A Peremptory Date For My Canada

Let me begin by stating that I am in love with Canada; deeply enough to defend it with the endearing blindness of true love.

Canada is my own personally chosen country, not the country where I was accidentally born in. I am Canadian; a sentence that rolls out of my heart easily and with conviction; albeit I was not born here.

Years ago, back in the late 90’s, I had the brilliant opportunity of working hand in hand with many Canadian professionals in a successful telecomm project in Mexico. English and French are two languages that I learned since childhood, so I was more able to relate to these nice Canadian folks that were living in Monterrey and Mexico City as expats, and I was positively surprised; their essence is fundamentally different from that of the “americans”.

Canadians are kind by nature, by definition and by culture. When I “discovered” Canada hiding behind the USA I could not help comparing both; I had already spent 10 years living in Texas, looking for my place in the globe. By the early 90s, during the Persian Gulf “war”, when Bush the 1^st “saved” Kuwait from the murderous hands of a former friend and partner from Iraq, and after living for 10 years in Texas, my eyes became wide open. It all started when I caught myself thinking that Bush senior, by not “eliminating” (synonym with killing) Saddam Hussein in this first Gulf War, had maliciously left the stage with a deliberate Hollywood style business plan for a “Part 2”, and a possible movie franchise: it was all virtually prepared for follow up incursions, with more and newer enemies/partners, and a lot more money to be made by an astonishing swelling of the already appalling war apparatus. Not cynical at all, that’s how I understood it.

I was already 32 years old, not the 23 year old kid that had moved to the USA with the same forthright believe of so many others that think it the country to be in, the country to support, work for, pay taxes to, and enjoy. In 1991 I could clearly foresee all that was going to happen to this nameless country, and the subsequent seasons of the new middle-east drama series. Long gone were the low budget days of Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and shady double edged characters like Henry Kissinger; the crib and the hands that rock the cradle of present day terrorism. I saw all the way to the present. A present that is now going through the motions of organizing and complementing international violence, generating fear and raising terrorist groups, with meanness as a trait and oh! So many, many lies.

Through the years I have watched the “americans” shifting rapidly. They went from shouting proudly anywhere in the world: “I’m an American!” expecting the waters to part in front of them, governments to fall to their knees, or any other subjects standing in their way to collapse, unto 2003, when the way to recognize an “american” tourists was by the multitude of Canadian flags displayed on them and their luggage, thus pretending to dodge the profound anger and resentment of far too many in the world, and avoiding the clear dangers of being insulted to say the least, but also rejected, kidnapped, or simply killed. “The leaders of the free world”

Canadians don’t like dramas so much, and stoicism is more ad hoc than emotional outbursts, more so if it’s only physical pain, no matter how bad it gets. I have noticed that Canadians nowadays resent the way they have been treated by the USA since 2001. They sincerely considered themselves to be their very close friend. You have to be Canadian to detect this; or understand comedy, the preferred means of complain in the true North.

I remember a joke from Rick Mercer, saying we have to accept that Canadians and “americans” are pretty much alike; that we dress very similarly, sound just about the same… but, maybe the difference is that Canadians are able to find themselves in a map…

The “joke” resonated from previous decades of research on geographic knowledge around the world, with very discouraging results in the USA; an immensely valuable work that was undertaken by the National Geographic Society -may it rest in peace, after being sold to Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox- The National Geographic Society was one of the very last bastions of culture in the USA that positively influenced the world. Is there anything of value left out of the hands of corporate oligarchical jungle rule?

The constant and relentless erosion of education in the USA killed the National Geographic Society with a long time drop in magazine sales, subscriptions, patronage and government support. Basically, due to a sudden and fast descent of readers that parallels, through time and depth, the loss of education for the last generations of the 20^th century and the Millennials; and it is inversely proportional to the expenditure in the country’s privatized prison system.

Ignorance is an irreplaceable fuel for cruelty and fear. Injustice and inequality are the matches; then violence ignites.

Fear is ignorant, and grows uneasily among the uneducated; fear besieges the uncultured. A lack of education is quite dangerous, much notable amongst poverty stricken, unequal societies. Violent eruptions from the deprivation of culture can be far more destructive.

