Niqabs and the politics of division

CBC's online news headline reads “Canadians of all stripes oppose face coverings during citizenship ceremonies: Vote Compass.” The “stripes” being referred to are the supporters of each of the political parties running in the upcoming election.

The question on which 72% of Canadians generally disagree with was this: “Immigrants should be allowed to cover their faces for religious reasons while swearing the oath of citizenship. [Do you strongly agree, somewhat agree, are you neutral, do you somewhat disagree, strongly disagree or do you 'not know']. Not surprisingly, those leaning Conservative on the “https://votecompass.cbc.ca/” voluntary survey disagreed most strongly with the statement while those voting NDP or Green disagreed less strongly.

There's a natural tendency in us to assume that majorities are right. It's not surprising; we vote on decisions all the time and whichever side of a debate gets the most votes gets to call the tune. It's how we elect governments and it's how governments pass laws through parliament.

But that's purely an expediency measure because we don't generally have a wise universal authority to tell us what the right decision would be. We call it democracy. As often as not it's most closely comparable to a pooling of ignorance. The most cynical view of this is the old saw, “the majority is almost always wrong!” 

 

We fall pray to this assumption that big numbers prove something in the Church as well. That an idea, a conviction, a style of worship, a charismatic leader is drawing crowds is no more proof of righteousness than it is proof of human perfidy. Numbers—in the end—prove nothing.

Humans are easily manipulated unless they have been taught how to evaluate what they're being told on some logical basis. In the case of the Vote Compass question, the respondents are wilfully or accidentally being misled: the Muslim woman who wishes to wear the niqab during the ceremony is not seeking to “cover their [her] faces [face] for religious reasons” as the question implies. Rather she is requesting that she not be required to uncover her face in a public venue. If her cultural/religious background has so attuned her to the wearing of the niqab in public, the not-wearing in such a public place is a traumatic option, like a nun being asked to appear in public in a bikini.

 

There's an enormous difference between masking yourself and being asked to remove some clothing you consider essential in the circumstances.

 

One source provides a wrinkle that might make some of us think more objectively about the current debate. “The niqab did not originate with Islam. The niqab, or face-coverings similar to it, were worn by Christian women in the Byzantine Empire and in pre-Islamic Persia. Islam adopted the practice, which was not, contrary to common perceptions, required by the Koran.” 

Rightly or wrongly we share with the other Abrahamic religions a history that includes conservative dress standards, especially for women. More conservative Mennonite denominations still require long dresses and modest shoes plus head coverings for women.

 

My mother wouldn't enter church with her head uncovered.

 

If the world-wide trend is toward liberalization in women's dress and the erasure of the distinction between males and females in this regard, it's nevertheless obvious that “progress” in that direction is not consistent across cultures.

 

It's also obvious to me that there's no room in a multicultural society for forcing cultural change. You can't nationally legislate appropriate dress for cultural/religious minorities; such changes evolve slowly, gently in an atmosphere of tolerance. Attempts to force them only result in unnecessary divisiveness.

 

True, there are countries in which dictatorial leadership forces conformity, but Canada is surely not one of them. Let's not start in that direction now after so many years of enriching multiculturalism.

Here comes the tax collector!

The Gospel of Luke tells us that Zacchaeus was a tax collector. A Jew, he had become wealthy by performing the tax-collection role . . . and probably by inflating the amount owed and pocketing the difference. Romans administered Palestine; paying soldiers, repairing roads and aqueducts cost money, taxes had to be paid.

Resistance to paying taxes and animosity toward those that collect it aren't new by any means. Most of our other expenditures are accompanied by personal choice whereas taxes are forced upon us by law and the penalties for avoidance can be severe. Personal expenditures bring tangible benefits: food, clothing, shelter and any number of gadgets, gizmos and services that make our lives demonstrably better; tax money provides benefits, of course, but the relationship between our paying and government purchasing is far from obvious.

Knowing when we've personally spent foolishly becomes obvious rather quickly, but certainty about whether or not our tax dollars are being wisely managed is not easily reached. Conjecture, rumour, political propaganda and the complexity of government these days all conspire to muddy the water.

In Canada today, we're taxed on three levels and the entities that demand that we pay up compete with each other for their share. What is each level's fair share isn't obvious: municipal governments have to create and repair streets and roads, water and sewer services, etc.; provincial governments tax for highways, education and health care, etc.; and the federal government is responsible—theoretically—for all the stuff that we have in common from coast to coast to coast, like defence, international relations, trade, etc. Imagine sorting out the “fairness” aspect of who is responsible for what, where the margins of jurisdiction ought to be and, by extension, what makes for a fair taxation regime for each.

And then there are the questions of fairness in the collection of taxes: how much tax should be assigned to consumption (GST, PST), how much to production (corporate taxes, resource exploitation taxes), how much to wealth (property, for instance), how much to incomes (personal income tax), and in the case of the latter, how much weight should be given to ability to pay. Should every person pay the same amount (as was likely the case when Zacchaeus made his collection rounds) or should only those who earn enough to have money left over when basic needs are met be required to pay income tax?

