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By Matthew Behrens
October 23, 2014
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I often find
it hard to feel empathy for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. But when I saw the
grim picture of him talking on the phone following the end of his confinement
in the locked down House of Commons yesterday, I sensed in him a vulnerability
he rarely exhibits. Harper, like his fellow MPs, Parliamentary staff, media,
visitors and children in the downstairs daycare, had likely hunkered down
behind locked doors, no doubt traumatized by uncertainty when an armed gunman
entered the building. Because no one knew who the gunman was after, all were
potential targets.
For half a day, everyone on lockdown no doubt felt the fear, despair, sadness and fragile sense of mortality that people in Iraq and Syria have experienced daily for decades, an extra punch of which they will soon receive at the hands of Canadian CF-18 bombers.
It's the
kind of trauma not to be wished upon anyone, and I hope all affected will get
the kind of counselling and therapeutic support necessary to deal with what may
emerge as multiple cases of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), otherwise
known as the condition that you get denied proper treatment for when you are a
returning Canadian military veteran.
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Like those
in Afghanistan who suffered 13 years of Canadian bombardment (upwards of a
billion Canadian bullets fired), night raids, transfers to torture, and the
daily indignities of life under military occupation, those Parliamentarians
with the power to declare war ~ and send somebody else overseas to fight it for
them ~ felt, in a relatively limited fashion, what it's like for millions of
the world's war-weary populations.
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The image of
a cowering John Baird or Jason Kenney hiding in a barricaded office must have
proven a stark contrast to the swaggering, macho manner in which these men
urged Canada to declare war on ISIS, further fuelling the flames of fear and
hatred against Muslims.
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ED Noor: I contemplate the above image with great pleasure. The hideous nature of these men demands they be brought down a notch or two, not that such humility would last long.
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ED Noor: I contemplate the above image with great pleasure. The hideous nature of these men demands they be brought down a notch or two, not that such humility would last long.
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OUT-OF-THE-BLUE VIOLENCE
Thankfully,
most of yesterday's hostages to violence in Parliament went home last night to
warm houses with showers, uninterrupted electricity supply, food in the fridge,
and the knowledge that this horror is unlikely to happen tomorrow and four or
five times for the remainder of the month or periodically for the rest of their
lives. But had this happened in Iraq, such relative safety would not be
guaranteed, in part due to Canada's role in obliterating that nation's economy,
electricity and water supply, and health-care system, first though intensive
bombing in 1991, military enforcement of a decade's worth of brutal sanctions
that killed a million Iraqis, and renewed support and participation in the 2003
invasion that was made possible by Canadian weapons, technical components, navy
personnel and equipment, embedded troops, and high-ranking military officials.
It was also out of Iraq's torturing prisons during the occupation that numerous
ISIS leaders emerged.
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The tragic
murder of a young Canadian reservist and the Parliamentary shootout was all the
more shocking because of its sudden, seemingly out-of-the-blue fashion. In the
same way, on a daily basis in tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, in
Yemen, in Somalia, children in schools, celebrants at weddings, and other
individuals and families are suddenly, shockingly killed by a Hellfire missile
fired from a remote control-operated drone, likely with the Canadian-built
targeting camera courtesy of L-3 Wescam
in Burlington, Ontario.
What is being treated as Canada's 9/11 is a day that recalls the comments made half a century ago by the great Malcolm X, who commented that the assassination of President Kennedy was a case of "chickens coming home to roost," a result of a "climate of hate" fostered by a U.S. political and corporate establishment regularly overthrowing governments and assassinating (or plotting against) a variety of leaders from Patrice Lumumba to Fidel Castro. At the time, Malcolm X was vilified for speaking the truth, one that America was not ready to accept, just as many Canadians may be unwilling to do now.
Indeed, how
many Canadians reading that last paragraph would step back and say,
"That's them, not us"? The horrible sound of gunfire in Parliament
must have sounded a small bit of like some opening moments during the
Canadian-supported coup against the democratically elected Chilean government
of Salvador Allende in 1973, one of many coups Canada has given support to
(including more recently the coups in Honduras, Egypt, Haiti, etc.). One
reporter gasped that it was simply incongruous to see SWAT teams escorting her
through the Parliament in which she worked, and yet Canadian policy throughout
much of the world forces her counterparts to walk that ring of heavily armed
men on a daily basis.