It is in culture where you find socially consequential moral values, not in religion; superstitious beliefs are rather confusing: how do you reconcile the Golden Rule, with stoning to death a homosexual person? Where do homophobic conceptualizations come from, if not from absolute ignorance and the far-reaching fear that transpires from it?

Via the cultural stream, you might convince people to respect a gay individual; to embrace difference. Scruples come from culture. The Golden Rule stems from culture. And you still need the three columns for a fruitful societal existence: Liberté, Égalité et Fraternité.

Ignorance confounds a country’s population, and severe cultural deficiencies in its governmental leaders permits them to actually drop an atomic bomb on human populations, and become saving heroes to its citizenship (except the ones banished into internment camps, officially called "relocation centers"). When your mind is infused with culture, you are no longer ridden with fear, and a tide of empathy replaces hate. You absolutely cannot even begin to conceive war, much less sending out a group of young soldiers to drop a bomb to kill hundreds of thousands, or 53,000 of your own boys to get killed far away from their controlled reality at home.

Presently, in order to comprehend how much fear a huge segment of the world feels towards the USA, you merely need to talk openly with many Iranians living in Canada. When you can closely see what the USA did to Afghanistan and Iraq, see whom they killed in those countries, how they killed them, and the level of destruction perpetrated, like the general population of Iran living next door to Iraq could appreciate, it is certainly scary to hear threats from the USA against your country because for a very long time, from their perspective, it is the only country invading, bombing and destroying other states that get in the way of their interests, so as an Iranian friend told me: “every time my stupid retrograde government verbally attacked the USA, we became really stressed, knowing we could be the next country destroyed by the americans…”

Ignorance seduces the poor into thinking that money will make everything alright. A shortage of culture can make the rich misuse their fortunes, and provokes most of them to feel totally entitled.

For me, the USA’s blinding and shiny curtain had fallen and I could see the truth about Canada behind it; a land that was being covered from the Mexicans by the USA’s splendor. I knew better then, and I started reading more and more about Canada.

I had been back in Mexico for 14 years and well, simply put, it is not a country for me: I despise lies, and I cringe with violence and insecurity; I hate corruption, gender inequality, poverty, contamination and historical amnesia. I get aggravated with indolence and cultural pollution. I pale with disgust around slyness and moral prostitution. And I profoundly loath the only government that has really been in power in Mexico, since an ambassador Wilson stroke a pact with el general Huerta in 1913, literally aborting democracy for Mexico, inexistent to this day. They don’t understand that counting votes does not by itself constitute a democracy.

I had to keep looking for the place where I was going to bring up my daughters. It took time, courage and some efforts, but I finally made it to Canada with my family unit, and became a grateful permanent resident in 2008. The present conservative party had been in power with a minority government since the start of 2006, and I was even then paying attention to Stephen Harper who had recently defeated the Liberal party which I had been observing closely since 2004, when deep in my heart I already knew I was going to live here some day.

In 2015, I officially became a Canadian citizen, with my wife and two daughters included in the momentous deal. I didn’t have to leave any documents behind, like my Mexican passport, and neither my beliefs, my customs, nor my habits or preferences. On the contrary, all of those were welcomed too, and we have always been encouraged to hold on to our culture, our language and our thoughts, and to share them. We were only expected to abide by the laws of the land (and I was running away from lawlessness), and to be kind (which I aspire to become). From the general population of fellow citizens, we have always felt undoubtedly welcomed.

So here I am now, scarcely two days away from my first Canadian federal election; I have my voter card and the ballot will be waiting for my choice, very near my home at the neighborhood’s elementary school, this 19^th of October, in British Columbia.

Federal elections campaigns have run in Canada for an average thirty something days in the last few decades, creating a sort of general rule, based on custom, as it is quite commonly established in these old British style parliamentary systems. Only this year Prime Minister Stephen Harper –a devout admirer of Bush Jr.’s tastes in political economy and management-, dissolved our government over 70 days ago, springing an election process. That is just one of the many sleazy tricks he has been abusing, mostly after he managed to achieve a majority government in the 2011 election. He has a lot more funds than the challengers, so he can gingerly afford a doublewide campaign, while the Liberals and the New Democrats had to stretch their wallets thin.

Today marks the first time I am writing my personal thoughts on Harper and his government, and I shall tell you why: I did not feel really free to speak out, much less publish online a critique on Harper’s (déjà-vu) horror machine, while only being a Permanent Resident Card holder. His way is the “american” republican way, and I could not trust him with my legal stay in the country; as simple as that. I preferred to wait until I was honored with the citizenship certificate, but Oh! Surprise! Perhaps not even now… We learned this month, us, the many naturalized Canadian citizens, that for Harper our nationality is 2^nd class. Apparently there are the “old stock” Canadians, as he held, and the late arrivals.

Harper stripped of his Canadian citizenship a convicted terrorist, because he had a dual nationality, just like I do. I certainly do understand that first you have to be a convicted terrorist for that to happen to you, so in theory I am safe, given that I would never even think of perpetrating any kind of violent act whatsoever… (The last few sentences are a petite disclaimer. Once this goes online, I’m under untold scrutiny efforts by my country’s intelligence agencies; after repeatedly using the words terrorist, Islam, Human rights and Harper in the same sentence, bells and whistles will alarm all over CSIS righteous radar).

Still, if this man stays in power with a majority after this election, who knows who else will be banished next since, actually, when he discovered that another convicted terrorist born in Canada had also later obtained a foreign passport compliments of his Iraqi father, Harper immediately wanted to take away that Canadian nationality too.

I keep referring to Harper as the culprit and not even the Conservative Party, much less Canada, because I choose to believe that this is not how the majority of Canadians feel. After all less than 40% voted for him, but this nonetheless made me realize that there are many “conservative” Canadians willing to overlook this divisive positioning from their candidate, just for the money: “less taxes”. And owing to fear: “protection” from the perennial foreign enemies who like Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four dystopia, are always at the brink of destroying us, and raping our women and kidnapping our future generations. It makes me ponder that there are far too many Canadians who need to increase their education and most of all reinforce their Canadian culture, beginning with Harper himself. I applaud the efforts made by Yann Martel sending to the prime minister’s office a book every month, in the hopes of educating him, because so many of the political views he so thoroughly embedded during his mandate, clearly show a lack of culture, a tendency to violence, to war and fear mongering, with a reduced capacity for empathy when compared to regular Canadians; the malignity of which can be as devastating as the last 15 years have been in the USA, home of the Homeland Security closet monster.

Harper came up with a new bill, C-51, where the overall package is so utterly ugly to anyone concerned about civil liberties, it gives me the shivers, and he is ending his electoral campaign by creating a huge storm over a recent niqab controversy. Two cases (only 2 as of today), of ladies who wanted to attend their citizenship ceremony with their faces covered by their beliefs. The fabric of misogyny, abuse and backwardness for many; most of those many educated or in possession of a moral acumen. These women were willing to uncover, though not in public, but in front of a Canadian female judge to prove their identity, abiding to the law; just not during the public ceremony protocol. I don’t like it, but that is a subjective judgement. I don’t understand why people want to come over, and then try to make us change to how it was back in their homes, however, if our way is so much better, they will one day tend to leave behind what they don’t want anymore, as the vast majority of immigrants have done, more so with the following generations already raised here.

The process where some old fashioned parents try to deal with this incorporation is not always a pretty picture, but in the end, they integrate. I also know that in Canada the possibility for women to change and assimilate has cost them even their lives in several cases, due to family honour killings; one of the most hideously perverted deformities of those religious fanatics who’ve so miserably lost any moral compass.

Polarizing everyone with emotional arguments such as “presenting yourself to Canada as a new citizen with your face open, as we all are”, Harper has stated that this contravenes Canadian values: « Éléments couvrant le visage durant les cérémonies de citoyenneté à l'opposé de nos propres valeurs, embrasseraient une pratique à cette occasion qui n'est pas transparente, qui n'est pas ouverte et, honnêtement, qui est enracinée dans une culture qui est anti-femmes »

Harper went legally ballistic versus one of these women who would do her citizenship ceremony before the election, and he mostly pushed the envelope in French and mainly in Québec. Apparently most of nos amies from Québec are intolerant of that, according to the Conservative party’s campaign experts. After all, mother France already has legally acted against the niqab. But we know how well Islamic matters are hovering in La France.

