MASS DEMONSTRATION IN NEW ORLEANS

NO MORE KILLING IN OUR NAME!

MARCH 29TH, 2009

On Sunday NOLAPS and members of the larger Arab, Muslim and Jewish communities of New Orleans protested AIPAC - the pro-Israeli lobby's meeting in the French Quarter.

Brother Jesse Mohammad.

above photographs by abdul aziz.

pro-israeli demonstrators.

Media Links:

Free Palestine Rally & Demonstration Disrupts AIPAC Meeting
Monday, March, 30th, 2009
By Brother Jesse Mohammad
http://jessemuhammad.blogs.finalcall.com/2009/03/blogging-from-new-orleans-part-2free.html

Mideast conflict spills onto Canal St.
Pro-Israel meeting draws protesters
Monday, March 30, 2009
By Valerie Faciane, Staff writer

http://www.nola.com/timespic/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-34/1238390438271670.xml&coll=1

ZEITGEIST IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE OPENING OF THEIR NEW ALTERNATIVE DVD/BOOK SHOP!

Just in time for the Patois: 6th New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival, Zeitgeist has expanded to include a new alternative DVD & Book Store featuring new book and DVD’s related to the Middle East and Palestine.

Titles currently in stock include:

Victims of a Map: A Bilingual Anthology of Arabic Poetry
My Name is Rachel Corrie: A Play
Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems
breaking poems by Suheir Hammad
Zaater Diva by Suheir Hammad
Poets for Palestine by Remi Kanazi
The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology
Short Arabic Plays: An Anthology
Palestine's Children: Returning to Haifa and Other Stories
Arab Folk Tales from Palestine and Lebanon: Abu Jameel's Daughter and Other Stories
Speak Palestine, Speak Again
Ghaddar the Ghoul and Other Palestinian Stories
Oranges in No Man's Land
ARAB in America
Stolen Youth: The Politics of Israel's Detention of Palestinian Children
The State of the Middle East: An Atlas of Conflict and Resolution
Surrounded: Palestinian Soldiers in the Israeli Military
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
The Olive Grove: A Palestinian Story
THE ARAB SUMMIT - Fear of an Arab Planet – a Palestinian hip hop (CD)
Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority - DVD
Gaza Strip - DVD
Chronicles of a Refugee (A three Disc box set of Palestinian docs) - DVD
Bam 6.6: Humanity Has No Borders – DVD

Zeitgeist Multi-disciplinary Arts Center
1618 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. New Orleans, LA 70113
(504) 352-1150 cell, (504) 522-0309 office, (504) 827-5858 theatre

Palestinian Land Day Symposium in New Orleans:
The Next Step in the Gaza Crises and Palestine

Saturday, March 28, 2009

2-4:30pm
University of New Orleans

Kirschman Hall Room 214
2000 Lakeshore Drive
New Orleans, LA

A symposium event for the New Orleans community to gain knowledge and updated reports on the crisis in Gaza and Palestine.

We will be joined in this discussion by,

SAHAR ABUSADA, based in Houston, Texas, is the chairwoman of Palestinians for Peace and Democracy, and represents the Palestinian community at various events, including the International Festival at Fort Bend.

AUDRE STEWART, local New Orleanian human right lawyer and activist who recently traveled and witnessed firsthand the massacre in Gaza.

WASEM AHMAD, a native New Orleanian and lawyer is a representative for Al-Haq an independent Palestinian non-governmental human rights organization based in Ramallah, West Bank. He also spoken at the U.N. human rights sessions in Geneva regarding Palestinian rights and recently won the Geuzenpenning Prize for Human Rights .

This event is free to the public.

Hosted by New Orleans General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS)

This Friday and Saturday

Check it out!

New Orleans hosts two very exciting Palestine Solidarity related performances at 5:00pm by Nizar Wattad, Omar Chakaki and Mark Gonzales.

