Honduras: hypocrisy as an art form

Did you know that ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya threatened democracy by trying to get rid of presidential term limits? Already this is gaining the status of a meme.

It's not only the usual crazies, who will support any coup so long as it's against the Left, and are happy to have the people ruled by unelected dictators and the army to preserve democracy. Now it's the mainstream press as well. The Globe & Mail weighs in this morning about the advisability of term limits--it's for them in Honduras, and against them here.

First, what did the deposed president actually do? Canadian Cynic did a little digging, and this is what he found:

The text message that beeped on my cell phone this morning read “Alert, Zelaya has been kidnapped, coup d’etat underway in Honduras, spread the word.” It’s a rude awakening for a Sunday morning, especially for the millions of Hondurans that were preparing to exercise their sacred right to vote today for the first time on a consultative referendum concerning the future convening of a constitutional assembly to reform the constitution. Supposedly at the center of the controversy is today’s scheduled referendum, which is not a binding vote but merely an opinion poll to determine whether or not a majority of Hondurans desire to eventually enter into a process to modify their constitution.

Such an initiative has never taken place in the Central American nation, which has a very limited constitution that allows minimal participation by the people of Honduras in their political processes. The current constitution, written in 1982 during the height of the Reagan Administration’ s dirty war in Central America, was designed to ensure those in power, both economic and political, would retain it with little interference from the people. Zelaya, elected in November 2005 on the platform of Honduras’ Liberal Party, had proposed the opinion poll be conducted to determine if a majority of citizens agreed that constitutional reform was necessary. He was backed by a majority of labor unions and social movements in the country. If the poll had occurred, depending on the results, a referendum would have been conducted during the upcoming elections in November to vote on convening a constitutional assembly. Nevertheless, today’s scheduled poll was not binding by law. In fact, several days before the poll was to occur, Honduras’ Supreme Court ruled it illegal, upon request by the Congress, both of which are led by anti-Zelaya majorities and members of the ultra-conservative party, National Party of Honduras (PNH).

Well, let's also add that, according to various opinion polls, President Zelaya had a public approval rating of about 30%, or so we are told. The reference is probably to this CID-Gallup poll that shows him at 34%, although, on closer inspection, all is not what it seems. Nevertheless, just for the sake of argument, let's assume that this result is accurate: recall that Zelaya won his 2005 election with just under half of the popular vote.

What, then, do we have? A president who doesn't simply declare that he's staying on, but wants to go to the people to see what they think about constitutional change. The referendum, after the Honduran Supreme Court made some noise, would have been legally non-binding. It was not about term limits specifically, but about the advisability of convening a constitutional assembly to mull over constitutional reform in general.

All very rule-of-law-ish, or so it seems to me. And if term limits were to be abolished as a result of those deliberations, Zelaya, at 34% in the polls, wouldn't exactly be going into the next election with a huge head of steam.

In the event, in time-dishonoured Latin American fashion, soldiers entered his residence firing rifles, and he was ejected from the country. But there were important differences: he wasn't shot dead on the spot, like Chile's President Salvador Allende, and the US actually opposed the coup, joining in the near-universal chorus of denunciation.

Er-r, hold on a moment--what do we have here? The Organization of American States has suspended Honduras. But:

Canada and the United States worked closely together to moderate OAS actions in regard to the coup. According to the [New York] Times, the two countries dissuaded the hemispheric body from adopting sanctions and persuaded it to settle for a milder resolution encouraging member countries to "review their relations" while diplomatic efforts continued.

Oh-oh. Is that wheels within wheels I see before me? We'll all cluck with disapproval for a while, but heaven forbid we actually take any action to force Honduras back onto the democratic path. I almost missed that, way down at para. 16 on page A9 in the Globe, although it was, admittedly, front and centre in the New York Times. In Bush's day, leftish Presidents were bundled onto planes and exiled. Under Obama, we'll just let diplomacy do the trick.

