolled, exponential growth. It will start with a small snow ball and then it rolls and rolls and grows and grows through the snow. The snow sticks to the outside and the snow ball gets bigger and heavier as it moves on and on. The added weight causes the ball to compress more snow beneath it and it picks more snow with each rotation. As the diameter increases, the surface area increases exponentially and then it become too massive to stop on a decline.

If the ruling classes of country did not learn from the history that how to listen things, how to deal and solve the problems according to the wishes of people and if they do not stop themselves to see the things through their own bias/filters then there will be no way out to stop the vicious circle of “Snowball effects” in Balochistan, Sindh and in whole the country.

Generally, filters affects on us that how we see or hear or learn the things. They may even dictate us not to see, hear or understand the point of view or opinion of the other side. Past experiences attitudes, stereo type words and tone etc are the common filters that dramatically alter the messages between the sender and receiver. There is a saying that “put yourself on others spot”. Therefore, it is the moral responsibility of country’s establishment to stop hurting and controlling, the people of the country, in the name of ill conceived and infamous projects and through unscientific arguments. It is unfair to deny the rights of nations living in the country and to assault their democratic rights and concord their land and resources under the mantle of so called Qumi Muffad (National interest). If ruling classes are not going to remove their own biases or filters from their eyes, to understand others point of view then it will confirmed the same kind of East Pakistani fears of perpetual domination and exploitation of the resources of Sindh, Baluchistan and other oppressed people of Pakistan by the establishment of the country. Therefore, it is not disrespectful to remind the establishment that Think first, Ink later because the construction of Kalabagh dam and the military operation/ Martial Law will not solve the problems it will only circulate the vicious circle of Snowball Effects and it is as the same as the dog is chasing its own Tail and it will only begins the long Battle and civil war in the country.

(Note: I had posted above article on Sindhi lists in Jan. 2005 and then it was published at SANATO the web site of SANA Canada at that time, under the title of “Snowball Effects”. The article is still relevant on Balochistan situation,therefore, I am publishing it again with a little editing.)

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Pakistan and Rights of Sindh

By: Fayaz Soomro

Sindh is the founder of Pakistan and it had joined Pakistan on the condition that the provinces will be ‘independent states’. The full council of Muslim League in the leader ship of the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah had unanimously passed the resolution in 1940 Lahore Resolution later known as Pakistan Resolution. The council of the Muslim league granted only three aspects of governance–currency, foreign affairs, and defense related communication–to a future federation.

Unfortunately, the 1940 resolution was not implemented in the letter, in spirit and to the smaller provinces — Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan — were deprived of all their rights and its people treated as slaves. Due to it, one province of the federation named east Pakistan or Bangladesh has already seceded from Pakistan.

Therefore, it is demanded that a new constituent assembly should be elected on the basis of equal membership and all the provinces should be given equal rights in accordance with the 1940 Pakistan Resolution.

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The day of the celebration

By: Fayaz Soomro

Canada is a celebrated country because of its diverse culture and the ability for everyone to be free from injustice and prejudices. Defining characteristics of a Canadian society are not skin color, race, religion and belief but it is the quality of all these things put together peacefully, not only to the Canadians but to all those who live in Canada.

Personally, I am proud on my motherland and Canada. Why, am I not only proud on my mother land but also Canada too is that; Canada is not only available to me but available to everyone as a land of opportunity. But it does not mean that everyone experiences it the same way as I did. It is like a book or a theater, you and I can go to see the theater but our views on the theater are quite different. 10 % is what happen and 90% is how we react on it. If, we clench our fist, no one can put anything in our hands. Though, I am not an artist and my name is not Michel Angelo but I know one thing very well that an inch is better than a mile. Therefore, to live in Canada is much better as compare to live in those countries, whose political systems are corrupt.

Some times, Canada’s modesty touches me and I feel privileged to my self, especially when I meet with the open hearted and honest Canadians, who always guide me to the right path. They were the Canadians who showed me their kind gestures, when I came to Canada and when I was new here, they were the Canadians, who not only helped and supported me with out doing any discrimination of skin color, race, religion and belief. If mountains are not coming to you, than you should go to the mountains, change your self a little bit and try to adapt Canada and than see how Canada is going to adapt you.

Happy Canada day to every one

Georgetown, Ontario, Canada