Gifts From Amin

In August 1972, military leader and despot Idi Amin expelled Asian Ugandans from the country, professing to return control of the economy to “Ugandan citizens.” Within ninety days, 50,000 Ugandans of South Asian descent were forced to leave and seek asylum elsewhere; nearly 8,000 resettled in Canada. This major migration event marked the first time Canada accepted a large group of predominantly Muslim, non-European, non-white refugees. Shezan Muhammedi’s Gifts from Amin documents how these women, children, and men—including doctors, engineers, business leaders, and members of Muhammedi’s own family—responded to the threat in Uganda and rebuilt their lives in Canada. Building on extensive archival research and oral histories, Muhammedi provides a nuanced case study on the relationship between public policy, refugee resettlement, and assimilation tactics in the twentieth century. He demonstrates how displaced peoples adeptly maintain multiple regional, ethnic, and religious identities while negotiating new citizenship. Not passive recipients of international aid, Ugandan Asian refugees navigated various bureaucratic processes to secure safe passage to Canada, applied for family reunification, and made concerted efforts to integrate into—and give back to—Canadian society, all the while reshaping Canada’s refugee policies in ways still evident today. As the numbers of forcibly displaced people around the world continue to rise, Muhammedi’s analysis of policymaking and refugee experience is eminently relevant. The first major oral history project dedicated to the stories of Ugandan Asian refugees in Canada, Gifts from Amin explores the historical context of their expulsion from Uganda, the multiple motivations behind Canada’s decision to admit them, and their resilience over the past fifty years.

This section of the History of al-Ṭabarī covers the caliphate of Muḥammad al-Amīn, who succeeded his father, Hārūn al-Rashīd on March 24, 809, and was killed on September 25, 813. The focus of this section is a single event, the civil war between al-Amīn and his half-brother al-Maʾmūn. Before his death, al-Rashīd had arranged for the succession in a series of documents signed at Mecca and deposited for safekeeping in the Ka'bah. Al-Amīn was to become caliph; al-Maʾmūn was to govern Khurasan with virtual autonomy from Baghdad. Al-Amīn could neither remove his brother from office nor interfere with his revenues or military support. Furthermore, al-Maʾmūn was named as al-Amīn's successor, and al-Amīn was forbidden to alter the succession. If either brother violated these conditions, he was to forfeit his rights. It soon became apparent that the good will to carry out these arrangements did not exist. Disagreement broke out when al-Amīn insisted that many of the forces that had accompanied al-Rashīd and al-Maʾmūn to Khurasan return to Baghdad. When the majority of army commanders obeyed the new caliph's orders, al-Maʾmūn was enraged and countered with measures to secure his position. Angry letters were exchanged, with al-Amīn pressing his brother to make concessions that al-Maʾmūn regarded as contrary to the succession agreement. By March 811, military conflict was imminent. Al-Amin demanded that certain border districts be returned to the control of Baghdad. When al-Maʾmūn refused, al-Amīn despatched an expedition to seize the districts. Al-Amīn's resort to force ended in disaster. Al-Maʾmūn's forces, led by Ṭāhir ibn al-Ḥusayn and Harthamah ibn A'yan, quickly closed in on Baghdad. In a siege lasting over a year, Baghdad suffered extensive damage from the fighting and from bombardment by siege engines. Gangs of vagrants and paupers, organized by al-Amīn into irregular units, fought a kind of urban guerrilla war. But, with Tahir and Harthamah enforcing the siege and with most of al-Amīn's associates having switched their loyalties to the winning side, the caliph was forced to sue for terms. These were worked out among representatives of al-Amīn, Tahir, and Harthamah. However, when the caliph boarded the boat that was to take him into Harthamah's custody, troops loyal to Tahir assaulted and capsized the boat. Al-Amīn fell into the Tigris, was apprehended, and was executed that night on orders from Tahir. Thus ended this phase of the civil war. Al-Maʾmūn was now caliph. Al-Ṭabarī i's history of these years includes accounts by participants in the event, diplomatic letters betweenal-Amīn and al-Maʾmūn, Tahir's long letter toal-Maʾmūn on the circumstances of al-Amin's death, and a dramatic eyewitness account of al-Amīn's last hours. Also noteworthy is a 135-verse poem describing the devastation of Baghdad. The section ends with a series of literary anecdotes on the character of al-Amīn.

Between 1973 and 1978, six thousand Chileans leftists took refuge in central Canada after the Pinochet coup d’état. Once resettled at the northern extreme of the Americas, these political exiles had to find ways of coping with an abrupt and violent separation from their homeland that had deep material and emotional repercussions. In Young, Well-Educated, and Adaptable, Francis Peddie documents the experiences of twenty-one Chileans as they navigate their newfound identity as exiles. Peddie also considers how the admission of people from the wrong side of the Cold War ideological divide had an effect on Canadian immigration and refugee policy, establishing a precedent for the admission of political exiles over the decades that followed.

