06/30/2026
Dear Arab Palestine Association of,
Last Friday evening, I was honoured to represent CJPME at an early viewing of the new Nakba exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, titled “Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present.”
More than 700 people were present on Friday to celebrate this long-awaited exhibit. The Nakba, or the Catastrophe, marks the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians, including the forced expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians from their ancestral homeland during the creation of the state of Israel. “Palestine Uprooted” puts the events of 1948 beside ongoing practices of dispossession, noting current settlement expansion in the West Bank and investigations into genocide in Gaza.
The exhibit includes oral histories from interviews with Palestinian Canadians and showcases artifacts that represent their memories and hopes of being able to return to their ancestral homes. The items on display include keys and property deeds from family homes in Palestine, a thobe with tatreez, a keffiyeh, and a Jaffa Oranges wrapper – some of which have been passed down for generations as a reminder of their connection to the land.
The Nakba exhibit is a modest display within a larger exhibition on contemporary human rights issues. Despite its size, however, it is a huge achievement. Its place within the Museum means that hundreds of thousands of Canadians will see it over the next two years, likely encountering this history for the first time.
The event on Friday was a wonderful celebration. The exhibit is a hugely successful example of community partnership, with meaningful participation from the Palestinian community. The dedication and integrity of Museum leadership and staff were also clearly on display, motivated by the simple principle that Palestinian human rights belong in this Museum too.
That’s why it was so frustrating to see the recent comments from Marc Miller, the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture. He initially defended the independence of the Museum, saying that “it is not the place of the minister or any member of the House to dictate museum policy and what is curated and what is not.” However, when asked about it yesterday, he made comments disparaging the Museum, saying that there have been “errors” and “failures” that “should be rectified.”
This is an alarming threat to the independence of the Museum and its ability to tell human rights stories without political interference. It comes in the context of weeks of manufactured outrage against the exhibit from the Israel lobby, who are demanding that it be shut down.
Miller’s comments are an insult to the Museum’s expertise and leadership, giving fuel to the extremist voices who want to silence Palestinian stories.
Join us in emailing Minister Miller to let him know that he is wrong to say that the Nakba exhibit has “errors” that must be “rectified.” We must demand that he stand by his initial support for museum independence, and support its work in telling the stories of Palestinian Canadians.
