I’m really, really trying to be apolitical. I’m really, really trying to keep my mouth shut…

… but I can’t. Not when this keeps happening.

In my own country. I am so ashamed. Mass graves of children. Hundreds? Thousands?

Canada’s Secret Shame.

I am so angry and I transform this anger into a thirst for justice.

And I will stand in solidarity on May 29th.

Chimo indeed.

To realize that I live in a world where people are treated like this (and, of course, much worse)…

This photo was taken way back on January 25th at the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt.

The crossing has since been re-opened in a more controlled way but not without a lot of violence. Plus, Israel is now thinking about building a border wall to separate itself from Egypt.

I really wanted to write something pithily observant here but anything would be too trite. It makes me glad I live in Canada.

I just want to remember how grateful I need to be.

Excellent point raised yesterday that perhaps we are getting the truth and not the Europeans. However, it seems that the truth is changing.

Here is an article from two days ago describing Karzai’s recent comments to a German newspaper.

Here is another one, from a British newspaper on the 25th, detailing the souring relations between Karzai and Britain.

Finally, I am including this article, which I cannot find substantiated in western newspapers (on an admittedly cursory investigation) though ReliefWeb is administered by the UN which I generally consider to be pretty credible. It details a night-time raid by “foreign” and Afghan troops where civilians were killed in Helmand province. I am totally not saying that it is true but there are two aspects I want to draw attention to.

The first is that one of the article tags when reposted to this blog is “Imperialism” which supports the views of many commentators that this war is seen by many as an attempt by the West to enforce their worldview globally. Second, is the very existence of this article. If true, this attack represents an abominable breach of just war principles and should be investigated and punished to the full extent of both international and domestic law. Whether true or not, the existence of stories such as this cannot help but raise hatred against Western troops from the very people that we think we are helping.

In case you’ve missed it, Israel has closed the borders into Gaza meaning that no supplies (including humanitarian aid) have been entering the Palestinian territories for the past 5 days…

“Meanwhile, John Dugard, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, also released a statement on Friday saying that recent Israeli actions in Gaza violated international treaties.

“The killing of some 40 Palestinians in Gaza in the past week, the targeting of a Government office near a wedding party venue with what must have been foreseen loss of life and injury to many civilians, and the closure of all crossings into Gaza raise very serious questions about Israel’s respect for international law and its commitment to the peace process,” he said in a press release.

Mr. Dugard said the actions violated the strict prohibition in the Geneva Conventions on collective punishment and one of the basic principles of international humanitarian law – that military action must distinguish between military targets and civilian targets.

Mr. Dugard, who serves in an unpaid and personal capacity, reports to the UN Human Rights Council, which will hold a special session this Wednesday – at the request of the Group of Arab States and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) – to consider and take actions on “human rights violations emanating from Israeli military incursions in the occupied Palestinian territory,” including Gaza and the West Bank town of Nablus.” (from the UN Daily Digest on 21 January 2008)

Violating international treaties? Violating the Geneva Conventions? Ya think? Dear, dear me oh my. I think it is time for this occupation to end.

Again from Hopgood’s article, a few quotes on the project to assimilate ‘the Indian’ in the U.S. back in the 1800s and early 1900s.

The native peoples of America were considered to be like children by the governments in the U.S. during this time period. They were deemed incapable of taking care of their own land and behaving in a civilized manner, therefore, their lands were held in trust until they showed their capacity. Those who could pass the competency test were given “fee-simple titles to the land and thus citizenship during elaborate and heavily symbolic ceremonies conducted by the Indian Office:”

“The crowd would look on while their ‘competent’ brethren were summoned individually from inside the lodge. The candidates for land titles were dressed in traditional costume and armed with a bow and arrow. After ordering a candidate to shoot his arrow into the distance, the presiding officer… would announce ‘You have shot your last arrow’. The arrowless archer would then return to the tipi and reemerge a few minutes later in ‘civilized’ dress. ‘Take the handle of this plow’, the government’s man would say, ‘this act means that you have chosen to live the life of the white man – and the white man lives by work’ ” (from Frederick E. Hoxie, A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate the Indians, 1880-1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989: 180).

This process of “cultural suicide” was continued through institutional schooling which in the words of Captain Richard Henry Pratt aimed to “Kill the Indian in him and save the man” (David Wallace Adams, Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1995: 212, 52).

“Education serves to both clean the slate and replace it with a new lesson” (Hopgood, 18). The trick is that back in the 1800s, the elites were open and proud of this mission – to replace the savage with the civilized, to create an individual who would be worthy of citizenship and participation in civil society. Today, this intention has had to remain part of the subtle background, elite members of a society can no longer openly proclaim their project to erase the savage and preserve the man but, instead, attempt this aim through the promotion of supposedly universal human rights.

Sigh.

I finished Stephen Hopgood’s article, “Reading the Small Print in Global Civil Society” (Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 2000. 29(1): 1-25) today and he raises some interesting concerns about the displacement of morality and virtues from discussions in civil society to a position of sub-text that underlies the more acceptable “rights” discussion occurring in the world today. The idea is that back in the 1800s and early 1900s, in order to be a citizen and acquire the rights of that position, one would have to meet certain criteria of civilization. Those criteria would include certain moral values, in the United States these would mostly be the Protestant virtues of “industry, piety, parsimony, and self-reliance” (16).

Today, it is accepted that it is incorrect to expect everyone to have the same values so instead we talk about universal human rights. The trouble is that within this distribution of rights is the assumption of a certain moral basis – instead of openly constructing societies with the same moral basis, liberals now try to sneak them in the back door, at least, according to Hopgood.