It's no wonder that the debate about taxes degenerates into a simplistic “which party promises the lowest taxes.” It's not about low or high taxation, it's about judicious, fair taxation that provides the benefits we deem necessary for reasonable levels of security, health and infrastructure from time to time. If a federal party promises $15 daycare, do we or don't we agree that early childhood care of that kind is critical enough to add the cost of it to the tax bill? Do we believe that bombing ISIS positions is a good use of tax dollars? Should education be paid for by taxes or by individuals, and if the former, should taxes pay for education all the way up to doctorate degrees? In a time of burgeoning pensioner numbers, is it fair to tax the income earners higher and higher in order to ensure seniors' well-being? Should health care respond to need only and not to ability to pay, especially when recognizing that universal health care adds a humongous amount to the tax burden? These are the kinds of debates that need to be had before any conclusion about fair taxation can be settled.

And then there's the deficit/balanced budget question. Estimates of Canada's current debt load run from 700 billion to 1.2 trillion. Taking the low number and dividing that by the population, that works out to about $20,000 per person, or $80,000 per family of four. Only elementary school arithmetic is required to determine that if debt is mounting, taxation is not keeping up to spending. To remedy this, spending must be decreased or taxation raised. If we agree that we're getting the right amount of services from our governments, it follows that Canada and the provinces have been under-taxing their citizens and corporations for years. Low taxation levels may be job-creators, but they may at the same time be country, province, city or rural municipality cripplers.

It's a wise party indeed that can judiciously balance the right level of services with taxation, and it needs an informed and thoughtful public to choose that party to run the country. Promises of low taxes don't constitute policy, they are electioneering shibboleths. It's discussion around what-services-and-at-what-level that need to happen. The willingness to pay for them under—grant you—a fair taxation regime is really where it's at.

Human Rights Museum

The other-worldly structure housing the Canadian Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg is reason enough to spend time there. Walking up from level to level on the “ramps” allows you to appreciate the enormous open space, suggestive to me of the global significance of all of us on earth being interdependently inhabitants of the same space, in space . . . this fragile earth. The panorama of Winnipeg city from the Eighth floor encourages visitors to think about their (our) place in the human story; the cities, towns, villages in which we all live are where we are rooted, where the human rights to food, shelter and safety are extended to us . . . or not.

I've had people tell me that they don't like talking about our relationships to one another in terms of rights, that rights smacks of selfishness, of a me-centered world view. My counter to this has always been that demanded rights might well have that feel, but that in a world where two thirds are in need and one third are in surplus, it's probably a good way to measure what goods, services and living space would be necessary before we could say that fairness had crowded out inequity. If quality acute health care is expected in Rosthern, does it follow that persons in rural Zambia ought to enjoy a similar level of care? If I can drink from a tap in my kitchen without having to haul or boil the water, and if I have a right to complain when that's not the case, do persons in rural Sierra Leone have the same right to complain?

The museum traces the development of cultural/social rights that are often taken for granted. Women's suffrage, freedom from discrimination in the workplace, access to education, etc. are all covered briefly in booths that must become almost inaccessible on busier days than the one on which we visited. Much of what is displayed can't be appreciated without attending to audio-visual displays that have a beginning and an ending, and being able to do that requires that visitors take time to sit and wait, observe and contemplate.

The museum must be treated as a series of experiences, not as a window shopping for neat information. Time must be taken; repeat visits are necessary; there is simply too much to be absorbed in one four-hour visit.

There are critics of course. It's something very new: I can't find anything in my experience with which to compare the architect's vision, for instance. The subject of human rights doesn't immediately spring to mind as a topic for a museum. It's not a big surprise to hear the words “ugly” and “magnificent” in the same dialogue about the place. When the engineers and the builders first examined the architectural drawings, they must certainly have scratched their heads: it's that revolutionary.

And some have complained that their cultural history is not given adequate attention. You'd expect this given Canada's multi-cultural composition. Even a space this size has limits, as does human imagination.

I've always appreciated the concept of human rights as a starting point for protecting and enhancing the health, freedom and dignity of all people and so have donated considerable time and money to Amnesty International, an organization working from the premise that humans are born with inalienable rights. The UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights passed in 1948 lays out the fundamentals of inalienable human rights and equivalent documents exist in the constitution of many states. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms became the law of the land in 1982, broadening the scope and jurisdiction of the 1960 Bill of Rights. Bills of Rights probably owe their beginnings and content to a considerable degree to the development of the Magna Carta, begun in 1215 and amended in subsequent years.

Rights of the individuals and communities of the world can be written on paper, but they remain words only until accepted, adopted, incorporated into the fabric of national and international relations. The problem of enforcement looms large; the UN can lodge a complaint against Canada for its human rights record in relation to its aboriginal population, but causing the Canadian government to act on that complaint is another thing. In other countries, the provisions of even the basics in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights are simply ignored.  Economic and political interests have been known time and again to render individual rights dispensable when doing so advances their hold on power.

