None is too many

Canada isn't the only place where having a "funny name"--like Abdelrazik, Mohamud, Khadr or Arar--can get you into trouble. Try visiting Israel if you have a name like that.

Canadian and American citizens with "Palestinian-sounding names" are now routinely denied entry into Israel at Ben Gurion National Airport, and told to use the Allenby land bridge from Jordan into the West Bank. But once they get there, their passports are stamped "Palestinian Authority only," and entry into Israel is still denied.

President Barack Obama isn't any too happy with this blatantly racist treatment of American citizens. A statement from the White House reads:

'The United States expects that [sic] all American citizens to be treated equally, regardless of their national origin. We have let the Government of Israel know that these restrictions unfairly impact Palestinian and Arab American travellers and are not acceptable."

But only silence, of course, from the Harper government. Because it knows how people with those Arab-sounding names should be treated--even its own citizens.

Foreign Affairs spokesman Rodney Moore has confirmed that the government "is aware of the new Israeli practice of stamping the passport of foreign nationals with a 'Palestinian Authority only' stamp." But it's not lifting a finger.

Meanwhile Israeli Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad proudly defends the new racist policy, confirming that there is a ban in place barring all Palestinians from entering Israel, regardless of what other citizenship they have.

Mohammed Sabawi is a Canadian businessman. He has traveled regularly to Israel for 15 years without restriction, and worked with Israeli businesses. Recently, as chronicled by the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, he was forced to take the long way around, entering Palestinian territory by way of the Allenby Bridge. But he was then refused entry to Israel because of his "Palestinian Authority only" passport stamp. Read the entire story here.

To its credit, even the Canada-Israel Committee, a pro-Israel lobby group, doesn't seem happy about the new ethnic rules. "We are seeking clarification," CEO Shimon Fogel said. "We will certainly follow up with the Israelis."

As for Canadians of Palestinian origin, who have not as yet had a "P" stamped in their passports by Foreign Affairs, a spokesman is wearily aware of the Harper government's malevolent indifference:

Monir ElRayes, president of the Association of Palestinian Arab Canadians, said he was saddened but not surprised by the stark disparity between the responses from Washington and Ottawa.

“The U.S. is committed to protecting all its citizens and not allowing them to be singled out for their religion or ethnic background,” he said from Ottawa.

“The Harper government wants to disown us even though we are citizens,” he added, citing the lengthening string of cases where non-white and Muslim Canadians facing difficulties overseas were refused help by Canadian diplomats.

“Sadly, this is very un-Canadian,” Mr. ElRayes said.

"Un-Canadian?" Are you kidding? Canada's New Government has delivered the government's new Canada. Welcome to it--unless, that is, you have a funny name.

Abdihakim Mohamed heading home

For Suaad Hagi Mohamud, it was her lips. For Abdihakim Mohamed, it was his ears. You get the feeling that facial recognition training for consular officials in Nairobi has something to do with Mr. Potato Head.

The good news is that Abdihakim Mohamed is coming home after three years in exile, riding in on Suaad Hagi Mohamud's coat-tails.

One beige Canadian at a time: the line seems to be getting shorter at last, thanks to media and the courts. Next: Omar Khadr?

"Bring on your Mohawk brothers!"

That was a lippy pencil-neck from Indian and Northern Affairs, squaring off in a meeting with a delegation from Attawapiskat, a remote northern Ontario reserve where living conditions have been going downhill for years. The members of the delegation had come to ask for help.

Life is not easy in Attawapiskat. The kids there have been fighting for a new school for years--the old one was built over a contaminated site. But under the "leadership" of Minister Chuck Strahl, who wears his contempt for First Nations people on his sleeve, nothing has moved.

More recently, 90 residents, whose homes have been flooded with sewage, had to be evacuated to Chapleau on the band's own nickel because INAC won't admit that there is a problem--even though Health Canada disagrees.

Today in a press conference in Ottawa, Chief Theresa Hall described the meeting yesterday with INAC officials in Toronto, during which they put their case for badly-needed assistance:

We were putting down our short term and long term goals, of all the issues that face Attawapiskat, but when I asked for the financial assistance for the evacuees they flatly said no. And then we decided there was no use sitting there trying to go on with the meeting. And someone made reference to someone, I believe it was Greg (Shisheesh) because he has family that’s Mohawk… he has Mohawk children. He then made reference to that family, that that family can’t visit him in Attawapiskat because he doesn’t have a home. And that’s when one of the INAC officials said "Well, bring on your Mohawk brothers." [emphasis added]

Asked to repeat, the official did so.The reference to Oka and Akwesasne was clear. Given Strahl's pathetic performance as Minister, it is no wonder that his own officials now feel emboldened to abandon all pretence of professionalism, and openly mock the people that INAC is supposed to be assisting.

Know what? Maybe the Mohawks should travel north--and stop in at Strahl's office on the way. Free coffee and fry-bread at my place. You listening, Shawn Brant?

[H/t Cameron]

Contempt of court [bumped]

"Just a regular guy." That would be

It was revealed during the trial that in October 2006, a woman in her 30s woke up in Alves's bed, bruised and bleeding after an evening at a downtown Vancouver nightclub.

The married woman — who cannot be identified — said she had no recollection of meeting Alves the night before.

Medical testing confirmed she had had sexual intercourse and found traces of alcohol and sedatives in her system.

The woman told the court her will to live had been drained because of what happened to her and that she was unable to feel safe or to be intimate with her husband.

In sentencing, the B.C. provincial court judge said Alves was not pathologically dangerous but had committed a crime of opportunity. [emphasis added]

The judge ordered that Alves be placed on the sex-offender registry for the next 20 years but that he not spend time in jail.