These performers are legendary founders of Palestinian hip-hop in the US, and their performances have captivated crowds around the world.Friday's performance is a short set, where they will be part of a series of many performers, and Saturday is a complete show.

Omar Chakaki is an architect/Hip-Hop artist born in the Middle East, and the founding member of N.O.M.A.D.S., a Syrian-Sudanese-American hip-hop group.

Mark Gonzales is a poet, educator, and organizer. He has traveled from the refugee camps of Palestine to the streets of Havana to Def Poetry Jam on HBO. He was awarded a fellowship at UCLA to bring hip-hop into the university curriculum.

Nizar Wattad is a screenwriter and hip-hop artist born in the Middle East. He is a producer of Free the P, first nationally distributed Arab hip-hop project.

See more information about the performers at at http://humanwritesproject.org/.

State of the Nation Performance Festivalhttp://www.sonfestival.org/

1) Spoken Word Friday, March 20, 5:00pmSt. Roch Market Neutral Ground of St. Roch Ave. at Marais St.

2) Performance Saturday, March 21, 5:00pmThe Studio at Colton 2300 St. Claude Ave. "Brooklyn Beats to Beirut Streets" by Human Writes Project Los Angeles, CA Spoken WordSaturday, March 215-6 pm

An energetic, informative and often startling presentation in spoken-word and rhyme, 'Brooklyn Beats to Beirut Streets' traces the artists' development alongside the birth and growth of Hip-Hop, in a reading of the world through their words. This poetic performance is an intersection of cultures sharing space on a stage that gives voice to marginalized histories, challenges the audience to re-examine worldviews, and indicts individuals and institutions for historical atrocities committed in the name of democracy.

MASS DEMONSTRATION IN NEW ORLEANS

NO MORE KILLING IN OUR NAME!

MARCH 29TH, 2009

On Sunday, March 29, 2009 AIPAC - the pro-Israeli lobby - will be meeting in the French Quarter. They will be sending the message that New Orleans supports the recent killings in Gaza, and the continued military occupation on the Palestinian West Bank.

We say no more killing in our name!

On Sunday, March 29, hundreds of New Orleanians will stand up for justice and against racism.

Please help spread the word!

10am

Start at Poydras Street and Convention Center Blvd

Also spread the word via facebook,

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=57173614445

STATE OF THE NATION

FRIDAY MARCH 20TH, 2009
4-8PM

NOLAPS will have a table and be presenting on "tipping points" related to our local solidarity movement.

State of the Nation is an annual art and performance festival that brings together artists from across the United States who are committed to addressing social, political, and economic issues facing the Gulf South and the country-at-large. Since 2004, SON has been co-produced in New Orleans, LA and Jackson, MS. During that time, it has presented the work of over three hundred and fifty dancers, musicians, theater artists, poets, painters, sculptors, filmmakers, activists and educators. Attended by thousands, this festival provides an opportunity to showcase projects and participate in workshops. At its best, it stands as a forum for democracy – a space for the free discussion of current affairs. This year’s festival will explore the intersection of art and activism around the specific theme of a tipping point. It will feature more than 100 artists from the Gulf Coast, Baltimore, D.C., Maryland, California, Hawaii, New York and beyond
... For More Information vsit ttp://www.sonfestival.org/

also at STATE OF THE NATION...

OMAR OFFENDUM AND MARK GONZALES

MARCH 20TH, 2009 AT 4PM
$10
CHECK THEM OUT BELOW

AND COME OUT AND SHOW LOVE

http://www.offendum.com/
http://offendum.blogspot.com/
http://myspace.com/offendum
AND
www.myspace.com/hwproject
http://www.humanwritesproject.org/

ART EXHIBITION:

Expressions of Nakba

March 26 through April 5th

Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center

An international commemoration of the Nakba: the expulsion and dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948. The narrative of a dispossessed people through arange of expressions that interpret the collective identity, historic struggle, and emotional experience of the Nakba.