But the struggle goes on and on one floor of the Human Rights Museum, visitors are encouraged to write and post notes based on their hopes and dreams for a future where all humans can feel the freedom and dignity that we enjoy daily. 

Do visit it when you can, and do set aside enough time to absorb its message.

"A Problem from Hell"

A (faulty) memory of Van Gogh's "A bedroom at Arles"

We all know by now what compound words ending in ...cide refer to. Killing. When it's patricide, a child kills his/her father; in matricide, it's a mother; suicide is the killing of the self and infanticide is the killing of an infant.

And then there's genocide, etymologically the killing of an ethnic, racial or religious population. The word dates back to the 1940s when a crusader for the victims of mass murders like the purge of Armenians by Turkey in 1915 sought a designation for such events and coined the word in use today. Raphael Lemkin was moved by the accounts of the Armenian massacre and began a crusade to establish international laws allowing for intervention in active or imminent genocides, effectively rewriting an aspect of the principle of unconditional national sovereignty.

 

A marvellous telling of Lemkin's story can be found in “A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power. A film based on Lemkin's story, Watchers of the Sky is reviewed by Nina Strochlic and is a useful starting point for anyone not familiar with this very important development in international law.

 

I found reading A Problem from Hell exciting, especially since the Truth and Reconciliation report on the T & R hearings raised the question of whether or not the residential school system constituted a genocide or not. When in 1951, the United Nations adopted a convention on the subject, (based on Lemkin's proposed definition of his new word) the following acts “. . . with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical (sic), racial or religious group . . .” were included: (Powers: p. 62-3)

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

By the standard of the 1951 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, then, the Canadian government and the collaborating churches could, in their enforcement of residential school attendance for First Nations children, justifiably have been charged with genocide on the basis of—at least—the second, third and fifth criterion. 

 

Unfortunately, neither the word nor the convention existed until 1951 when the ghastly residential school system was in it's final few decades.

The US was one of only a few countries that refused to ratify the convention, arguing that the interpretation of what constituted genocide and what didn't was too vague and might result in other nations dragging Americans and the USA into courts for spurious reasons. Their unwillingness to sign was arguably indicative of what America has so often shown in international affairs: US sovereignty is sacrosanct; the sovereignty of other nations is negotiable depending on the relevance to American interests. (Think Nicaragua, Iraq, Kuwait, etc.)

Failure to prevent or mitigate the genocide of the Tutsies in Rwanda indicates that we are not to this day willing to become embroiled in racial or ethnic massacres in foreign countries unless our economic or political interests make it advantageous to do so. A reading of Romeo Dellaire's Shake Hands with the Devil (or at least a reading of the Wikipedia entry on him) paints in vivid colour the worldwide failure to protect persons against genocide if they're not nearby . . . or are not us.

The question of intervention pales, however, next to the bigger question: what situations give rise to the contemplation and execution of the most heinous of crimes imaginable, namely the deliberate destruction of everyone—man, woman and child—who is a member of a group not currently favoured? What preconditions make it possible to recruit persons to be the practitioners in such a purge? Surely, genocide is the monstrous end-product of prejudice gone wild, and prejudices have roots in cultures and educational practices. 

Hutu and Tutsi, Jewish and Gentile, Kurdish and Turkish children placed together in a playpen may play amicably with each other; the notion in the Gentile child that his Jewish playmate is to be feared has to be taught, nurtured until it's a hardened and permanent part of his psyche before he can be convinced that shooting that playmate is an acceptable, even honourable act. Surely that's how it must be.

 

We don't see our current prejudices as seed beds for genocides, but we ought to be vigilant, aware from the Holocaust experience that there is grave danger in harbouring and teaching attitudes of superiority/inferiority. Could the current unrest in American white/black relations be a starting point for genocide? Are we harbouring, even nurturing prejudices with a potential for growth into something we can no longer control?

NAZI hatred extended to pretty much every human being who wasn't a conventional Aryan and gays and lesbians, political opponents, ethnic minorities were all swept up in their net as worthy of extermination.

 

As followers of Jesus, are we aware of such dangers and therefor at the forefront of the defense of the innocents? Do we place ourselves between the persecutors, the haters of this world and the persecuted? Or are we swept up in the attitudes and actions of cultures of selfishness, carelessness, prejudice?

Our role is to be prophetic; and a clear understanding of the seeds of genocide, and action on it, can surely be categorized as responding to that age old and wise proverb that says “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound (ton?) of cure.

 

Do explore, at least, the life and struggles of Raphael Lemkin and ask yourself: how much am I willing to give to defend the innocents? Perhaps if most of our family had been gassed and burned in the NAZI purge (like Lemkin's), our passions for prevention, intervention would be more immediate.

Talk is Tedious, but the alternative is much worse.