Back to the sinuous arguments in today's Globe editorial. Zelaya, shrieks the editorialist, used "machinations" (beware of those, as any kid with a Transformer knows) to attempt to insert a "generalissimo clause" in the Honduran constitution. Since the point at issue was abolishing term limits, which means removing a clause, this allegation makes no sense. But then, propaganda doesn't really have to.

Asking the people what they think, possibly convening a constitutional assembly to look at the constitution as a whole, and all this with a 34% approval rating, is a "return to authoritarianism," a "blow against the rule of law," "Chavez-style lifetime rule." Zelaya wanted to "extend [his] rule indefinitely," but of course we aren't reminded that it is the lukewarm Honduran electorate who would or would not be doing the extending. Bursting into his house with guns blazing and kicking him out of the country was simply a response to all these threats and menaces. Maybe a little extreme, mind you:

Mr. Zelaya should be restored to office, but if that happens he must also make explicit that he will uphold the constitutional provisions on term limits. The principle he was toying with changing is fundamental to democracy in executive-style presidencies.

Term limits are admittedly quite common around the world, but Honduras' single four-year term stands alone. Canada, however, has no such thing; nor Britain, nor Japan, nor India.

Of course we don't have an "executive-style presidency": it's far too inefficient. Obama, poor man, is not only restricted to two terms: he can't even put a cabinet together without congressional approval. Or pick a Supreme Court justice. Here Stephen Harper picks his cabinet and appoints whomever he likes to the bench and the Senate and fires supposedly independent agency heads at will. He's not the head of state, although he seems to think he is, but the Governor General, by tradition, takes his advice.

The Prime Minister of Canada, in other words, is far more powerful than most of those executive-style presidents, and he doesn't have pesky term limits standing in his way, but the Globe & Mail has nothing to say about any of that. It dares, however, to set out the terms and conditions for the return of Honduras to democracy: the president must not try to bring about constitutional change, says the editorialist, even by democratic means.

Not that he's likely to get the chance, of course. Which is really the whole point of the politicking and counter-politicking currently going on--not to mention the drafting of countless hand-wringing excuses for a classic South American coup.

Monuments

It seems that this self-satirizing government of ours is planning a memorial to the victims of Communism. I suppose there's nothing wrong with raising the consciousness of those who have not experienced the excesses of Stalinism first-hand, but it does seem oddly selective.

I was a member for some time of the Friends of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, the latter being volunteers who fought on the side of the Republic during the Spanish Civil War. The FBI had a wonderful term for these men--"premature anti-fascists." You only get to be anti-fascist, you see, when the government says it's OK, and at the time of that war a lot of governments weren't sure. Some battle-hardened veterans of the Mac-Paps weren't even permitted to join up when the Second World War was declared. National security or some-such.

Our group tried--in vain--to have these veterans recognized officially by the Canadian government, so that the dwindling number of them could qualify for benefits--and, more importantly, recognition. We were unsuccessful. At least we managed to have a memorial put up near the Department of Foreign Affairs in 2001. By that time there were scarcely a dozen of these brave people alive. Only three--of the original 1600--were able to attend the unveiling. The then-Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson, participated unofficially.

The struggle in which these volunteers took part was thus remembered. A monument against fascism? One, I would say, of many that do, or should already, exist. But it has specificity, a place and time: it commemorates real people with real names. It's not a memorial that lacks all human reference, in spite of its claims, and becomes just another abstract, ideological weapon of war.

It's pointless counting victims and saying that one form of totalitarianism is worse than another. One wrongful death is too many. All totalitarianisms are a perversion of the human spirit. But the National Post and the Harper government are picking and choosing. One must wonder why this would be the case. Don't the millions of victims of the Axis powers count?

And what, as my fellow-blogger Chrystal Ocean rightly asks, about the millions more victims of neoliberalism, a doctrine not officially recognized as totalitarian, who died because of deep slashes in social services demanded of Third World nations by the IMF and the World Bank in various "restructuring programs?" What of the countless victims of imperialism--two million Vietnamese alone, for example, killed during the Vietnam War?

