TCLSAC MATERIALS

Publisher:  Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa, Canada
Year Published:  1977
Pages:  24pp   Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX379

These two papers deal with Canada's relationship to South Africa. They are published by the Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa (TCLSAC), a Canadian group supporting the national liberation movements in Africa.

Abstract: 
These two papers deal with Canada's relationship to South Africa. They are published by The Toronto Committee for the Liberation of South Africa, a Canadian group supporting the national liberation movements in Africa.
The first of those papers entitled "Up Against the Bay: Resource Imperialism and Native Resistance", outlines the imperialist role played by the Hudson's Bay Company in both Canada and Namibia. Just as Canada's Native Peoples suffered historically at the hands of the Bay Company, likewise the blacks in Namibia are victims of this company, which is one of several foreign corporations which profit from the illegal occupation of Namibia by South Africa. Ironically, the resource which is being extracted is fur(Karakul). The production of this fur involves the systematic, illegal, and deliberate exploitation of 20,000 Namibian workers. The article concludes positively by citing efforts involving both education and action in Canada and Namibia to counter this oppression.
The second article, entitled "Liberals and Liberation" deals with Canada's complacent attitude toward South Africa and its role in the oppression there. The complicity of Canadian policy is evident on two levels: "for it is not only the fact that Canada has been lending this kind of support to the wrong side in Southern Africa which should concern Canadians. Of equal significance, has been our refusal to take seriously,the dramatic and increasingly successful liberation struggles which Africans have been forced to undertake in the past fifteen years to overthrow the structures of white hegemony".
The article goes on to show the Canadian government's pattern of refusal to recognize the governments of liberated regimes such as Cuba, Chile, and China. This report concludes by reflecting on the need to keep Canadians politically informed through responsible ideological education end action that transcends "liberal norms" and "conventional practices".

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