What an amazing thing it was! Western nations sensing great danger to the world if Iran's nuclear program should lead to the development of nuclear arms, Iran struggling with the decay of an economy stalemated by sanctions imposed by the same Western nations. That they talked and talked past deadlines, through nights and finally, finally all signed off on a joint undertaking constitutes a near-miracle.

The hawks descended immediately. We've been duped! Iran can't be trusted to keep its promises! President Obama defended the agreement, insisting that the safeguards built in assured the world that promises would be kept. The Israeli prime minister characterizing it at the same time as a colossal and historic blunder.

The chances are, of course, that Netanyahu will have been proven right in the end. There is also a chance that the agreement will serve as an historic lesson in the effectiveness of persistent diplomacy, especially when compared to the US invasion of Iraq, Russian military interference in Ukraine, Western military involvement in Libya, etc.

Life is not about certainties, it's about weighing options and choosing best chances. Sorting out which choices produce best chances is the tough part, but beating back the hawkish critics in this case seems to me to constitute a feather in Obama's cap. I hope history proves him right.

Canada's response to this agreement is disappointing, if expected. We will judge Iran by its actions, not by it's words. The words, however, are the words of our allies as well as those of Iran so at best, Canada has said nothing. At worst it has declared its non-confidence in the judgement both of Iran and our allies.

 

For lack of international affairs savvy, the Harper government has painted itself into a corner: its unconditional support of Israel and its need to maintain good relations with the USA and other Western allies have meant effectively that we can't say anything without jeopardizing one or the other relationship. We've written ourselves out of the story.

We need a new government. One that isn't so doctrinaire that it blindly wanders down allies and roads that have no exits. October can't come too soon.

Saskatchewan is on fire.

The Earth: a place to stand

Saskatchewan is on fire. So read the news headlines this morning. The number of forest fires burning in Northern Saskatchewan (117) is not that significant since Alberta and BC are dealing with similar numbers. Like Slave Lake in a previous year and now LaRonge and Montreal Lake in Saskatchewan, the newsworthiness is scaled to the numbers of people directly affected: in Saskatchewan about 8,000 refugees so far. 

It's always about us. 

Of course it is: trees don't read!

Forest fires, grass fires have been part of nature's evolved balance going back multi-millenia. Like us, the planet Earth gets indigestion; it belches and farts occasionally, moves its bowels in order to restore balance once again. Earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, fires, tornadoes and hurricanes, tsunamis are disasters to us but to the earth they are like antacids and antihistamines, restoring balances that events and the passage of time have disturbed. 

To the people of LaRonge and Montreal Lake, to us in the rest of the province breathing smoke day after day, the fires are catastrophic; to Mother Earth they're good housekeeping, a disposal of accumulated trash. A restoration of balance.

Some of the earth's indigestion—like ours—is a natural consequence of its makeup and position in the universe; sometimes we contribute to its discomfort. Clearing natural vegetation to grow food crops, burning fossil fuels in ever-increasing amounts, pumping our sewage into fresh water lakes and rivers all contribute to the earth's bellyache and make the restoration of balance evermore difficult. 

Our sheer and increasing numbers as a species must give our Earth Mother moments of overwhelming anxiety: How am I going to feed all the babies I'm popping out like a Pez dispenser gone berserk?

That there exists in the universe a planet capable of sustaining fragile life as complex and enduring as we experience on Planet Earth is amazing, possibly miraculous. And if—as we often say—we're lucky to be alive, then this consciousness should humble us in the face of Mother Earth's occasional belches and farts. It should also teach us ways to stay out of her way when she rolls over: don't build your homes on fault lines, in flood plains, at the feet of volcanic mountains. 

Construct your dwellings in the shape of domes rather than boxes if you must settle in Tornado Alley. 

It's nice to be on the beach, but weigh the possible consequences before setting up house there.

And for Mary's and Pete's sake, try to govern your activities to resonate with Mother Earth's natural rhythms. She is, after all, your Mom and if she's too old or sick to look after you, well, you can imagine the denouement in that story!

For the people of Montreal Lake and LaRonge, it's not the right time for these thoughts. Far from the homes they love, afraid both for personal safety and for their futures, they can hardly be blamed right now for choosing to live where they live. But it must give all of us pause to know that the earth has always burned forests in the summer time, will always do so and if we're smart, we'll find ways to be less vulnerable to these events.

“Only YOU can prevent forest fires,” was Smokey the Bear's admonition. Well no, unless you can prevent lightning, that is.

Winners and Losers

I used to think that with a bit more effort we could all get along even if we didn't agree on . . . well, whatever. I'm not so sure anymore. 

In some cases the principle of disagree, discuss, negotiate, compromise and move ahead while agreeing-to-disagree does produce peace. Take in our case: making a life change became obvious to both of us so we discussed options a lot, disagreed sometimes on which were the superior choices, explored them together and finally made a choice that seemed to answer most of our hoped-for outcomes. Not all, by a long shot, but most. 

The responsibility for the choice is shared. No one will be blamed if the outcome proves unsatisfactory.