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Rather than
viewing yesterday's tragic events as a wake-up call to seriously examine
Canada's negative role on the world stage and the inevitable "climate of
hate" to which we are contributing, we can expect nothing less than a ride
on the Platitude Express, which embarked within minutes of the first bullets
being fired.
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THE PLATITUDE EXPRESS
From endless references to the "loss of innocence" to the pronouncements that "things will never be the same" (especially in the "hallowed halls" of Parliament), we are witnessing the cranking up of our self-loving myth machine into high gear.
In this
climate, do not expect our finest hour. Yesterday's events will be used as the
springboard to call for greater militarization of the national culture and
justification for unending war against ISIL/ISIS or any other convenient
enemy-du-jour. This will lead to further increases in war spending, despite the
fact that the War Dept. was supposed to come up with $2 billion in cuts.
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The wars in
Ukraine and Iraq ~ costs for which are being kept secret, without much protest ~
will easily double that.
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These events
will also be used to attack anyone who questions Canada's role in wars past or
present.
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NEW REPRESSIVE LAWS
The events
of yesterday will likely also have a congealing impact on Parliamentarians who,
understandably, shared a trauma together. Wednesday was supposed to be the
Harper government's opportunity to unleash a new round of legislative measures
designed to give CSIS and the RCMP even more freedom to trade information with
torturers, monitor people overseas, take part in extraordinary rendition
programs, and be completely immune from prosecution and oversight by the
creation of a special class privilege that would assert the right of CSIS
agents and informers not to be questioned about their activities in any court
of law, public or secret.
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But after
yesterday, what opposition leader who wants to appear prime ministerial will
feel comfortable saying no to such an agenda? The Conservatives will no doubt
frame the issue with the familiar refrain, "you're either with the
terrorists or against them."
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ED
Noor: Does anyone else feel a huge false red flag waving at this point?
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Perhaps the
most immediate impact will be felt in certain communities targeted for racial
and religious profiling. While Canadian soldiers have been told to stay indoors
and not show themselves in public, individuals of South Asian or Middle Eastern
heritage, and certainly anyone who may be a Muslim or perceived as one, may
have second thoughts about being out in public. These communities will be the
subject of demands from the media and some "community leaders" to
"out" radicalized young people, to call in "suspicious" behaviour
(undefined), and to report their neighbours to CSIS or the Mounties. They will
find greater difficulty travelling, and they will learn first-hand about
something called the Passenger Protect Program (or no-fly list).
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This is
especially so since, while we do not know much about the shooter, media have
been quick to point out that although he was a Canadian, he was of
"Algerian" heritage, and a recent convert to Islam. Both are
completely irrelevant factors, but so commonly part of the daily anti-terror
discourse that no second thought is given to the consequences of bringing it
up.
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THE GAME IS NO LONGER FAR AWAY
Glenn
Greenwald adequately summed things up by
asking why Canada, a nation that has been at war for 13 years and counting,
would be shocked that someone might actually (however unjustifiably), do what
he felt was needed to fight back. But as a country that wages war but has never
suffered from war the way Russia or France or Syria or Iraq have, we have
always been insulated against the consequences of our actions, buoyed by a
mythology that allows us to wear Canadian flags on backpacking trips through
Europe.
By day's end, Harper addressed the nation, his discourse unchanged from the bellicose rumblings of last week as he rammed through a Parliamentary vote to bomb Iraq and Syria: "Canada will never be intimidated…redouble our efforts…savagery…no safe haven…"
After a long
day focused on these gripping events in the nation's capital, I have to wonder
if this direct experience of fear and trauma will force us to examine our own
addiction to violence as the solution to conflict. Yesterday provides us with
an opportunity to reflect on our insidious contribution to the climate of hate,
and the chance to disengage from our increasingly militarized culture.
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PREVIOUS WORK ON THE MILITARIZATION OF CANADA:
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