Sweet deal for a "prominent member of British Columbia's ball hockey community." (Sounds like a sick euphemism right about now, doesn't it?) Indeed, the man seems to live a charmed life: there has been a distinctly odd pattern of botched police investigations, police mistreatment of at least one victim, and in the end a plea-bargain and a wrist-slap.

But why am I blogging about this again? Because I've been doing a slow burn about the judge in the case. It's routine for the identity of a victim of sexual assault to be kept out of the press. But, as I have already pointed out, the judge's identity has been kept under wraps as well.

It gets worse. Mysteriously, the BC Provincial Court judgement database carries entries for yesterday and the day before, but nothing at all for Monday, which was the date of sentencing. And the name "Alves" is nowhere to be found therein.

This is intolerable. No judge dispensing public justice should be granted anonymity, which appears to be the case thus far. We do not vote for judges in Canada, something I am agnostic about, but at the very least they should be held accountable in the court of public opinion.

The sentence handed down to this brutal man indicates, at least to me, that the judge is as dangerous to women as the defendant. His continued anonymity cannot be permitted. I am asking anyone with information about his identity, therefore, to email me, and we'll take it from there.

UPDATE: The presiding judge was the Honourable Justice Gregory M. Rideout (coordinates here). Further information--about his trial record--would be appreciated. Email welcome. Meanwhile, Alves is still on the executive roster as Tournament Director of the BC Ball Hockey Association.

Suppressing criticism of global warming denial?

What's up with that?

[H/t Mind of Dan]

It's the drinking water. Right? Right?

39% of Americans want their government to "stay out of Medicare"--a government program (Q3).

Only 62% believe that their President was born in the United States. 24% think he wasn't, and 14% "aren't sure." The good news? Only 7% think he was born in Kenya, while 10% believe he was born in Indonesia. Take that, birthers! Hah!

And 6% do agree that he was actually born in Hawaii--but are unaware that Hawaii is part of the US.

With Barney Frank, I'd rather argue with a dining room table. Even a stupid dining room table.

[H/t CC]

Better late than never

The case of Abdihakim Mohamed has just been discovered by the Globe and Mail, and the on-line CBC news (which is calling this a "second case" of the Nairobi Shuffle, although it pre-dates the Suaad Hagi Mohamud affair by three years or so). In fairness, the CBC radio program The Current was on this back in June, but don't their journos talk to each other?

And credit where credit's due. Kate Heartfield of the Ottawa Citizen broke this story on February 11, and it's been around the blogosphere ever since.

But enough caviling. These cases eventually do attract their media advocates, thank goodness, and circumstances do the rest--in this instance, the prominence of one case highlighted another, the Harper team has been reeling since Abousfian Abdelrazik's court-ordered return, and, smelling blood in the water, the media has acquired an appetite.

It's just disheartening--in fact, a little chilling--that the victims, too often dark-skinned Muslims, cannot depend upon the ordinary privileges of citizenship to help them out. The current government has let it be known that it will pick and choose which citizens are worthy of consular assistance, state-to-state representations, and taxpayer-funded chartered jets.

The others, too often facing obstacles deliberately placed in their way, are forced to wait until public anger reaches critical mass, the media take notice, and the government and its administrative apparatus are forced to act. Indeed, as we have seen in the Abdelrazik case, even all that can be insufficient: there it took a vigorous flogging by a federal court judge to make the Harper regime abide by the rule of law.

Kudos to those journalists who stay on the trail of these cases like bloodhounds--the Globe's Paul Koring and the Star's John Goddard spring to mind. Perhaps these and others with similar qualities should be cross-appointed to oversight positions in Foreign Affairs. Now, that would cut the numbers and the delays. And it might also allow the media to stay current.

Suaad Hagi Mohamud: Lawrence Cannon still stonewalling

If there is a way he can obstruct, trust our Minister of Foreign Affairs to find it. Here is how not to commence an investigation of the gross mistreatment of a Canadian citizen:

1) State that it could take a month;

2) Refuse to commit to making the findings of the investigation public;

3) Refuse to comment on the current status of Liliane Khadour, the vice consul of the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi on whose watch Mohamed was "conclusively" deemed an "impostor," separated from her 12-year-old son, jailed, made ill, harassed by consular officials, and finally, after 11 weeks, vindicated by a DNA test;

4) Threaten a court battle if Mohamud's lawyer, the hard-working Raoul Boulakia, wants to get a look at her confiscated passport.

What is he trying to hide? Surely even Stephen Harper can recognize the man as a liability by now.

Scratch a conservative...

...and you find a bloviating homophobe.

Check his jacket pocket

Unable to witness the event first-hand, travelling media were left to digest the photo and e-mails from the Prime Minister's staff.

"I can confirm that the Prime Minister and members of cabinet did have seal meat at lunch. The Prime Minister said, ‘I really enjoyed eating seal meat and look forward to having it again,' " read one e-mail from spokesman Andrew MacDougall.

Uh-huh. Where have I heard that story before? :)

If only the Tsar knew about this!

As the old Russian fable had it, the Tsar was a saintly man, and the injustices suffered daily by the mouzhiks, whose lot was starvation and the knout, were taking place only because his evil advisors were failing to keep him informed.

So this morning we learn that Stephen Harper found out about the case of Suaad Hagi Mohamud only last week, and boy, is he pissed.

"When we became aware of the case last week, we asked our officials in various departments to give us some information," Harper said at a news conference yesterday. "Obviously there (is) some troubling information here. It's a complex case. I have asked my officials for a thorough review of the matter ... (then) we'll decide what further inquiry we do have to do." [emphasis added]

The case has become a major embarrassment for the Conservatives amid criticism that the government is slow to assist Canadians in trouble abroad.

Privately, officials say the Prime Minister is upset at how the case has been handled and that "heads could roll" once the internal review is finished.

"Privately," eh? As in "stage-whisper?" No matter. Bring on the tumbrils by all means.

"Does he not read the papers?" scoffed Liberal critic Dan McTeague. Obviously not the Toronto Star, but you'd think someone might have brought its excellent coverage, beginning on July 1, to the master's attention.

In any case, so much for Harper's reputation as a micromanager. That one now lies in tatters.

[On a personal note, I thought I was an early riser, but Impolitical and Enormous Thriving Plants scooped me but good on this story. At 4:30 am, the Toronto Star article appeared. Impolitical posted her response at 5:40 am, and ETP put hers up at 2:12 am, at least according to her time-stamp. Either she lives in BC, or she posts faster than the speed of light, which is always possible with these hot-rodding young'uns. Can't...keep..up...]

UPDATE: One head has already rolled. [H/t Liberal Hearts and Minds.]

Marooned off-white Canadians: next!

That would be Abdihakim Mohamed. Check out today's audio clip from CBC's The Current.

He's been marooned in Kenya for three years--thanks to that same Canadian High Commission in Nairobi that's been in the news recently. Yup, Mohamed's an "impostor," too. Passport photo. You know the routine.

But now, by no coincidence, bloodied officials have decided that maybe he is who he is. Since the first CBC clip on Mohamed aired a few weeks ago, they have approached Mohamed's mother, Anab Issa Mohammed. Her Ottawa lawyer, Jean Lash, sounds optimistic. Wheels seem to be moving.

Earlier on, it was quite a different story. Abdihakim Mohamed had offered up his DNA, just like Suaad Hagi Muhamed, but no one seemed very interested. Instead, Passport Canada officials, with casual bureaucratic brutality, asked his frantic mother to tell them who he really was.

The CBC's request for interviews was refused by Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon, his Parliamentary Secretary Deepak Obhrai and Peter Kent, Minister of State of Foreign Affairs. The usual lordly arrogance we have come to expect of Harper's ministers? Quite possibly, but more likely at this point it's simply a case of avoiding the public view. To be fair, if I were those people at the moment I'd be scrambling for cover as well.

Mohamed, too, like Suaad Hagi Mohamud and Abousfian Abdelrazik, has had the benefit of media advocacy. But, as I've asked before, how many more exiles out there have not?

Annals of sexism

First it's a Canadian judge refusing to jail a thug who drugged, beat and raped a woman, claiming that the brute is not "pathologically dangerous," and calling his vicious assault a mere "crime of opportunity." (That, I admit, rather puts Justice Douglas Cunningham's recent injudicious remark about career women in perspective.)

Does anyone find it significant that the media are not reporting the judge's name? Was a court order in effect? Does he, like the victimized woman who was victimized again at his hands, require protection after his sick-making judgement? The man is just as dangerous as the rapist whose wrist he patted. We have a right to know who he is.

Then, to the south, a well-known poseur and imbecile beloved by the Right explains what he would like to do to House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi:



Which reminds me of a blogger closer to home, whose offending post was removed after a considerable outcry.

Violence against women: knee-slapping right-wing "humour." And not worth a day in jail to a sexist BC judge.

PS: Oh, heck, let's throw in a little anti-Semitism for dessert--the real thing, not the bogus "criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic" kind. Somehow I think the Right will keep stumm on this one:



UPDATE: Good grief! Reader Chet Scoville points out that the woman in question is wearing an Israel Defence Forces T-shirt (@0.59). Was gibt?

[H/t Luna and Red Tory]

The untouchables [updated]

[Originally posted on April 17] Today we are reminded, once again, how the system as a whole ensures that police can operate like lowlife thugs without any fear of serious consequences--if consequences are even suffered.

This week's poster child for the cop culture of impunity is Constable Mike Wasylyshen of the Edmonton Police Force, er, Service. Mike, the son of former Edmonton police chief Bob Wasylyshen, is still a young man--33 years old, a ten-year veteran of the EPS. But he's packed a fair bit of adventure into that short span.

There was his encounter back in 2002 with a 16-year-old aboriginal kid, Randy Fryingpan, who'd passed out in the back of a car. Mike Tasered him six times in 66 seconds to wake him up, and then knocked out one of his teeth by smashing his face on the ground with the butt of his weapon. A judge dismissed a subsequent breach of probation charge again Fryingpan, citing his treatment at Mike's hands as "cruel and unusual."

Said Judge Jack Easton:

The treatment of the accused by the application of the Taser and the use of the fist or butt end of the Taser gun to the body of the accused driving him to the ground causing a broken tooth clearly indicated to me an excessive use of force and a clear violation of the charter rights of this accused.

The witnesses other than the officers appeared disgusted by an obvious overuse of force....The scene was clearly under control and the deployment of a Taser absolutely unnecessary.

But the Crown claimed that there was no evidence to support criminal charges (which brings the Robert Dziekanski case immediately to mind), and the acting police chief at the time, Darryl da Costa, exonerated Mike completely, pointing to the Crown's decision and stating that there was no evidence that would warrant discipline against the officer. A plea by Fryingpan's mother for an outside investigation was rebuffed.

Fast-forward to 2003. Mike is dressed down by a provincial court judge for using deception to obtain a search warrant. Evidence in a drug case had to be tossed out due to Mike's "carelessness bordering on indifference." Another internal investigation. No discipline.

But this rising star was not yet at the top of his game. In 2005, off-duty and in a drunken state, he picked a fight with a man on crutches, swore at him, called him a "cripple" and beat him. He was pulled off by his buddies, but followed the man he had attacked, who by that time had been joined by two friends. They did the righteous thing and put Mike on the ground, where they proceeded to give him a taste of his own medicine. Two private security officers tried to break up the fight: Mike punched one of his rescuers and threatened to burn down the other's house.