But the ability to compromise, the willingness to accept a decision that doesn't match one's own is not equally distributed. We grow up adopting a “more conservative” or “more liberal” worldview—for arguments sake—and our willingness to negotiate as opposed to insisting is influenced by that. Furthermore, personality differences obviously account for some people's ability to accept a second or third preference and move on while others feel compelled to terminate a relationship if their preferred choice doesn't prevail.

Going into any negotiation with the conviction that there is only one acceptable outcome is to embark on a journey going nowhere. Worldviews do change, but far too slowly to accommodate critical, emerging issues.

I still feel a twinge of happiness when I see that the Montreal Canadiens are doing well; others have similar feelings about the Maple Leafs. But these are differences of opinion that don't require compromise; Habs and Leaf fans have been known to get along just fine, even intermarry successfully. But this example serves to illustrate that loyalties to a team, for instance, are pretty enduring impulses even when the object of such loyalty has changed so much that the continued allegiance makes little sense . . . logically.

If we think of a political party or a church denomination as a team, surely this curious and often undeserved feeling of loyalty and belonging must play a role when disagreements need to be resolved. We have invested a lot over a long time and we want so badly for “our side” to win. Compromising, giving in, being out-voted become bitter emotional pills, hard to swallow.

We're approaching a federal election campaign and the “join our team and win” ads and pronouncements will assail us for the next 3½ months or so. The majority of us will make our election-day choice on the basis of enduring team loyalties, many having decided long before the differences in policies have become manifest. But there will be a minority who never developed such enduring allegiances; perhaps they never had much interest or enthusiasm for hockey, or politics, or church. It's they who will decide the winners and losers in October and it's the majority who will be either deflated or jubilant at the result.

Harmony is not to be expected. It's too dependent on the presence and depth of loyalties, the flexibility or recalcitrance of the personalities involved and the nature of the negotiation when an issue needs to be resolved. Living well despite the chaos that characterizes human interaction ought probably be high on the list of educational priorities. In other words, we need to learn how to drum winners and losers out of our negotiating vocabularies.

This isn't easy; I did so want the Habs to win the Stanley Cup.

Earth, People, Energy

Energy. It's one of the most intractable preoccupations of world governments these days.

We learned in high school physics that you can't make energy; you can capture it, you can store it but you can't make it. Nature stores the sun's energy in ingenious ways: in the berries we pick and eat, in the coal and oil in the ground, in the wind that drives dynamos, in the snows that fall on mountain tops to melt in the spring and rush down again to drive hydro generators.

Two days ago, we made a quick trip to Saskatoon, I hosted a museum tour, we packed and hauled several carloads of stuff to the condo and by evening, any energy I had captured through eating and stored in my muscles had been spent and I was running on empty. What I was feeling is what the earth is feeling; too much energy demand, not enough charge in the batteries.

But my case was renewable. I could eat stored energy, rest to let my batteries be recharged with it and get up to face another day.

The problem is not so much that we can't capture and store energy enough to move our cars and trucks and trains and airplanes, it's that the processes required to capture and store it threaten to destroy us: greenhouse gasses that contribute to global warming, pollution that makes air in China and Mexico city unbreathable, methane gas release that contaminates water supplies, destruction of arable land and life-giving forests.

So the challenge governments face is to capture more and more energy to satisfy the burgeoning demands of a growing population while cutting back on those processes that are—in the end—robbing Peter to pay Paul. 

We've made considerable strides in reducing our demands as in more energy-efficient homes, cars that consume less fuel per kilometre, light bulbs that provide more light energy and less heat energy, etc. But I'm pretty sure that the solution for phasing out fossil fuel energy consumption will require two things: a more serious effort to switch to non-polluting wind, sun and tides energy and a massive tax on energy use so that individual households and industries are actually required to reduce consumption or face significant consequences.

B.C.'s carbon tax is a move in that direction but if Naomi Klein (This Changes Everything) is right, the cap and trade alternative is a farce, a way to put a better face on industrial pollution without actually reducing world carbon emissions appreciably. The NDP government in Alberta has just announced tax disincentives to make carbon dioxide emitters get serious about reducing their contributions to global warming.

 

We all want to be comfortable and happy, entertained and “massaged.” For some, for instance, that currently means flying to exotic places and warm beaches whenever means and schedules allow. This won't be possible in a post fossil fuel, energy-efficient world. At present, it's only an option for the top 10% (more or less) of world citizens, the same 10% that are consuming multiples of actually-required energy.

In the future world, people won't live in massive detached homes; condos and apartments require far less energy per person than stand-alone homes. They may not own cars but rely instead on commuter trains to get them to work.

Question is, can we be happy living and working closer to home? Can we relearn what it means to take pleasure in small things, in making music, in community dances, in the parks and flower beds just across the road, in a new kind of culture that is far less demanding of energy stored in the earth than on energy delivered daily by a sun that has never yet failed to shine on us?

