Film screening and panel discussion

The second film in Noor’s Our Home and Native Land? film festival, Continuous Journey will serve as a starting point for examining acts of exclusion both inside and outside of Canadian borders.

Date: Saturday June 6, 2009
Time: 4:15 – 7:00 p.m.
Location: Auditorium, Noor Cultural Centre
Admission: See the film festival’s main page

The Film

In 1914 Gurdit Singh, a Sikh entrepreneur based in Singapore, chartered a Japanese ship, the Komagata Maru, to carry Indian immigrants to Canada. On May 23, 1914, the ship arrived in Vancouver Harbour with 376 passengers aboard: 340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims, and 12 Hindus. Many of the men on board were veterans of the British Indian Army and believed that it was their right as British subjects to settle anywhere in the Empire they had fought to defend and expand. They were wrong . . .

Continuous Journey is an inquiry into the largely ignored history of Canada’s exclusion of the South Asians by a little-known immigration policy called the Continuous Journey Regulation of 1908. As a result of this policy, the Komagata Maru was surrounded half-a-mile away from Canadian shores by immigration boats, and the passengers were held as­ virtual prisoners on the ship. Thus began a dramatic stand-off which would escalate over the course of two months, becoming one of the most infamous incidents in Canadian history.

The Komagata Maru’s voyage and its aftermath exposed the Empire’s myths of equality, fair play and British justice, and became a turning point in the freedom struggle in India. By examining the global context and repercussions of a Canadian event, Continuous Journey challenges us to reflect on contemporary events, and raises critical questions about how the past shapes the present.

The Panelists

Ali Kazimi, director of Continuous Journey
El-Farouk Khaki, immigration lawyer
Dan Doreen, representative, Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory