ABSTRACT
Mid-page, tendrils of smoke rise from a fire to embrace the disembodied head of a woman-eyes closed, restful; hair, uncovered, fanning out from her head as if shocked. Below the picture:
International Women’s Day, March 8th at 8:00 pm, Location: Eritrea Restaurant 1278 Bloor St. West [Toronto]
The flyers are displayed in downtown ethnic restaurants, in cornershop windows beside provincial lottery signs and the prices of milk, in specialist travel agencies that broker services for arrivals from North-East Africa. They are distributed among the women’s friends and neighbours: Egyptians, Ethiopians, fellow Sudanese. Any and all, but especially AngloCanadians, are encouraged to come. The evening is a success; the restaurant fills to overflowing. Yet those who attend see more than a demonstration of ethnicity: they witness a drama of political resistance, one that skilfully seeks to strengthen the resolve of disparate Sudani refugees and forge them into a unified ‘we’, a nation in absentia. And the community thus imagined (Anderson 1991; see Appadurai 1990:5) consists of a partnership of women and men.