Can we rediscover the community that actually includes our next-door neighbours?

2,300 is 2,300 too many

An anemone of Hope and Peace

“More than 2,300 Afghan soldiers, police and pro-government fighters have been killed since the start of the year — more than the total number of U.S. troops killed since the 2001 invasion that ended Taliban rule.”

Sometimes what's reported as a minor detail in a news story grabs you like an epiphany. The casualty figure above was part of a narrative about an attack on the Afghan parliament by the Taliban yesterday. All seven insurgents were killed; no Afghan fighters or civilians died in this particular attack but the number of dead Afghan soldiers and police who've died since January—2,300—gives pause. 2,300 is the approximate population of the bustling little town I live in plus it's nearest neigbour village.

Well, you might say, that's not so many. What's the big deal?

Being members of the Afghan army and police, I'm guessing that these were all, or nearly all, men. I'm guessing further that they had families, so it's obvious that at least 2,300 families lost a father or brother, son or son-in-law. Picture this number as men lined up in rows of 100, 23 rows ranged on a soccer field, then strafe them with machine gun fire from the stands until all are dead.

It doesn't seem like such a minor number illustrated this way. It's more than the total number of US soldiers killed in the 2001-2014 fight to oust the Taliban from power though. Canada lost 158 military personnel in that war, so just a row and a half of fathers, sons, sisters, mothers, brothers and sons-in-law, daughters-in-law.

Canada has recently been a participant in Western military interference in Afghanistan, Libya and now, Iraq/Syria. It seems a fair question to ask: has our military involvement in these places rendered the lives of civilians better, unchanged or worse? Libya is in a state of murderous anarchy, Iraq is dealing poorly with a growing ISIS that makes the Taliban look like a consortium of Sunday School teachers and Afghanistan, although not governed by the Taliban, must deal with their insurgent threat on a daily basis.

Apparently only the NDP and the Green Party have dealt with this question thoughtfully. So far, Harper hasn't got past the simplistic paradigm that there are only two choices: bomb ISIS or do nothing. Trudeau's position on this is similar to that on Bill C-51: appear as much as possible to be on both sides of the question lest a genuine decision should turn out to be electorally unpopular. Thomas Mulcair and Elizabeth May have seen some daylight on this: military involvement by us in foreign wars has historically contributed little more than the appearance of strength and resolve. Contrarily, the best propaganda for ISIS may well be the fact of Western powers dropping bombs on their country.

No, 2,300 is not a big number as far as war statistics generally are concerned. But to be blasé about even one death deliberately inflicted is to abrogate our responsibility as peace builders and pursuers of justice—and to throw in our passive lot with the Harperites and Bushes of this world. 

Claiming to follow Jesus and taking the high road that he took presents a true test of courage. 

Black and White America

A few days ago Rachel Dolezal's parents (who are white) outed their daughter (who was passing herself off as black) and the media feeding frenzy was on. That is, until Neil MacDonald of the CBC put some perspective on the thing in a piece titled Why can't Rachel Dolezal be as black as she wants to be?
 
People identify with—even pass themselves off as members of—cultures and groups to which they don't belong by birthright. Take Grey Wolf, for instance, an Englishman who passed himself off as Aboriginal for years. 

And then there are the politicians who pretend to be leaders by reeling off talking-points with a show of confidence, or people with little applicable skill pretending to be teachers, doctors, etc.
 

The furor over Dolezal's story indicates once again that the most important marker of identity in America is race.

I remember my older brother participating in a quartet that performed Stephen Foster songs at a community event. They blackened their faces with . . . I'm not sure what. The practice of blackfacing and performing in a way that comically presented the stereotypes of the descendents of slaves grew up in the USA and was called minstrel show, or minstrelsy. Click HERE to read more about this practice.

In South Carolina, a 21 year-old walked into a black church yesterday, apparently sat in the pews for an hour or so and then stood up and shot and killed 9 people. He was white, they were black. Reports so far suggest that they were shot only because they were black; the perpetrator had a history of expressing white-supremacist sentiments.

It's difficult for me to imagine what changes would have to occur in the USA in order to turn it from a black and white country to one in which race is no longer the divisive identity marker that it is today. Perhaps a massive crisis would do it, some catastrophe that would make everyone dependent on cooperation for survival. I've heard that people who find themselves in life and death situations lose sensitivity to racial or ethnic distinctions . . . at least until the crisis has passed. 

Dolezal claims that although she may not be black biologically, she is black culturally. That is, she's come to identify primarily with the American black sub-culture. And we all know that owning a satisfying identity is enormously important to a person's mental health.

Denying people a satisfactory identity is a sure-fire formula for deviance, even violence. “Who steals my purse steals trash,” Iago says in Shakespeare's Othello. One might well add, “who steals my identity, however, robs me of my most precious treasure.”

I'm with MacDonald on this. If Dolezal has come to feel more at home in black circles than in the culture into which she was born, what in heavens name is the problem?