It makes me wonder if there is any chance for a truly open space of discussion (or discourse) to exist. If we all bring our own moral choices to the discussion, how can we remain open to what others will say? Moreover, if global power elites insist that all those included in the discussion have the same sets of values, how will we ever move past the ideas that divide us? How can we come up with truly universal rights when only a select group of people with similar values is allowed to participate in the discussion?

From Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux while in Malawi: “I sketched out my theory that some governments in Africa depended on underdevelopment to survive – bad schools, poor communications, a feeble press, and ragged people. The leaders needed poverty to obtain foreign aid, needed an uneducated and passive populace to keep themselves in office for decades. A great education system in an open society would produce rivals, competitors, and an effective opposition to people who wanted only to cling to power.”

And then in conversation:

Anne: “I have my doubts sometimes. I say to my mother, ‘What if we just upped and left? All of us. Every last one.’”
Paul: “What do you think would happen?”
Anne: “Then the people here would have to think for themselves. They’d have to decide what’s best for them – what they want. No one would influence them. Maybe they would say they wanted education – and they’d have to do the teaching.”

“I wanted to see some African volunteers caring for the place – sweeping the floors, cutting the grass, washing windows, gluing the spines back onto the few remaining books, scrubbing the slime off the classroom walls. Or, if that was not their choice, I wanted to see them torch the place and burn it to the ground and dance around the flames, then plow everything under and plant food crops. Until either of those things happened, I would not be back… I did not feel despair at having been prevented from [teaching], but rather a solemn sense that since only Africans could define their problems, only Africans could fix them.”

Interesting perspective.

Canada has twice been awarded the daily Fossil award by the Climate Action Network this week in Bali.

Understandable. Our government has embarrassed us in front of the world with their false concern about climate change. From one side they speak of Canada’s commitments while from the other they work to sabotage the attempts by the rest of the world to actually do something. To do something now. Before 2020. Before the next election cycle. Our national short-sightedness is disheartening, to say the least.

Here is a link to sign a petition specifically for Harper and newspapers across Canada. Please sign and add your name to the (hopefully) huge list of people in Canada who actually care about our global reputation, not to mention the relatively minor issue of the catastrophic damage being caused by climate change.

I am stunned that people still vote conservative.

But I guess what really upsets me most is what the conservative position says about the character of Canadians. Are we really a nation that gives up so easily? My understanding is that when the Harper government took power they were faced with a difficult decision on what to do about Kyoto. After years of neglect by the Liberal governments – who pretended to care while doing basically nothing – it looked almost impossible for Canada to meet its commitments under the Kyoto agreement. I appreciate that.

But instead of saying “Gee, Canada’s international reputation is on the line – we had better buckle down and do some pretty amazing things here to do the best we can to meet our national commitments. But it’s okay, we know that Canadians are totally amazing and we can come together as a country and do what needs to be done.”

They said, “Gee, Canada’s international reputation is on the line – we had better back out of a legally binding agreement and postpone taking any action until long after our government’s term will be over. That way we won’t have to do anything and we’ll be able to blame it on the Liberals.”

Shame on them. And shame on us for letting them get away with it.

I believe that Canadians can do amazing things and that we can help lead the world – but we certainly won’t with the government we have now.

It is time for a different type of politics.

A few more sites of interest:

David Suzuki (the Nature of Things) calls the government’s spin on climate change “humiliating” and “ludicrous”.

The former editor-in-chief of CBC news discusses the damage done by Canada’s climate policy to our international reputation.

This is a report from CTV on Canada’s performance (or lack of) at the conference so far.

The Fossil of the Day Award site.

Last week a Canadian judge ruled in favour of the Canadian Council on Refugees, the Canadian Council of Churches and Amnesty International in a case brought against the Canadian government regarding the Canadian-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) that forces refugees to apply for status in the first country they arrive in. According to the Globe and Mail, the judge has ruled that this agreement puts Canada in breach of our international obligations (because of course Canada has signed the refugee convention, we sign everything). Specifically, it violates our commitments under the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the UN Convention Against Torture.

According to the decision the judge decided against the STCA because the U.S. treats refugees so abysmally that we can not legally force refugees to stay there. There was also the whole shipping people off to countries for torture aspect of the U.S. system as well. (BTW, if there are any legal wonks out there reading, the link above will take you to the federal court decision in its entirety which is nicer than relying on the newspaper reports. If you just want to read the outcome, skip down to Section IX. Conclusions.)

Justice Michael Phelan also criticized the Canadian government for not fulfilling its commitment to review the agreement “despite both the significant passage of time since the commencement of the STCA and the evidence as to U.S. practices currently available”. Once again, our government is letting things slip through the cracks while they act like a bunch of dilettantes (see any post relating to Kyoto or Schreiber).

Who does this affect most? For Canada, it will have the greatest impact on refuge seekers from Latin America who travel overland – since 2004, we have been able to turn them away at the border but if the STCA is overturned we will have to let them in.

If this ruling destroys the agreement (and opinions seem to be leaning that way) then they will be allowed through the U.S. and into Canada. Both parties have until 14 Jan 2008 to file their appeals.

Thought you might like to know.

It will be interesting to watch the international fall-out from Canada declaring again (through the proxy of its court system, of course) that the U.S. is a human rights violator.

So Schreiber had his extradition postponed so that he could once again appear before our Parliamentary Ethics Committee and make them all look like a bunch of fools – again.

At what point do we just cut our losses and remember this old phrase:

Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.

or W’s version (plus more Bush witticism’s):

Fool me once, shame on [pause] shame on you.
Fool me [pause] you can’t get fooled again.

We seriously need to extradite this man (oops, that would be Schreiber, not Bush, we can’t extradite him).