Poster by IIdiko Toth

This year, Patois: The New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival will be showing a number of Palestine and Middle Eastern related films including, but not limited to:

Arafat & I
A Day in Palestine, http://www.maryellendavis.net/
Intensive Care Unit, http://www.voicesbeyondwalls.org/
People Not Places, http://www.emergencemusic.net/
Shadi and the Beautiful Well
Under the Bombs, http://www.underthebombs.com/
Young Freud in Gaza, http://icarusfilms.com/new2009/yf.html
…and many many more…

Check out http://patoisfilmfest.org/ for more line-up updates.

Return/Recover/Resist/Rise Up

In the past NOLAPS has hosted and co-sponsored multiple HipHop concerts and other artistic ventures, such as “Unity and Liberation” in July of 2008 (see link below to read about this event), and this year is no different…

…Patois, the 6th Annual New Orleans International Film Festival, with co-sponsors NOLAPS presents, “Return/Recover/Resist/Rise Up”, a live concert featuring local, national, and international artists, including Muhammad Al-Farra of Gaza-based Palestinian Rapperz, Abeer aka Sabreena da Witch from Lud, and more TBA.

Friday March 27th, 2009
Location: TBA
Check back to http://www.nolaps.blogspot.com/ and http://patoisfilmfest.org/ for updates on the lineup and location.

Links:
Unity and Liberation: HipHop for Palestine Represents in New Orleans, by Mai Bader
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/April_2005/0504060.html
http://www.leftturn.org/node/1187
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9676.shtml http://www.palestineremembered.com/GeoPoints/Bayt_I_nan_862/Article_6220.html

Come Out and Support GUPS.

Saturday March 14th, 2009

GUPS will be participating in the annual UNO International Night.

UNO International Night is open to the public and a night filled with fun and entertainment.

Pre-sale Tickets are $5.00, $10.00 at the door.

Tickets can be purchased at the ISO office in Miinburg Hall (old Business building) on the UNO Campus, or for more information email GUPS at gups.uno@gmail.com

NOLAPS on your radio.

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

Members of NOLAPS and the larger Arab and Muslim community will be featured on WUWC, CFRO 102.7 FM Vancouver Co-operative Radio. CFRO 102.7FM is a non-commercial, co-operatively-owned, listener-supported, community radio station.
NOLAPS members will be interviewed about New Orleans Palestine Solidarity and about linking NOLAP's activism to supporting a free and self-determining Palestine with the additional intention of linking local New Orleanian causes to the Palestinian cause through a discussion of shared issues related to right of return and recovery, minority rights, grassroots coalition and alliance building and education.

Stream this interview online at http://www.coopradio.org/

"New Orleans intifada"

article links to Jordan Flaherty's "New Orleans intifada",

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10340.shtml

http://www.counterpunch.org/flaherty02232009.html

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/flaherty230209.html

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/The-New-Orleans-intifada

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/20665/

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2009/02/new-orleans-intifada/

General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS)

“The New Orleans Balloon Launch for Palestine took place at the University of New Orleans in front of the Earl K. Long Library on January 28th, 2009 where students and New Orleans residents gathered to release black balloons to commemorate the recent events in Gaza.”

Words of Freedom

...an event for Justice, Spoken Word and Poetry for the people of Gaza...

January 25th, 2008

Featuring Special Guest Remi Kanazi, and local New Orleanian Poets Andy Young, Nik Richards and Asia Rainey

...many thanks to the Craige Cultural Center for hosting this event...

New Orleans City-Wide Dr. Martin Luther King Day March and Parade

On January 19th, 2009 seventy New Orleanians joined the city-wide MLK day parade in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King and his legacy of freedom for all.

Protesting the Times Picayune.

On January 14th, 2009 ninety New Orleanians protested outside of the local Times-Picayune Newspaper Offices to demand fair and balanced media coverage of the ongoing siege in Gaza.