Find Your Gifts and Use Them to Serve God's People The Bible tells us that God has given every believer one or more spiritual gifts to build up the Body of Christ. But how can Christians know which gifts they possess? This revised edition of C. Peter Wagner's bestselling spiritual gifts resource will help you learn about your own gifts and empower your congregation or group to use their specific gifts. In this comprehensive and easy-to-understand guide and accompanying spiritual gifts inventory, you will also discover: · The 28 gifts listed in the Bible and how to distinguish them · The difference between gifts, talents and roles · How you can know your individual gifts and use them effectively · Five steps to help you build God's kingdom through your gifts You Spiritual Gifts Can Help Your Church Grow will help you and your group use the gifts God has provided to you so that your church will flourish.

Despite being one of the largest immigrant groups contributing to the development of modern Canada, the story of the English has been all but untold. In Invisible Immigrants, Barber and Watson document the experiences of English-born immigrants who chose to come to Canada during England’s last major wave of emigration between the 1940s and the 1970s. Engaging life story oral histories reveal the aspirations, adventures, occasional naïveté, and challenges of these hidden immigrants. Postwar English immigrants believed they were moving to a familiar British country. Instead, like other immigrants, they found they had to deal with separation from home and family while adapting to a new country, a new landscape, and a new culture. Although English immigrants did not appear visibly different from their new neighbours, as soon as they spoke, they were immediately identified as “foreign.” Barber and Watson reveal the personal nature of the migration experience and how socio-economic structures, gender expectations, and marital status shaped possibilities and responses. In postwar North America dramatic changes in both technology and the formation of national identities influenced their new lives and helped shape their memories. Their stories contribute to our understanding of postwar immigration and fill a significant gap in the history of English migration to Canada.

Hollywood’s Africa after 1994 investigates Hollywood’s colonial film legacy in the postapartheid era, and contemplates what has changed in the West’s representations of Africa. How do we read twenty-first-century projections of human rights issues—child soldiers, genocide, the exploitation of the poor by multinational corporations, dictatorial rule, truth and reconciliation—within the contexts of celebrity humanitarianism, “new” military humanitarianism, and Western support for regime change in Africa and beyond? A number of films after 1994, such as Black Hawk Down, Hotel Rwanda, Blood Diamond, The Last King of Scotland, The Constant Gardener, Shake Hands with the Devil, Tears of the Sun, and District 9, construct explicit and implicit arguments about the effects of Western intervention in Africa. Do the emphases on human rights in the films offer a poignant expression of our shared humanity? Do they echo the colonial tropes of former “civilizing missions?” Or do human rights violations operate as yet another mine of sensational images for Hollywood’s spectacular storytelling? The volume provides analyses by academics and activists in the fields of African studies, English, film and media studies, international relations, and sociology across continents. This thoughtful and highly engaging book is a valuable resource for those who seek new and varied approaches to films about Africa. Contributors Harry Garuba and Natasha Himmelman Margaret R. Higonnet, with Ethel R. Higgonet Joyce B. Ashuntantang Kenneth W. Harrow Christopher Odhiambo Ricardo Guthrie Clifford T. Manlove Earl Conteh-Morgan Bennetta Jules-Rosette, J. R. Osborn, and Lea Marie Ruiz-Ade Christopher Garland Kimberly Nichele Brown Jane Bryce Iyunolu Osagie Dayna Oscherwitz

This spectacular volume reveals for the first time an exceptional private collection of the most beautiful royal Indian jewels from the Mughal Empire to the British Raj to today. Written by renowned jewelry experts and featuring magnificent original photography by Laziz Hamani, Beyond Extravagance explores the centuries-long tradition of fine jewelry and art objects in India, to contemporary interpretations that continue to evolve today.

“It can start with a knock on the door one morning. It is the local Indian agent, or the parish priest, or, perhaps, a Mounted Police officer.” So began the school experience of many Indigenous children in Canada for more than a hundred years, and so begins the history of residential schools prepared by the Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). Between 2008 and 2015, the TRC provided opportunities for individuals, families, and communities to share their experiences of residential schools and released several reports based on 7000 survivor statements and five million documents from government, churches, and schools, as well as a solid grounding in secondary sources. A Knock on the Door, published in collaboration with the National Research Centre for Truth & Reconciliation, gathers material from the several reports the TRC has produced to present the essential history and legacy of residential schools in a concise and accessible package that includes new materials to help inform and contextualize the journey to reconciliation that Canadians are now embarked upon. Survivor and former National Chief of the Assembly First Nations, Phil Fontaine, provides a Foreword, and an Afterword introduces the holdings and opportunities of the National Centre for Truth & Reconciliation, home to the archive of recordings, and documents collected by the TRC. As Aimée Craft writes in the Afterword, knowing the historical backdrop of residential schooling and its legacy is essential to the work of reconciliation. In the past, agents of the Canadian state knocked on the doors of Indigenous families to take the children to school. Now, the Survivors have shared their truths and knocked back. It is time for Canadians to open the door to mutual understanding, respect, and reconciliation.