Somehow the Crown thought that charges were warranted this time. It has taken more than three years to bring this matter to trial, but the system, by golly, delivered.

Mike has been fined $500.

Oh yes, and one of those "internal police disciplinary hearing" thingies has been scheduled, too. No doubt they'll throw the book at him.

UPDATE: (August 18). Better late than never. Thanks to the determined efforts of Fryingpan's mother, Wasylyshen will at long last face disciplinary charges for Tasering an unconscious teen. Alberta's Law Enforcement Review Board has ordered Edmonton Police Chief Mike Boyd to charge him with using excessive force, and insubordination. [H/t reader russski]

Frozen culture

Nunavut is in the news these days, as our Prime Minister takes his royal tour, and the commentary is flowing.

Here's a letter in the Globe & Mail today, reprinted in its entirety, which highlights--inadvertently--how far astray our cultural idées fixes can lead us.

How can we rationally consider investing billions of dollars for a territory such as Nunavut, populated by a mere 30,000 people? Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s $25-million “investment” for a tiny fishing community’s harbour amounts to more than a whopping $19,000 per person. You cannot magically create economic viability out of thin air. Small, remote, unskilled populations living in harsh climates have no significant history of suddenly thriving just because money was thrown at them.

Doing so will fail, and only create false hopes and a state of dependency. We should support northern communities to pursue subsistence hunting, but the idea that they have an entitlement to infrastructure development is ludicrous.

Peter Reinecke, Ottawa

Normally I would let this kind of thing pass without comment. But Peter Reinecke isn't just any correspondent. He's a public policy researcher in the federal government's Policy Research Initiative, a kind of internal strategic planning think-tank. As a policy consultant myself, I find this worrying. So should you.

How can we even think, asks Reinecke, of investing a wad of money in a desolate place populated by a mere 30,000 (actually, nearly 31,500) people. Thank goodness the Danes don't think that way.

Greenland, now a territory of Denmark that has achieved home rule and for whom actual sovereignty someday isn't out of the question, is populated by a little over 55,500 people, of whom 88% are Inuit or Inuit-European. Greenlandic (an Inuit language) is spoken by 50,000 of the residents, and became the sole official language this past June. It boasts a vibrant political culture, and a burgeoning Greenlandic literature.

Greenland's economy is based upon primary industries, especially fishing. Still dependent upon Denmark for 50% of its revenues in the form of government grants (the figure is currently 90% for Nunavut), the territory is actively developing its considerable mineral resources, air transport and telecommunications.

With a labour force of just over 32,000, Greenland's current GDP is $1.7 billion (US). Its per capita GDP is $20,000 (US), placing it at the 60th rank in the world's economies. The unemployment rate is just over 9%.

Greenland's educational system is modern and effective. It has a university in the capital city of Nuuk, and a fully functioning primary and secondary school system in which the operating language is Greenlandic. Greenland has a 100% literacy rate.

Some 2009 statistics for Greenland may be found here.

The comparison with Nunavut is frankly shattering. Nunavut is a land struggling to be born, rife with social problems arising from what was in effect imposed and poorly planned sedentarization in the 1950s and early 1960s, with chronic unemployment (28% for Inuit), a suicide rate 9 times the national average, a housing crisis and a dysfunctional educational system.

Between one-third and one-half of Nunavut children have suffered some degree of hearing loss as a result of ear infections. Teachers have to use use microphones in the classrooms.

Peter Reinecke suggests giving the Nunavummiut a few bucks to maintain subsistence hunting, but any talk of infrastructure development is "ludicrous," based upon a wrongful sense of entitlement. Clearly the notion of social and economic investment is lost on him. What we should do, he thinks, is simply freeze the Inuit culture in time, providing some funds for that purpose. For some reason I get an image of one of those snow-bottles with an igloo and a bunch of faceless people in furs. Something like the one illustrated above.

There have always been ill-informed suggestions regarding "what to do about the Inuit." Canadian anthropologist Diamond Jenness, decades ago, suggested resettling them all in the South. The dreadful Frances Widdowson thinks along similar lines today:

When the unviable character of Nunavut is recognized, the only sensible policy in the long run appears to be gradual depopulation. This does not mean forcibly relocating anyone who lives in the territory, only encouraging people to gradually migrate to larger centres. Most importantly, it means ending costly and unworkable decentralization schemes, which assume that an economic and political system can be “built” with large external rents. Nunavut, like all parasitical appendages on productive economies and societies, should be allowed to “wither away” as the younger generation seeks out a more stimulating and productive life.

Reinecke would not go that far, or at least I hope not. Rather, we should just keep up a minimal trickle of support to allow the continuance of traditional lifeways. But certainly not anything like a $25 million investment in Pangnirtung to develop the local fishing industry.

The embedded notion here is one of a "culture" that somehow remains static and timeless, a tiresome anthropological fallacy that was exploded by Johannes Fabian, for one, in his Time and the Other: How Anthropology makes its Object (1983), but still persists in the popular mind. Yet the Greenlanders, far from requiring relocation or demanding to live in a changeless past, are making use of every modern technological innovation available, working in their own language, proud citizens of Kalaallit Nunaat looking to the future. And they're doing it themselves.

There is much hope for Nunavut, although there are terrible obstacles of all kinds at present. The Nunavummiut are indeed making progress. But what is needed now more than ever is to abandon ignorance and superstition. And by that I mean ours, as exemplified by public policy researcher Peter Reinecke's ill-founded remarks.

[Disclosure: I am presently working on a thesis, when blogging and contract work don't get in the way, on the formation of Nunavut and its governance structure.]

Today in America...

"...a moderate is someone who says, 'Please don't come armed to a public meeting.'"

[H/t mattt. Another clip, no pun intended, here.]

Is the Far Right in the USA supporting the Taliban?

That is the question.

There is history, ideology and strategy, and now there is opportunity that makes you wonder what the hell is happening in Afghanistan.

Fact number 1: In the mid-1980s, a covert operation was set up by individuals in the Reagan administration to sell and supply arms to Iran. Profits from the transactions were used to fund the Contras (anti-socialists) movement in Nicaragua.

Fact number 2: In the late 1980s, Congressman Charlie Wilson, a fiercely anti-Soviet Democrat, became the go-between that far right Republicans needed on the appropriations committee to ensure that Afghan mujahedeen forces would be provided with arms. Hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers' money and private sources secretly paid for the US manufactured military weapons supplied to the 'freedom fighters'.

Fact number 3: During the 2008 presidential election, Republicans directed attacks on Obama, stating that he is a socialist. They ran a campaign that fuelled these accusations, fabricating information or playing up aspects of Obama they claimed to be un-American. They still believe these claims.

Fact number 4: Former vice-president Dick Cheney has considerable connections to the US arms industry and to the many private corporations that flourished under the Bush administration and received billion dollar contracts in Iraq to supplement US defense with mercenaries.

Fact number 5: Something has shifted in Afghanistan since Obama was elected president and has re-directed military resources there. The Taliban's mujahedeen forces are stronger and are being supplied with increasingly effective offensive weapons.

Some observers are speculating that Afghanistan may become Obama's Viet Nam. All of this makes me wonder whether politically far right Republicans are secretly funding the Taliban in Afghanistan to undermine the Democrats.

Are Canadian troops and Afghan civilians also being slaughtered in order to advance the political goals of far right US Republicans? There may be more facts and arguments that Dr Dawg's readers would like to present for consideration. Please do.

UPDATE: (August 27) Welcome, NaPo readers! Here's some further reading for those unfamiliar with the way Terry Glavin operates.

The Afghanisnam puppet dance

Fresh from signing into law a measure that will allow husbands to starve their wives if the latter refuse to put out, Hamid Karzai, odds-on Western favourite to win the model parliament elections in Afghanistan, has been looking for allies to cinch his victory.

So he's reached out for support from an old friend of the West (once he had switched sides to oppose the USSR back in the day), General Abdul Rashid Dostum. And Dostum has enthusiastically complied.

"We need to go with Hamid Karzai into the future," Dostum told cheering supporters in Shiberghan, his dusty home city.

Dostum's backing could deliver enough support to swing the election for Karzai in a single round, despite grave fears expressed by the United States and the United Nations over Dostum's possible return to a position in government.

Polls have shown Karzai firmly in the lead with about 45 percent of the vote, but not enough to win an outright majority and avoid a run-off against Abdullah, Karzai's former foreign minister who has strong support among ethnic Tajiks in the north.

"We must not let it go to a second round and back Hamid Karzai," the heavily protected Dostum said before throwing red velvet-covered copies of his political manifesto to the crowd.

"There will be a day, God willing, when I can help all of the people of Afghanistan again," said Dostum, who addressed the crowd in Dari, Pashto, Uzbek and Turkmen.

Some Afghans, however, might not relish the sort of help Dostum has been known to provide.

The mass deaths occurred in November 2001, after thousands of Taliban fighters surrendered to General Dostum’s forces in Kunduz and were transported to a prison run by his forces near Shibarghan.

Survivors and witnesses later told The Times and Newsweek that prisoners were stuffed into closed metal shipping containers and suffocated, or were killed when guards shot into the containers.

Then there's this charmer, Muhammad Qasim Fahim, Hamid's current running mate.

Back to the future we go. A war criminal holds the balance of electoral power. Another Northern Alliance warlord is running for first VP. Never mind. These two thugs, after all, are our thugs. The only problem is, that's all we seem to have in the game: thugs. And then there's the Taliban: more thugs. Thugs vs. thugs, and the dance continues, at a cost so far of 127 Canadian lives.

No medicare for us! 9 million American uninsured speak out

A shameless steal from Creative Revolution, but I couldn't resist. Move over, Shona Holmes.

Second-class citizen mocked as he died

After the recent controversies about dark-skinned Canadians and their treatment by the Harper government, there can be little further doubt that more than one class of citizenship exists in Canada at present. Too often, however, this truth pits the "native-born" against "immigrants," or as some folks on the Right like to call the latter, "citizens of convenience."

But "jus soli"--the "right of the soil"--is insufficient if you are Native rather than, well, "native." Just ask the kids in Attawapiskat, trying to get themselves a school but effectively being given the finger by Indian and Northen Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl, who has let it be known that he simply doesn't care about First Nations people.

This relegation to less than first-class status, however, is not solely a hallmark of the Conservative government in Ottawa, nor, to be fair, of previous Liberal governments. It can be found at every level of governance in the country, and, perhaps more importantly, is widespread amongst the general population of electors. If you are an Aboriginal person in need of social services, you might simply end up dead as a result of racism and indifference.

Check out the story of Curtis Brick. Brick was an Aboriginal man living rough in Vancouver, who had once a self-sufficient labourer until he suffered a head injury. He collapsed in Grandview Park on one of the hottest days of the summer--34°C. He was allowed to lie in the sun in the busy park for seven hours, where he slowly began to die of sunstroke. No one bothered to help him. No one bothered to call for assistance until the late afternoon.

Finally a bystander*, who had seen him earlier, returned to the park, found the man convulsing, and called an Aboriginal agency, which brought down wet blankets to cool Brick off. But paramedics took their sweet time arriving, and once they did, they began to taunt the dying man.

