Local senior fights for social justice

By Marija Dumancic
mdumanci@uwo.ca

"It's just so desperate, so desperate. We've got such a lopsided view of things. If half a dozen Americans get killed in that war there will be such a to do about it. But if 600,000 Iraqis get killed, well that's war," she said.

Photo by Marija Dumancic

Pat Chefurka points out the 1996 Agnes Macphail Award she won for outstanding women in the NDP.

The Manitoba-born daughter of a suffragette mother and a father who was a candidate for the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (precursor to the New Democratic Party) has a political drive that has not waned in her 78 years.

A three-time NDP candidate in London, her third loss was to a man who went on to become an Ontario premier.

"I've been apologizing ever since then, because I let Dave Peterson win," she says.

Chefurka has always been involved in political issues.

Although she wasn't able to join the many concerned Londoners at the Feb. 15 weekend peace march she remembers bringing her oldest child to anti-nuclear bomb rallies in London over 40 years ago.

Quite a few people came to these rallies back then — considering the population, she says, but trying to get people involved in social justice events has changed.

"There's no two ways about it. It is a lot more difficult to find a wide range of volunteers than it was 20 years ago."

She blames the failed promise of technology to give people free time because people are working more now than they were 20 years ago.

"People get themselves involved in school and jobs, two jobs to keep the family going. The dream at the introduction of all these technological wonders was that people would have a lot more free time to work on things they like to do in their lives and it hasn't turned out that way," she says.

Photo by Marija Dumancic

Pat Chefurka shows off the door she carved by hand.

She wasn't an organizer for the recent rally against war in Iraq, but she received many e-mails asking for details due to her involvement and role in Londoners for Afghanistan's Women.

She and a former minister of London's Unitarian Fellowship started Londoners for Afghanistan's Women three years ago. The group has raised money for women in Afghanistan and has helped advance the cause of several Afghan women in London.

Fellow LAW member Mariam Mokhtarzada, 29, says Chefurka is her role model.

"I had problems regarding entering university. So she took me to a lady at the university and finally I got in. I thought all the doors were closed for me, so I am really grateful to her," Mokhtarzada said.

Brenda Qureshi, another LAW member, is impressed with the work Chefurka has been doing with Afghan women.

"She's really full of energy and she's dedicated. She is willing to put her all into helping other people. She includes the local Afghan women and children in her work and that is a big thing," says Qureshi.

This interest in Afghanistan is reflected further in her thoughts on Canada's role in a possible Iraqi war.

"From my political stance, if somehow (the U.S.) gets the United Nations to pass a resolution that really does say that military aggression into Iraq should occur, I wouldn't want Canada to go. I think Canada is doing a much better job sending peacekeepers to Afghanistan right now because in Afghanistan Canada and other countries have done so little to rebuild and support it that outside Kabul there are still dreadful situations."

A self-confessed news junkie, Chefurka keeps up-to-date in many areas.

She reads socially aware books such as Michael Moore's Stupid White Men and Linda McQuaig's All You Can Eat and does research for present NDP candidate Irene Mathyssen.

"If I were a little younger and more rabid, I might have joined Libby Davies and her group," she says, referring to the British Columbia NDP member of Parliament who took her own group of inspectors to the United States to look for weapons of mass destruction.

Chefurka keeps energized by staying involved. "I've been fortunate in that every once in awhile I could change my focus, my thrust, and get involved in something new. It spurs on the enthusiasm."

Her enthusiasm has taken her through more risks than just entering the political life. Besides being the first woman to graduate with a master's degree in engineering physics at Montana State College and surviving three types of cancer, Chefurka is quite proud of being bitten by a penguin while travelling through Antarctica.

"I can't imagine sitting around. What a boring way to live."