I'd be first in line to support a monument to all the victims of twentieth-century political inhumanity--and the many lessons we failed to learn. But that's not what's on the horizon.

Here's what the chief proponent of the memorial, one Zuzana Hahn, has to say:

The Jews have been so verbal, and would not let us forget. But when you talk to people about communism ... many feel, 'oh, it wasn't so bad.'

Why, those pushy Jews! And for Ukrainian nationalist Lubomyr Luciuk, about whom I've written before, even a memorial is insufficient--nothing less than a museum will do.

Needless to say, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney, who wears his politics on his sleeve, is hot to trot on this one. Why not have another run at the ethnic vote?

In the meantime, an important truth is being lost. Easy explanations of the human condition kill people. Lots of people. There is nothing inherently murderous in the Marxist notion of equality and class struggle, as there is, almost by definition, in the fascist view of humanity. But even the vision of the Communist Manifesto, in the hands of malign, grotesque boobs like Josef Stalin, can be turned into its opposite: national chauvinism, mass slaughters on a formerly inconceivable scale, mind control, amoral bureaucracy.

And neoliberalism, a doctrine of the privileged First World that has wreaked havoc upon the peoples of the Third World, was not intended to kill. Not all of its progenitors were cynical and ruthless: they believed in capitalism and its oh-so-wonderful benefits, and then they discovered what they had done. Some of them, anyway.

Perhaps a healthier discussion might focus on learning from mistakes--vast, monstrous mistakes--and figuring out how we might move ahead with humane values and new and genuinely accountable forms of governance. Fighting the long-dead Cold War with ideological memorials to nameless victims is not only anachronistic: it intercepts a debate whose time has surely come, and seeks to co-opt it for crass partisan purposes. Can we not think about building new forms of democracy at this point in our history, rather than erecting blank gravestones?

Godwin Sunday

Gosh. There seems to be some pushback from regular readers at the very suggestion that Stephen Harper has the authoritarian tendencies made infamous by Il Duce and his early supporter F. T. Marinetti.

A private portrait gallery and taking himself for the head of state are symptomatic, but, no, it really can't happen here. I thought my hed gave the game away, but obviously not.

If fascism were to come to Canada, to paraphrase Halford Luccock (not Huey Long), it wouldn't be marked by a swastika or even called fascism, but would be entirely Canadian. Yet, like "liberal fascism," that oxymoronic (and I add "oxy-" only out of courtesy) conservative diversion that has already jumped the shark, "Canadian fascism" is somewhat of a contradiction in terms. In case it needs to be said, it takes more than one jumped-up Calgarian to establish a corporate state and build death camps. Even some of Harper's red-meat base might be heard to mutter if such things were mooted. And anyway, Bernie Farber simply wouldn't have it.

So let us leave, then, the alternate universe in which Canada, somehow struggling out of its winter clothes, its diverse national identities, its history of compromise and moderation enforced by countless civic watchdogs, becomes One Empire and One People, under One Leader. This one:





















Let's turn, instead, to professional car racing. Quite a different story. Rife with fascism.

No, I'm not making a snide reference to NASCAR and its fan base. I'm referring, of course, to the elite ranks in the world of speed, Formula One.

Once again, F.T. Marinetti had it taped a hundred years ago. Here are points 4 and 5 of his Futurist Manifesto:

4. We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.

5. We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses the earth, itself hurled along its orbit.

And today we have Formula One's President, Bernie Ecclestone, saying that Adolf Hitler, whatever his peccadillos, was a go-to guy, a fellow who "got things done." (Hard to argue with that, actually: the most destructive war in history, the Holocaust, the humiliation and division of Germany, second-rate watercolours...the list goes on and on.)

Apparently Ecclestone--who once said that women should dress in white "like other domestic appliances"--believes that democracy "hasn't done a lot of good for many countries--including this one [Britain]."