Miller, Milgaard, Fisher and 'pure evil'

TESSIE, WHO HARBOURS NO EVIL THOUGHTS WHATSOEVER

Many of us remember it. It was 1992. The question of David Milgaard's responsibility for the rape and murder of Gail Miller in an alley off Avenue O in Saskatoon was reopened in the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC). Milgaard had spent 23 years in jail for that murder, but emerging new evidence seemed to point to possible errors in his conviction.

The newly-developed ability to connect perpetrators to their crimes through DNA evidence was finally a clincher in proving that it was not David Milgaard but Larry Fisher who was guilty of the brutal attack on Miller. Fisher was eventually convicted of the crime, even though he had appeared before the SCC as a witness only, and was sentenced to life in prison.

Fisher died in prison this week.

An abbreviated story of the dramatic turn-around in which a witness became a suspect can be read HERE. Under questioning by Milgaard's lawyer, Hersh Wolch, Fisher was led to set the stage for his own conviction.

The same article on the CBC website quotes Wolch in a later interview as saying: "My impression was that [Fisher] was pure evil." My understanding of the comment is that Wolch saw in Fisher only evil thought and action, uncontaminated by any trace of goodness or kindness. Pure in other words.

The choice of that adjective is interesting, if odd.

It's no accident that if you add a “d” before evil, you get “devil,” the immortal, anti-god of religious tradition who is blamed for urging humanity to undo what is good and replace it with hate and violence. Anthropomorphised in mythology into a horned creature with a lashing tail, the contradiction of his immortal nature technically admitting to two gods in a monotheistic faith seems to have been lost.

We're generally past the time of diagnosing pathological mental illness as “demon possession,” although for some strains of Christian religion, that view of evil persists in part because scriptures reinforce it. (eg. Gaderene swine episode; for a dark painting by Briton Riviere of this event in Mark 5:1-13, click HERE.) The treatment of sociopathy and psychopathy could never have developed until that mythology had been abandoned. That Larry Fisher suffered from psychopathy is hardly in doubt; that it was not suspected and diagnosed before he went on his rampage of rape and violence is the weak link in our understanding of what goes wrong in the minds of men and women.

Evil obviously conjures images of a leering Satan when used as a noun. As an adjective, it has its place. Larry Fisher was not “pure evil”; had he been raised attentively and with an eye to his developing exploitative, cruel behaviour, Gail Miller's life might have been saved. A number of women would not have experienced his brutal attacks.

Some would urge treatment of people like Fisher with exorcism, some with drugs or other therapies. Our current government thinks the correct treatment is severe punishment, the problem with that being that punishment always follows the evil act, contributes nothing to prevention.

For Milgaard, Miller and now Fisher, all the potential options have gone under the bridge. Sad beyond belief.

"The Star-spangled Banner" . . . and all that

Found Beauty

“Quebecois pretend not to know English just to irritate you when you're buying gas there,” and “Americans don't know anything about Canada.”

Two of my pet-peeve urban myths.

The latter myth was “illustrated” by a CBC story about a Jeopardy category involving Canadian cities in which the American contestants got not one answer correct. I'm skeptical about this proving anything; the clues were pretty abstruse: "An intersection in this provincial capital is the original western terminus of the Trans-Canada Highway." I would have said “Vancouver?” and I would have been wrong—it's Victoria. I guess I was blind-sided by the “highway” word so that I missed the “provincial capital” phrase. 

Highways don't generally cross features like the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Another question asked for the name of a Canadian city whose inhabitants were called “Moose Javians,” and I wondered how many Canadians would have known the answer. Another depended on your knowledge of Shakespeare and his city—Stratford upon Avon—to come up with Stratford, Ontario which is also located on a River Avon.

The myth of American congenital ignorance about Canada came up in one of my adult ed classes. I countered it by asking them questions about the USA: “If you drove straight south into the USA from Westlock (where the class was), which state would you be in?” Nobody knew. I could have countered with “It would be Montana, and what is the capital city of Montana?” I wonder how many Canadians know that it's Helena.

It's pretty easy to show that Americans ignorance about Canada is equalled—and possibly exceeded—by Canadians lack of knowledge about the USA.

As regards the myth about Quebecois pretending to be French-only, I'd remind people that the majority of English Canada is also uni-lingual. I live across the river from St. Isidore de Bellevue, a French-speaking village, and I'm totally incapable of conversing with them in their language. Am I pretending when they come through Rosthern and ask me for directions in French?

Such myths encourage stereotyping, and stereotyping is one of the scourges of our age. In police forces, it results in profiling so that the majority of people stopped for questioning in the street by the police are black or aboriginal young men. In the general public, it restricts individuals in minorities from involvement in the affairs of the community; if one is stereotyped, profiled, judgements are made about you by people who don't even know you. You're pre-judged, the origin of our word, prejudice.

To sum up: the range of ignorance/knowledge among Americans is very similar to that of Canadians, and French Canadians who can't help me out in the English language are no different from me, who can't be helpful to them in French.

