Check in here for audio interviews with some of the personalities that make Fernwood the unique and funky neighbourhood that it is.

As opportunities arise, we wil also present audio from the big picture, perhaps national, perhaps global, that has an impact on Fernwood residents.

Untangling the web of bureaucracy to get a government related problem addressed can be a daunting and intimidating task. With 3 different layers of elected government and a regional district, just finding the right door to be listened to at can be a problem.

Even for those who know which door to go to, finding an advocate is sometimes the only way to have a problem addressed. Provincial Members of the Legislative Assembly are funded by the government to maintain community offices. These offices provide help to people trying to find the right door, or provide help with a government-related problem they are facing.

Connie McCann is the Legislative Assistant for Carole James, MLA for Victoria-Beacon Hill. I spoke with her on January 3, 2008.

-Tony Sprackett

Contact info for the offices of both Fernwood MLAs, Carole James and Rob Fleming is below:

Listen to the MP3 file (approx. 19 mb, 20:30 run time)

Former Afghan Legislator Speaks to Victoria

Listening to Malalai Joya speak in October of 2007, I couldn’t help feeling that I was hearing the voice of someone who might not be with us on this earth for long. As sad as this makes me, the reality is that this 29-year old Afghani woman is riling some extremely dangerous people in the decades-long war zone that is her home country. She has already survived four assassination attempts and it would only be foolish to presume that the powerful people who want to see her dead will stop at that.

When you look into her eyes as she speaks, you can see an earnestness that comes from having had to live through unspeakable horror. You can see a person who has had to confront her own mortality, and has chosen to carry on anyway, fighting the human rights atrocities that are common daily living in Afghanistan.

Ms. Joya can list many specific examples of female activists who have been killed already for opposing the warlords who sit as integrated partners in the NATO backed government of Hamid Karzai. This is the government that Canadian troops are in Afghanistan to support.

The common Afghan people sit in the middle of Karzai and the warlords on the one hand, and the stone-age Islamic fundamentalist Taliban on the other. It’s an unimaginably tough place for people of reason and intelligence to exist. Joya says suicide among women is soaring as the apparent hopelessness of their situation continues to take its grim toll.

Joya was in Victoria to deliver her message that the NATO forces are unwittingly supporting some very corrupt and oppressive people, and they are doing it in the name of justice and freedom for women and children. She has the credentials to know that of which she speaks, having been elected to the National Assembly of Afghanistan in 2005. She was suspended from the parliament this year, and has appealed this to the Afghan Supreme Court.

-Tony Sprackett
Recording assistance with Ms. Joya's address: Eliza Sprackett

For more on Malalai Joya, check her website.

Listen to the MP3 file (approx. 18 mb, 19:25 run time)

Waleed Rabiaa is the son of a former general in the Iraqi army, during the time of Sadaam Hussein. After the invasion of Iraq in 2001, Waleed acted as a guide / interpreter for journalists wishing to go beyond the bounds of the stories that were available to them as imbedded press.

Tony Sprackett interviewed Waleed on July 25, 2007. This interview runs 1 hour and 28 minutes

Listen to the MP3 version. (approx. 20 MB)

Download the Part 1 podcast interview (23 MB)

Listen to the Part 1 MP3 version online (34MB)