"In a lot of ways, terrible to say this I suppose, but apart from the fact that Hitler got taken away and persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not, he was in the way that he could command a lot of people, able to get things done," he said.

"In the end he got lost, so he wasn't a very good dictator."

Bernie Farber was so taken aback by this that he sounded for all the world like a Speech Warrior™: "I think sometimes when you hold people up to the glare of public attention and let the people decide for themselves once they see what a person is all about, that sometimes is more than enough."

Ecclestone went on to express his preference for strong leaders. Margaret Thatcher. Saddam Hussein. Max Mosely, whom he thinks would make a great British Prime Minister.

Max Mosely?

He's the current president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, which regulates sports racing. He is also--I am rubbing my eyes as I write this--the son of Oswald Mosely. Yup, that Oswald Mosely. And, come to think of it, that Max Mosely, too.

Need I go on? Never mind old gaffers staggering around Latin America, and the current resurgence of the ultra-right in Austria and Italy. When fascism truly rises again, it will be driving a Maserati.

[h/t LuLu for reminding me of Max's unconventional pleasures]

Godwin Saturday

Why not? Let's juxtapose:

Projected costs of our war in Afghanistan 2009-2011 (bypassing the military censors and going straight to the newspapers): $2.981 billion.

Library and Archives Canada freezes purchases.

As Stephen Harper, taking a salute on July 1 reserved for the head of state, might opine: Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning." How soon before we see this strutting nonentity in a faux-military uniform resplendent with gold braid and a chestful of self-awarded decorations?

Back to the future? Here are points 9 and 10 from F.T. Marinetti's "Futurist Manifesto," 100 years old this year:

9. We want to glorify war - the only cure for the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.

10. We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.

Ah, well. First time as tragedy, second time as farce.

Brad Wall's Saskatchewan

...where the borders are straight and the ruling party is straighter.

If the Saskatchewan government get its way, certain public employees, whose salaries are paid by the residents of Saskatchewan, will be able to refuse to serve you if you're gay.

No word as yet whether Saskatchewan members of the Dutch Reformed Church will be permitted to refuse marriage to mixed-race couples.

Love, hate and the whole damned thing

Right-wingers have been having a bit of a time with a brash 22-year-old's Facebook comment, "F**k Canada Day." That raises a number of questions, for me at least.

How many Facebook throwaway lines are coughed up by smart-ass university students? How many of them get noticed? Why did this one get noticed?

Well, Omar Shaban is one of those Canadians with funny names. And he was, until a day or two ago, a Vice-President of the Canadian Arab Federation. The endlessly self-promoting Tarek Fatah, who knows his way around Facebook, pounced on Shaban's entry and sent it around to his media contacts, and the fat was soon in the fire.

The fact that it was a personal opinion didn't matter a damn. There were two strikes against this native-born Canadian from the start: his ethnicity and his public role. On the Web, the line between personal and public can admittedly get blurred, but in this case there was little question that he was acting on his own: the CAF reacted sharply, distancing itself from the comments in no uncertain terms, and a day later it had his resignation.

Didn't matter. The CAF was now the target. "Damage control," sniffs Rod Breakenridge. "To bite the hands of one's benefactor on the most symbolic day of the benefactor's year is a provocation that must not go unchallenged," shrieks the National Post's Barbara Kay. "Love it or leave it," howls the Calgary Herald.

The logic here escapes me, but the racism doesn't. The CAF hasn't exactly been shy about making controversial public utterances in the past. If Shaban had been speaking officially, we would not have witnessed this immediate response. Clearly he was not. But he gave the xenophobes an opening that they simply couldn't ignore. Shaban was no longer one callow youth with flapping lips, but Islamism, jihad, terrorism and birthrates all rolled into one.