"That's what you get for drinking Lysol all day," they told him. And then, when a number of Aboriginal children had gathered to observe, the bystander was told to "get his [Brick's] children out of the way." He died in hospital that evening.

Canadian citizenship means very little, we have discovered recently, if you get into trouble abroad and happen to possess the wrong skin colour. But here at home it can mean even less if you're a descendant of the original peoples of this land. When the chips were down, it didn't count at all for Brick.

For the busy throngs in Grandview Park, and the racist medics who arrived too late, he was simply not part of society. Hidden in plain sight, Curtis Brick died profoundly alone in the midst of a crowd of his fellow-citizens for whom he had never existed, even while he lived.

_________________________
* UPDATE: And this was no random passer-by, as reader Candice informs us, but Canadian Aboriginal actor Eric Schweig.

Congrats to Peggy Nash

The still-New Democratic Party has a new President, Peggy Nash. I for one am tremendously pleased.

Peggy and I go way back. Many years ago, I sat on the board of the Ontario Federation of Labour as a VP representing the PSAC. Peggy was a VP representing CAW. She had the kind of clear, clean progressive politics that came directly from the heart and the head: she didn't possess an ounce of guile or expediency, the latter sometimes miscalled pragmatism by those who favour power over principle.

I was fairly green in those days, and the level of "pragmatic" cynicism in the place took some getting used to. It wasn't that all the folks around the table were tricksters, or in it only for themselves: the whole range of humanity can be found in the labour movement, including in the senior leadership. It was just that most partook of a legacy of politicking with which I was unfamiliar, and the calculating and alliance-making that went on easily rivaled anything one observes, say, in the House of Commons.

At that time the movement was riven by a clear public sector/private sector split. CAW was, however, one major industrial union that had adopted the progressive social vision of the public sector, and was prepared to be more critical of the NDP than were the industrials. And through it all, not knowing whom to trust or to confide in, Peggy was my friend, and one of the few people around the table who shared my values and to whom I could speak freely.

She went on to serve with distinction on the Executive Committee of the Canadian Labour Congress, and ran twice federally for the NDP in Parkdale-High Park, winning a seat in the House of Commons in 2006, and acting as NDP Industry Critic and Member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

She has championed consumer and environmental issues, winning two awards from the Sierra Club. A staunch feminist, she helped found Equal Voice, a national organization that promotes the active participation of women in Canadian politics.

In her new role, Peggy will be a party spokesperson and will be responsible for chairing all NDP national meetings. She will contribute to overall party policy and represent the NDP at numerous meetings and conferences. She will bring much experience and intelligence to her new position, but, above all, unfailing transparency and honesty. With Peggy what you see is what you get, a quality to be prized in the realm of politics. And our party is lucky to get her.

Congratulations, Sister Nash. Make us all proud.

Man bites dog

Food for thought.

Sunday wingnutz

On Suaad Hagi Mohamud, Harper's Conservative base weighs in:

• "So, was there an attempt to bait and switch (some say her sister or anothr [sic] relative) and then when caught the original Canadian came back and said it was all a big mistake?"
  
  [DD: I predicted this sort of thing weeks ago.]
  

• "I cannot remember the name of that dumb woman who ended up languishing in a Mexican jail until we grudgingly helped her out.
  
  "However I do remember she was white. So much for the whole, Harper would lead the charge if she was white idiocy that Hume is spewing."
  
  [DD: Ah, yes, Brenda Martin, flown home at taxpayers' expense on a chartered jet after actually being tried and convicted of a crime. Now--what was this commenter's point again?]
  

• "Regardless, the lady that got off the plane does not look like the lady we have seen photos of without glasses. [DD: That might be because she was wearing glasses.] My suspicious mind will demand dna samples taken from the son and her and demand all the testing be done on live tv. [DD: Because even a Canadian testing lab is likely run by lib'ruls.] Any cdn who come here from some african country should sign a pledge that if they go home [DD: Kenya, Somalia...all these brown countries look alike] to visit and get in trouble, they will agree to be left there.
  
  "Oh, did you hear, she is ill, might have TB or something else. So, why was she allowed to spread this disease around in the airport, or on the plane.
  
  "And just think, her lawyer was able to access a doctor, by phone at 10.00p.m. to see how/what to do about her illness. [DD: Imagine that, being able to get medical assistance in Canada after 5:00 pm after years of socialized medicine. Yup, I'd be sceptical too.] Oh, and the lawyer also mentioned torture.
  
  "I think we about to be scammed again aka Arar.
  
  "Oh, a sister's dna would match as a family member. [DD: Well, no it wouldn't, but don't stop now.] Where was the dna testing done. Unless Grissom did it, I don't trust the results. lol."
  

Props to Neo/Mahmoud for running a drop-in centre for this lot. I hope he offers meds with the bottled water and coffee.

[H/t CC]

Suaad Hagi Mohamud: Blame Egypt!

Jonathan Kay, who writes unintentionally comedic columns in the National Post, had, I thought, reached his nadir the other day when he lashed out at the Toronto Star's Christopher Hume for stating the obvious about the government's miserable treatment of Suaad Hagi Mohamud.

I was wrong.

Yesterday he scribbled a piece that should be used in J-schools across the land to demonstrate just how wretched the practice of journalism can be once you set your mind to it. In just a few hundred words, his article combines smears, factoids and plain foolishness in a thick stew of slavish political partisanship. Vintage Kay, one might respond, but here he has truly outdone himself.

A little background first. Quite reasonable suggestions have been made by several commentators, including Gar Pardy, the former head of consular services at Foreign Affairs, that the treatment of Mohamud and other dark-skinned citizens of this country might be motivated, at least in part, by racism--a sense that some Canadians are simply more equal (and hence more deserving of consular assistance) than others. Defending the Harper regime has become harder and harder work, in fact, as the tally of off-white victims grows, but Kay manfully took it on earlier this week--and fell overboard.