Shame on the CBC for reprofiling Americans on the basis of one category in one Jeopardy episode.

Slippery Slopes

Cookies

I've never held much with “slippery-slope” arguments. The kinds that say if we make one small change, it will lead to other changes of greater magnitude and like a snowball rolling down a hill (slippery slope??) will gain momentum and size and the world will go to hell in a handcart.

But there are slippery-slope cases in our history and in our current reality that are either getting—or ought to be—real attention and action.

Today Justice Murray Sinclair presents the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The report will show that what appeared to be a solution to the “Indian problem” for fully 100 years turned out to be a thinly-veiled conspiracy to commit what is now called “cultural genocide.” Residential schools alienated children from their parents, parenting practices with thousands of years of history behind them were disrupted, destroyed, it's effects echoing down the hills of time to the present—and likely beyond. That decision to use education to “take the Indian out of the man” represented a true slippery-slope turning point in our history.

Another item in the news today should probably be given some serious slippery-slope analysis. World unemployment is rising, the reliance on part time work, handouts and low-paying, meaningless work for survival is on the increase world wide. Globalization, free-trade agreements, have meant that jobs can go anywhere in the world, and generally to the poorest areas where desperation has meant that people either work for a pittance or content themselves with nothing at all. 

Failing to check the corporatization of industry and government was a “small change” that was a snowball at the top of a slippery slope. It's not a precursor for global peace, is it? Here in Canada, the attack by industry and governments on trade unions is symbolic of a process having the effect of enriching upper classes by shrinking the possibilities of those who do the work.

The worst unemployment rates are in the Middle East and in Northern Africa, according to Brian Stewart. These are also the regions where uprisings and insurgencies are decimating populations, creating massive refugee problems and rendering states ungovernable. Although we blame "evil people" like ISIS (ISIL?) and Al Qaeda for the problems, the turmoil may be nothing more nor less than a logical conclusion to decisions made earlier, decisions that failed to recognize potential slippery-slope effects.

As regards Truth and Reconciliation in Canada, another failure to reset the relationship between First Nations and the Canadian government will undoubtedly have quite predictable effects down the road. It's up to us settler-citizens to make sure that the recommendations of the Commission are seriously addressed.

The most pernicious aspect of slippery slopes is that once you start the slide down one, it's damned hard to stop yourself.

Garage Sales and Soccer

For Sale: 25 cents Or Best Offer

Sunday morning. Town's quiet. Our B & B guests are getting acquainted over omelets and toast.

When God declared a Sabbath for rest from our labours, I don't think he had in mind the rigours of garage sales and soccer.

Rosthern's population doubled on Saturday. The under-8s and under-10s soccer tournament brought in 600 kids along with parents and brothers and sisters. We and about a dozen other residents had determined that it would be a great weekend for garage sales and some of our customers had made a day of it. Two office chairs went to the Prud'homme Library, for instance, carried back home by a soccer mom.

I'm not sure what's behind the impulse to frequent garage sales. It's apparent to me that some (hoarders maybe?) come out with a few dollars and a hope that they'll be able to fill their trunks with neat stuff for next to nothing. Some are looking for treasure and some actually need items that are bound to appear once in a while at a good price. 

Others, I'm convinced, are voyeurs; garage sales give them an opportunity to snoop into private lives. It's obviously a simple diversion for others: the Garage Sailors.

I remember driving through Somerset county on a leisurely Sunday and seeing a “Boot Sale” sign pointing toward a meadow with cars parked in two rows. “Need boots?” I asked Agnes, but it was curiosity that made us turn off. The cars had their “boots” open, of course, from which they were selling, well, the same kind of stuff we sell at garage sales.

Another version of the flea market, a concept older than Dickens.

We live in an age where recycling, reducing and reusing are taken for granted. Our landfill sites are bursting with our 'stuff' and our resources are depleting. To see a table we can no longer use go to someone for whom “it's perfect!” provides some satisfaction, even if the item cost $300.00 and you're selling it for $50.00. And the office chairs will do well for Prud'homme's library, especially since, like all libraries, they're starved for cash.

A young boy—probably about 12—picked out a book for which he paid $0.50; it was a very old German, Mennonite hymnbook. I didn't get that. Maybe he liked the smell or the heft of it.

Another man said he'd decided to spend $5.00 but so far had only reached $4.00. He was looking for another $1.00 item to add to his cache. I didn't get that either. We had plenty of change.

Anyway, meeting people has to be the highlight of sitting on your driveway for two days like children with a hopeful lemonade stand. The 8-year old soccer stars in their cleats and knee socks cuddling the stuffed animals with which our kids used to play, well, that's priceless.

Murphy's Law of Soccer and Garage Sales reads as follows: Put on a garage sale or tournament and clouds will gather, the temperature will drop and the wind will pick up. The forecast for the Sunday after: sunny with a light breeze and seasonal temperatures.

I think we sold a few blankets to moms watching the soccer from the sidelines.