Brecht Forum: Upcoming Events NYC

* 11-30 Afghanistan: The Narrative of a Perfect War (Anti-war Wednesdays)

* 12-1 Surviving the Dirty War: Argentinian Torture Survivor (Patricia Isasa)

* 12-2-12-4 TOPLAB Cop-in-the-Head workshop, with special guest participants, Exile Theater from Kabul, Afghanistan

* 12-5 The Wobbly Show

* 12-6 Gujarat and Lesser Humans-Venth Chetha: Two Films by K. Stalin and the Drishti Media Collective

Monday, November 28 7:30 pm BOOK PARTY-FORUM

Chinese America: A History in the Making

Peter Kwong

Since their first arrival in the 1840s to supply the workforce needed to develop the West, the Chinese have participated in America's evolution from an expansionist continental power to the modern-day global empire. Even though many Chinese Americans today have integrated into mainstream American society as other "old immigrants" such as the Germans and the Irish have done, most Americans still see them, collectively, as "foreigners."

In Chinese America, Peter Kwong and co-author Dusanka Miscevic trace the genealogy of animosity toward Chinese Americans, from the pbuttage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and their profiling as disloyal aliens during the McCarthy era. However, they also cover the Chinese American success story, including their contribution to building the infrastructure of the nation and their vital role in linking American corporations to China's market in today's globalized economy. Beyond a strictly American context, the book traces political changes in China, showing how these changes influence shifting atbreastudes in U.S. society toward Chinese Americans.

Peter Kwong is the author of several books, including Chinatown, N.Y. and Forbidden Workers. He teaches at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New Yorkand is a regular contributor to The Nation and The Village Voice.

Suggested donation: $6-$10-$15

Wednesday, November 30 7:30 pm ANTI-WAR WEDNESDAYS

Afghanistan: The Narrative of a Perfect War

Speakers TBA

From the point of view of the US State, Afghanistan was-is a "perfect" war. Its success lies in the ways in which Afghanistan has been almost entirely wiped out of our daily conversation about war and justice, about imperialism and resistance. While it is true that the unceasing resistance in Iraq does locate Iraq in our minds differently. And yet we also know that the image of afghanistan that was successfully promoted homogenized all of Afghani society as Talibanesque and where no "meaningful" resistance was possible along with the corresponding image of the Afghani woman as an object of liberation. Afghanistan was already and in the course of the war, reduced further, into a people without a history. This panel seeks to explore the ways in which such discourses were produced and repeated and the politics inherent in our willing submission to it.

Suggested donation: $6-$10-$15

Thursday, December 1 7:30 pm TALK-FILM

Surviving the Dirty War

a talk by Argentinian torture Survivor Patricia Isasa

7:30 pm Patricia Isasa 8:30 pm Film screening of El Cerco, Patricia's documentary

At the time of her kidnapping in July of 1976, architect Patricia Indiana Isasa was 16 years old. She was her clbutt delegate to the high-school Students Union in the province of Santa Fe in Argentina. She was taken by a commando group of the state police and was "disappeared" (held clandestinely) for three months. She was then taken to a military barracks, where she was held prisoner without trial or due process for two years and two months.

In 1997 Patricia initiated an investigation into her kidnappers' idenbreasties, still unknown to her. Thanks to her relentless research, of them had been previously detained when the Spanish judge Baltasar Garz�n requested their extradition to Spain. Then-President Fernando De La R�a denied the extradition request; now they are awaiting trial in Argentina. Patricia just spoke last week at the annual vigil to close the S.O.A. in Ft. Benning, Georgia.

Suggested donation: $6-$10-$15

Friday, December 2 5:00 - 9:00 pm WEEKEND WORKSHOP BEGINS

Cop-in-the-Head for Community Organizers: A Workshop on Internalized Oppression (Confronting Internalized Oppression in Order to Decolonize the Mind)

with special guest participants: Exile Theater from Kabul, Afghanistan

Workshop facilitated by Kayhan Irani, Esperanza Martell and Marie-Claire Picher

Friday, December 2, 5:00 - 9:00 pm Saturday, December 3, 10:00 am - 6:00 pm Sunday, December 4, 10:00 am - 6:00 pm

Cop-in-the-Head is a collection of Theater of the Oppressed techniques that use games and exercises to recognize and confront internalized forms of oppression, and explore power relations and collective solutions to concrete problems.