Freedom of speech? That's for real Canadians. As far as people like Kay are concerned, the little brownskins should kiss the hand of their "benefactor" and just shut up. As for the aboriginal Canadians that Shaban was on about, many of whom might indeed find sorrow and not joy in Canada Day celebrations, Fatah says that was just a ruse. Why would he give a damn about aboriginals? Nobody else does.

A few years ago I recall being offended by hateful comments made by a gaggle of Islamist comeres on email. Canada was frequently referred to as "this filthy country." Vicious homophobic sentiments were uttered. "We hate Canada," said one sweetheart.

And then someone--Robert McClelland?--pointed out that this sort of thing is common-or-garden on the right side of the blogosphere. And, re-framed that way, he was absolutely right, of course. Squeeze out the ethnic aspect and you've got boring old conservative whinging.

Why aren't the Usual Suspects outraged by this, for example?

"I hate my country. Just in time for Canada Day!"

But that's different. And we all know why.

News from the mother of democracy

How the modern English constabulary deals with protest.

Hint: Don't go asking for a cop's badge number, dearie. That'll get you roughed up, jailed for four days and bogus charges into the bargain.

At least the victims weren't summarily executed on the spot. Or beaten to death.

[H/t Bob Thomson, Ottawa Witness Group]

In a mill with slaves

Thought I'd look in today on one of the world's more notorious open-air prisons.

• No building supplies permitted: people are living in rubble. Check.
  
  
• The kids need shoes, but shoes may not be imported. Check.
  
  
• Shampoo with conditioner held back--conditioner not allowed. Check.
  
  
• The prison population, 1.4 million people, get 60% of the food they need. Check.
  

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees has issued an alarm. But Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor isn't impressed:

What truly defies logic and rationality is the stubborn insistence of UNRWA to turn their back on reality by repeatedly refusing to call things by their real name and indicate the heavy responsibility of Hamas' belligerence in bringing about the current situation. [Emphasis added.]

OK, I'll play. Let's "call things by their real name."

It's six months now since the Israeli attack on Gaza took place. Amnesty International has now released a comprehensive report on the conflict, in which 1400 Palestinians were killed, and 13 Israelis.

How does "war crime" sound? Or "on-going violations of international law?" (Articles 33 and 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to be exact.)

Last word to Gideon Levy:

The mass experiment on human beings has failed miserably; two years is enough time to determine this. Not one of the siege's aims have been achieved and the damage is only piling up, perhaps for all eternity. Folly and malevolence, a fairly common combination, have melded into one of Israel's most fateful mistakes. Even if we leave aside the moral aspect of the inhumane and illegal siege, it is no longer possible to ignore its stupidity as a policy. Shalit has not been released - no siege is going to free him. Hamas has not fallen - the group is only more firmly establishing its regime. And above all, a new reality is developing before our eyes that is worse for Israel than all its predecessors.

The siege has splintered the Palestinian people even more. This is not the first time Israel has split up the Palestinians: Since 1948 it has been systematically separating Palestinians from Palestinians, dividing and ruling. The diaspora abroad, the refugees in the Arab countries, the inhabitants of the territories, the Arabs of East Jerusalem and the Arabs of Israel - sometimes members of a single family - are developing into separate splinter peoples.

Now the next splintering has come along, the most stupid of all: the split between Gaza and the West Bank. While Israel is preventing Gaza from having any connection with the West Bank, it complains that there is no Palestinian partner. While we are strengthening the Hamas regime, thanks to the siege's hardships and the wrongs of Operation Cast Lead, we are lamenting "the Hamastan in Gaza." And what would happen if Israel were to lift the siege, enable the reconstruction and bring Gaza and the West Bank closer together? A huge disaster; a chance for moderation.

Leave aside, then, the moral aspect - it doesn't have any takers in Israel. But what about good sense? What is Israel getting out of the siege, apart from the enjoyment of the other side's suffering and another stage in its disintegration? Yasser Arafat was too strong, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is too weak and now there is a new ray of hope for all the spoilers: The Palestinians are split and there's no one to talk to.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

...the cowboys are up to their usual tricks.