What epic crimes against humanity will the Star's intrepid race activist next be placing at the Harper government's doorstep? The Holocaust? Cambodia's killing fields? The Ukraine famine? King Leopold's depradations in the Belgian Congo? Star readers can only wonder.

Now, bubbles still streaming from his mouth, he grasps at a straw--a news release from the Muslim Canadian Congress.

The MCC was once Tarek Fatah's miniscule organization, but he left after it split into two even smaller factions in 2006, one retaining the name, the other calling itself the Muslim Canadian Union. (Yes, I know what you're thinking, so here's the link, and let's move along.) The goal of the organization was ostensibly to spread a little liberal pluralism around the Muslim communities of Canada to counter extremist Islamism, but it proved to be simply anti-Islam, a bit like the hokey "Muslims Against Sharia," and this naturally made it the go-to organization for the media and certain bloggers.

The MCC appears to relish having its cake and eating it, Muslim but relentlessly critical of all things Muslim, reminding me a little bit of those right-wing women who heap scorn on feminism while moving comfortably around the new spaces that feminists created. It has now pronounced on the Suaad Hagi Mohamud affair, claiming that the Canadian Vice Consul in Kenya, one Liliane Khadour, is the true and only villain in all this--because, according to MCC President Sohail Raza, she is "said to be an Egyptian Canadian":

Raza said the actions of Liliane Khadour, who is said to be an Egyptian Canadian, must be seen in context of widespread racism against Black Africans in the Arab World. "There is clear evidence that Black Africans are ill treated by Egyptians and racism against Blacks is widespread in the Arab world. We hope any investigation by Ottawa into the actions of Liliane Khadour will take such racism into account. Other officials involved in this incident should face a reprimand that will serve to be a deterrent to any other consular official who brings their racist views to the workforce."

The MCC president added, "I am sure if Suaad Mohamud had been a White woman with an anglicized name, Liliane Khadour would not have dared to declare her an impostor."

In Kay's skillful hands, the oddness of the above is compounded:

As highlighted in the following Muslim Canadian Congress press release, turns out the woman is a female Egyptian-Canadian bureaucrat.

In other words — to the entirely unproven extent we are dealing with any kind of racial animus at all — what we are allegedly confronting is not White-on-black racism, but Arab-on-black racism (the same kind of racism behind the extermination of hundreds of thousands of blacks in Darfur).

So if there was any racism involved, we can all breathe easy: it was just a case of one Other sticking it to another Other.

"Said to be," for Kay, becomes "is." The woman, we are unnecessarily told, is female. And we are asked to take it on faith that, because she is (well, is said to be) Egyptian in origin, the buck must stop with her.

I agree, in fact, with the MCC's last paragraph, and I think she should be suspended, and that she might well be racist, but it's as if she was the only player in the entire affair. Did she void Mohamud's passport personally? Did she carry out all four investigations herself that allegedly proved "conclusively" that Mohamud wasn't Mohamud? Did her actions take place without the knowledge of Minister of Public Safety Peter Van Loan, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon, and the Canadian Border Services Agency, and DFAIT officials in Ottawa?

Give me a break.

We know very well that the senior Harper ministers involved were in the know at least from July 1 when the Star's excellent John Goddard broke the story. And they sat. And they sat. And then Cannon stated, on July 24, that Mohamud hadn't tried hard enough to prove she was Canadian, before he scurried for cover.

In case people need reminding, this was how she failed to cooperate to Cannon's satisfaction:

She displayed her Ontario driver's licence, OHIP card, social insurance card and Canadian citizenship certificate.

She showed her credit card, two bank cards, Shoppers Drug Mart "Optimum" card, Humber River Regional Hospital Card and a recent dry-cleaning receipt from Bright Cleaners on Lawrence Ave., W., near her Toronto address.

She produced a letter from her Toronto employer, ATS Courier, about a recent promotion.

Not good enough. Her lips looked different.

Now she is back home, thanks to DNA, and having a son in Canada to match the DNA with, and the goodwill of friends, family and strangers like Ecoterra International who helped her out in Nairobi when she ran out of money, and her tireless Canadian lawyer Raoul Boulakia, working long hours pro bono. And she is home in spite of petty and mean-spirited Canadian consular officials, do-nothing Cabinet ministers and, of course, Stephen Harper himself, who--when it comes to the operations of his government--sees all and knows all.

Liliane Khadour's alleged ethnic background might or might not have played a role in all this. Clearly her action or inaction was key in the Mohamud matter, and she bears a considerable weight of responsibility for what happened. But to try to absolve "real Canadians" of any racism whatsoever in this fashion--the clear implication in both the MCC release and Kay's desperate seizure of it--is itself racist.

Of course Liliane Khadour should take a fall. But not the fall. That honour should go to the Ministers in charge--and, in the next election, to the Prime Minister himself. In the meantime, we don't need a couple of internal reviews to create new alibis for CBSA and DFAIT. We need a full-blown public inquiry to expose all of the wriggling and squirming creatures involved in this travesty to the full light of day.

Welcome back

Suaad Hagi Mohamud.

Is it the legal system, lawyers and judges or the media and reporters who are sexist?

An item in the Toronto Star presents a variety of perspectives on:

Justice Douglas Cunningham's decision regarding the testimony of MPP Lisa MacLeod (Nepean-Carleton) trickled out this week in stages. By week's end, it had become a sort of Rorschach Test on women's lib, a la 2009.

The Progressive Conservative MPP had testified in the influence-peddling trial of Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien. In his decision this month dismissing the charges, Cunningham said that he assigned "little weight" to MacLeod's "imprecise" recollections.

