My CV
Year 2010
A New Decade
My generation will remember the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century as the most hopeful in our life time. Barack Obama brought us hope for change, showed us what courage really looks like and restored integrity to world politics. We deserve him; our wait has been long and trying. We have heaped all our pent-up expectations on him and we stop just short of hoping he might just walk on water, for us.
The year 2009 was memorable in less joyful ways. Millions lost their homes, life savings, and jobs they were dedicated to for decades. Families shifted spaces in search of basic means to survival and the faces we watched telling their stories on international television introduced us to a depth of despair and fear we had read about but never witnessed. Economists belched up old phrases to describe this phenomenon, media pundits postulated brazen theories and predictions and wannabe political leaders pointed fingers and assured us that they could have averted such calamity.
Somewhere in North America there had to be more telling stories we never heard. The parent who suddenly one morning or evening had to explain that there was no longer a job to rush to; the explanation to children regarding their sudden withdrawal from education and friends; the rite of passage birthday party which had to be cancelled; the heart operation which would have to wait. The collective pain of ordinary moral trusting families and the private loss of human dignity we could never see all had explanations conceptualized in the notion of a market tremor, foretold, understood and calculated. As we enter a new decade I wonder who profited from this misadventure - - got richer, bolder, far more hateful - - - culpable yet untouchable.
So, this new decade emerges out of an old history with baggage we seem not to be able to leave behind. But, because we know our history we should know how to plan the shape of our future. The latter is the work of our heads of states. In Canada our list of overdue changes includes insulation from the destruction of poverty, settlement of the claims of our First Nations, patching the holes in our health care safety net and far more attention to social integration. Racism, for example, continues to gouge deep identity-specific crevices among our nation’s social pool, and the resultant festering scars can’t be good for our future.
The best news is ahead! the historical phenomenon now known as Barack Obama has awakened a whole generation of young motivated new-vintage leaders. They are white and black and brown and variously gendered. They’re out there ready to step forward, speak up and take the required risks for changing our world. That I hope to live to see; I will continue to do my part.
My work as an advocate for justice continues; Racialized peoples, Indigenous peoples and Refugees continue to be my focus. Our collaborative book project Not Born A Refugee Woman . . . . edited by Hajdukowski-Ahmed, Khanlou & Moussa (Berghahn Books 2008) is now on the market in soft cover and much in use with great reviews. The Welfare State in Post-Industrial Society: A Global Perspective (2009) [ISBN 978-1-4419-0066-1] edited by Powell & Hendricks (Springer) is also now available. My contributions to both book projects illuminate my continued interest in marginalized populations.
