Ebook: Ali & Ali: the deportation hearings: a play

It is November 2008, President Barack Obama is elected, and collective optimism for a more tolerant post-Bush world spreads to Canada -- and to the backroom of Salim's Falafel Shoppe in Toronto. There, Ali Hakim and Ali Ababwa, refugee entertainers from the fictitious, war-torn country of Agraba, write a stage play to celebrate the new president's message of "hope and change." But the premiere of Yo Mama, Osbama! (or, How we learned to stop worrying and love the half-black president) halts abruptly when a RCMP constable arrives at the theatre and arrests the pair for suspected financial ties to the Agrabanian People's Front, an alleged "terrorist organization" on the Canadian government's watch list. Hilariously comic, slapstick and exuberant, the play raises serious questions about the cost for some when we endeavour to protect the "freedoms" of others.--Cf. cover, p.4.