TOPLAB is pleased to announce that members of Exile Theater, based in Kabul, Afghanistan, will be guest participants in this workshop. Exile Theater was founded in Peshawar, Pakistan by several Afghan theater and cinema artists who were forced into exile when the Taliban closed the doors to the arts in Afghanistan. The ensemble members had been educated with a unique blend of Soviet era theatre training and traditional Afghan performing arts.

Confronted with the extreme conditions of life in exile, the company members needed to innovate and improvise, plying their crafts in non-traditional and unpolished spaces. Their focus was to rehabilitate the theater arts in exile and, for that reason, held programs and performances to celebrate Afghan cultural and historical days.

Exile Theater returned to Afghanistan in June of 2003 and has since mounted productions there in collaboration with New York City's Bond

TOPLAB thanks Bond Street Theatre and Exile Theater for giving us all this extraordinary opportunity to work together.

Sliding scale: $75-$125

Monday, December 5 5:30 pm EXHIBIT OPENING-BOOK PARTY-PERFORMANCE

The Wobbly Show

Co-editors Paul Buhle & Nicole Schulman; Artists Sabrina Jones, Tom Keough Peter Kuper, Mac Magill, Seth Tobocman & Others TBA; Music by John Pietaro and the Flames of Discontent.

Reception-Exhibit Opening: 5:30 featuring original art from of Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World

The "Show": 7:00 pm

This is the final New York stop of The Wobbly Show commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the Industrial Workers of the World. Participants include Paul Buhle and Nicole Schulman, coeditors of Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World, Daniel Gross of the Starbucks Union, artists Sabrina Jones, Tom Keough Peter Kuper, Seth Tobocman and others. Music by John Pietaro and the Flames of Discontent.

Paul Buhle is Senior Lecturer at Brown University, a member of the Organization of American Historians, a columnist, a journalist, and the author of many books including From the Lower East Side to Hollywood. Nicole Schulman is an artist and activist on the editorial board of World War 3 Illustrated, to which she frequently contributes work. Her comics and illustrations have appeared in publications such as the New York Times, and are in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress.

Suggested donation: $6-$10-$15

Tuesday, December 6 7:30 pm FILM SCREENING

Gujarat & Lesser Humans-Venth Chetha: Two Films by K. Stalin & the Drishti Media Collective

Gujarat In March 2002, the neo-fascist Hindutva movement in India unleashed a State sponsored pogropm that left more than 3000 Indian Muslims dead in Gujarat, India. Through interviews with survivors, this film reconstructs the systematic carnage unleashed on the minorities in Ahmedabad from 28th February 2002 onwards.

The film is a work in progress and was put together to be submitted to the National Human Rights Commission when it first visited Gujarat in the third week of March 2002. K. Stalin and the Drishti media collective are based in Ahmedabad, one of the prime sites of the mbuttacre, and recorded the carnage even as it was unfolding. (35 minutes. Hindi, Gujarati with English Sub-breastles)

Lesser Humans-Venth Chetha 50 years of Independence have not changed the lives of the Bhangis in Gujarat, who even today continue the profession prescribed to them by the caste system--manually disposing human excreta. This film investigates the factors responsible for the continuance of this often banned inhuman practice. 59 min. Gujarati, English. 1998

Suggested donation: $6-$10-$15

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"My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." --George W. Bush, May 1, 2003

"...I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult, and that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult--and we are prevailing." --George W. Bush, June 28, 2005

U.S. military baneities through May 1, 2003: 140 U.S. military baneities through June 28, 2005: 1743 U.S. military baneities as of November 26, 2005: 2106

Iraqi civilian baneities through May 1, 2003: 1982 Iraqi civilian baneities through June 28, 2005: 22,563 � 25,560 (estimated) Iraqi civilian baneities as of November 26, 2005: 27,115 � 30,559 (estimated)

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