Were those who attacked the judge for the sexism of his remarks too quick to react, too eager to separate some choice words from the context of all that was said about the credibility of witnesses in this case?

And then, this:

A [Stamford CT] hotel being sued by a woman raped at gunpoint in its parking garage is claiming she was careless, negligent and "failed to exercise due care for her own safety and the safety of her children and proper use of her senses and facilities," according to court documents.

The victim's attorneys also argue the hotel has inadvertently identified her to acquaintances by asking them to testify.

The Stamford Marriott Hotel & Spa, along with the firms in charge of managing the hotel and its parking garage, made the claim as part of a list of special defenses filed in state Superior Court in Stamford last month. Such defenses allow defendants in civil suits to argue they are not responsible for damages even if the plaintiff's story is true.

Antonia Zerbisias makes the connection with this case and that of a woman who filed a suit against Carleton University for similar reasons. When I did an internet search about the Stamford case, I found a discussion on this board which was quite illuminating. Although the participants approached the issues from divergent perspectives, all agreed that she had been the target and the victim of a heinous crime. Her assailant was tried, found guilty and is now in prison serving his sentence.

But the civil suits are a different kettle of fish, as both victims are seeking compensation for the harm they suffered. Their lawyers are trying to make a case that their clients would not have been victimized if not for the negligence and/or lack of due diligence on the part of Marriott and Carleton University respectively, in the matter of providing adequate security on their premises.

In response, these two corporations are counter-attacking in order to protect their assets and to avoid paying out thousands of dollars. The tactics deployed by their lawyers is to claim that the victims themselves can be held accountable for their plight, simply because they chose to be in a location where violent sexual predators happened to find them as they prowled for potential victims.

Sad to say, the legal system is based on this type of adversarial confrontation and thus once more, a judge will determine the outcome of these cases, based on the argumentative skills of the lawyers for the parties involved.

This year I will be making a charitable donation to the National Association for Women and the Law. Without feminist law scholars and professional practitioners who dedicate themselves to reforming the legal system, Canada would still have laws not that different from those being enacted in Afghanistan. The judeo-christian traditions that justified such laws would certainly not outrage groups like the REALwomen and various conservative, rightwing, and fundamentalist religious astro-turf interests who lobbied the Harper government to cut funding to N.A.W.L. in 2006.

How much progress have we made, with respect to values that inform the legal system, since that moment in 1979 when judges of Federal Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada concluded that “any inequality between the sexes in this area is not created by legislation but by nature” ?

Saturday snark

A few items this morning that Canadians ought to be snarky about:

• Another Invisible Man. That would be Peter Van Loan, Minister of Public Safety, the other villain of the piece in the Suaad Hagi Mohamud scandal. Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs, is responsible for consular services in Nairobi; the Canadian Border Services Agency, also heavily involved in Mohamud's mistreatment, is part of Van Loan's portfolio.
  
  As the linked article reveals, Foreign Affairs will in fact be conducting its own "full review" of the case. Like the CBSA "full account," we aren't told anything more about it. Safe prediction of the year: some munchkin's head may roll, but in general each institution will exonerate itself.
  
  
• Stephen Harper urges caution. While on the subject of Mohamud, now aboard a plane bringing her back home, check out this comment our PM made in Chelsea, Quebec yesterday, as reported in the Toronto Star:
  
  "We do our best to aid those who are in various forms of difficulty, but ultimately we're not the sovereign government once people leave our territory," he said in Chelsea, Que., adding that Foreign Affairs "does what it can to aid people, but we always advise people to be cautious when they're travelling."
  
  He's absolutely right, of course: being cautious is very sound advice, particularly for our duskier citizens. Going abroad while Black? Avoid Canadian consular officials at all costs, even if you have to bribe your way out of a jam. Otherwise they could seize and void your passport, send it to officials of the government that is sovereign, and urge that you be prosecuted for impersonating yourself. They will then carry out four separate investigations to prove "conclusively" that you aren't you.
  
  Alternatively, you might consider skin-lighteners and a change of name--"Brenda Martin" sounds like a good one, but I believe it's taken.
  
  
• Harper thumps the country formerly known as "Burma." And good on him: the continued persecution of Aung San Suu Kyi by the thuggish military junta that rules the place is indeed "unwarranted, unjustified and vindictive," just as he says.
  
  Indeed, Harper once had this comment about the generals running the place: "This is a regime that hasn’t been known to take the interests and rights of its people to heart. We know about their abuses, not just of democracy but also of human rights in Burma."
  
  Oh, wait. The Canadian Border Services Agency is on the verge of deporting Nay Myo Hein back to that country to face possible execution for deserting from the armed forces run by those self-same generals. But "[t]here is no serious possibility that the claimant’s removal to Myanmar will subject him to persecution," according to CBSA. UPDATE*
  
  Maybe the Conservatives think Burma and Myanmar are two different countries.
  
  In other news, a former prominent Liberal has established his own Myanmar connection.
  
  
• And this one's for the NDP, bless 'em.
  
  
  

_____________
*Good news! The deportation order has been reversed.

[H/t Sassy, b/c]

And right on time...

...the Federal Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by the Harper regime against an earlier judgement holding that the government must seek Omar Khadr's release from Guantanamo:

The Federal Court of Appeal ruled today that the government offered no compelling reasons why it should not comply with an order to request that Khadr, 22, be repatriated to Canada.

"There is no legal or factual foundation upon which this Court can conclude that the decision not to request Mr. Khadr's repatriation is justified," the court ruled.

Right on the heels of the court judgement ordering Abousfian Abdelrazik's return, and Suaad Hagi Mohamud's DNA test. What a beige clusterf**k. One almost feels sympathy for this sorry gang of racists, but I'm struggling to contain my emotions, as usual.

[H/t James Morton]