CSIS is in the dung again for withholding information from the courts. Another day, another brown Muslim. Haven't we seen this movie before?

Damn. I wanted to stay positive this day.

But here's yet another citizen encountering passport difficulties. Suaad Mohamud Haji, jailed and now stranded in Kenya for weeks. Consular officials dragging their feet. Guess what colour and religion she is?

I love this country. But its governance at present is quite a different story.

[H/t Amir Attaran and Croghan27]

The best Canada Day ever

...and it's only the afternoon.

A picture of two immigrants on Canada Day, each, in his own way, feeling fortunate to be here.

Lunch with Abousfian Abdelrazik, his pro bono lawyers and other supporters, including MP Paul Dewar and Project Fly Home activists. Bringing him back was a collective act of citizenship at its finest.

Yavar Hameed, a key lawyer in the case, was born on Canada Day. Abousfian came up from Montreal to help him celebrate it, and brought in the cake, with lit candles, and a vast smile on his face, as we sang Happy Birthday.

How many traditions were so easily intertwined in this one event?

Later Yavar picked up the guitar and showed us that he could, if he wanted, give up his day job. :)




In Montreal, since he arrived back home, Abousfian likes to go for long, long walks.

Happy Canada Day, everyone.

Happy Canada Day

I expect to have a longer post this afternoon after a rather special lunch, but in the meantime, what could be more quintessentially Canadian than this Globe & Mail headline?

Canada at 142: We're Inferior No More.

Good grief.

Hate speech is hate speech

Are all haters treated equally in this fair land?

Here are two cases, one of which, I admit, has been bothering me for some time. This was a complaint brought to the Canadian Human Rights Commission by conservative blogger Marc Lebuis. His site is so over-the-top Islamophobic that I confess I didn't read his complaint at first with any thoroughness. But here it all is, and I think he had a point.

The complaint was rejected out of hand. Admittedly, we shouldn't mix apples and oranges: Stephen Boissoin, against whom a complaint of homophobia was upheld, was before the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal, not the CHRC. But I was surprised, nonetheless, given the sheer ferocity of Imam Abou Hammaad Sulaiman Dameus Al-Hayiti's written comments, that the matter didn't proceed to a hearing.

Now we have this charming fellow, one Salman Hossein, who has just escaped prosecution under Canada's hate legislation. Again, comparisons may be unhelpful: this was under consideration as a criminal matter, not a complaint before the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which might have fared better. And yet we recall the relentless prosecution of aging David Ahenakew for uttering one burst of hatred to a reporter, because of which he lost his reputation and his membership in the Order of Canada, and was before the courts for years.

What Hossein and Al-Hayiti have put on the public record is foul, undisguised, unmitigated hatred. Did they merely manage to dance miraculously through the judicial raindrops without getting wet--or do the Usual Suspects have, for once, a valid point?

Needless to say, the latter are trying to make a case that fails to convince--i.e., that Islamists get a pass from our judicial system, the disparate parts of which are somehow in cahoots, and that anyway, Hossein and Al-Hayiti should be entirely free to say whatever they want.

I disagree. I will concede that there seems to be a yawning disparity here. But, unlike the Speech Warriors™, I think it should be resolved with the appropriate complaints and charges. Comments?

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...

...please welcome the new Senator from Minnesota.

Al Franken is in--a mere 239 days after he was elected. Senate Republican filibusters are out.

[H/t CC]

The Braidwood Chronicles: the squirming continues

The culture of impunity rides again.

Two of the four RCMP officers implicated in the death of Robert Dziekanski have launched an appeal of the BC Supreme Court judgement on June 15 that upheld the right of the Braidwood Inquiry to find misconduct on the part of the officers.

They are arguing that a provincial inquiry has no jurisdiction, because the RCMP is a federal institution.

Have they no shame whatsoever? Words fail me.