Our government people remain fortunately healthy, so the courts rejected Harper’s wishes to declare illegal a covered face in such ceremonies, and a judge provided an immediate date for this woman to declare her oath and become a citizen in time to vote, against Harper I would assume. When she received her certificate, she shed tears of bittersweet joy, I am sure; on my ceremony, in my love struck candidness, my tears were mostly of joy.

But there is also a coincidence: we learned that Harper felt things were getting nasty in the campaign’s horizon, mostly due to the fact that his platform is based on “economy” and “security”, both of which are acutely failing him; people in the PM’s province of Alberta where an oil based economy is cracking, unpredictably took the left road this year after 40 years as a Conservative government stronghold; oil price is down and none of his pipelines were permitted. In addition, he is still waiting for a real terrorist attack against us, preferably from his most favoured enemy ISIS, to demonstrate his points on the inevitability of such attacks, of which only he can protect us, shielding us from the diversified global axis of evil… So he hired a controversial Australian campaign fixer, Lynton Crosby, who is credited with helping David Cameron confound the polls and secure a majority victory in last May's UK election. Lynton Crosby has also been linked to tactics that have rallied voters fearful of immigration, behind the campaigns of his clients. To enrage the ignorant into a vote.

Harper will tell you he has saved us already several times from Islamic doom, but he cannot elaborate because it is severely secret; even to the RCMP in some cases, so classified it is. Snowden showed us how the Harper government has actually participated and helped in the USA’s secret agencies feuds, spied on us and on behalf of the “americans”, which brings up another little detail of his closed quarters way of managing the Prime Ministers Office: a flagrant lack of transparency, and a clear muzzle on his caucus puppets.

Yet the fiery reaction against the niqab is grounded in fear. The ignorance about Islam. It is not a dignified matter to present as your political platform. He may like and sing songs from The Beatles, but he is no longer sensitive to the lyrics. We need him out forever, and thenceforth try to rebuild our humane and respectful path. What I dread will be harder to re-establish from all of what Harper damaged, is our image and country’s reputation to the rest of the world.

Money matters are non-matters at this level. Reparations to most harm incurred inside our country is a more attainable enterprise, and we now know this is dependant on education, so all those budgetary cuts over culture, science and arts that Harper slashed through his years of obscurity, could be returned to where they are required, in order to fund the evolution into a kinder, better nation. There are many amongst us that are failing to recognize and appraise how seriously this man vilified us abroad, because they only have introspecting eyes, not willing to look beyond our borders, or further than the USA or the Mexican beaches; some simply lack the knowledge to comprehend, and Harper takes advantage of them.

Nowadays, after Harper’s “american” ass-licking wars in the Middle East, and his irritating and embarrassing sermon spouted to the “failing” European Union economy during a G8 summit, bragging about his unbeatable Canadian economy prowess; then his fraudulent position against China, unwilling to talk to them because of their merciless reputation regarding human rights, to end up cavorting with them when he finally figured it out and discovered he needed them, not the other way around. What a fiasco. What discomfiture! He reminded me of Charlie Sheen’s infamous “winning!” declaration.

He has been downright uncanadian for a while now, and today several countries disdain us, and some who didn’t know about us, now discern this about us: we participate in USA’s interests wars. We are in it for the money. We are willing to sacrifice the life of our troops in far away wars, “american” style, longing to be at least a Jr. “leader of the free world”. They consider we are willing to tell lies and deny it is a question of money, with no other principles attached; not for democracy, not for human rights, not for charity. We throw bombs where we are told, for a piece of the capital pie. Such a bleeding shame.

To think the world loved Canada -at least the ones who knew us-; that the “americans” would camouflage themselves with our colours… at this moment in history, I would probably be better off staying out of danger by using my Mexican passport travelling through several parts of the world, (not in the USA, of course). And to think Harper was able to rescind that entirely gracious image we enjoyed worldwide, in merely 9 years. How long do we think it will take us to get it back? Is that even a conceivable notion anymore?

This Monday is a peremptory date for my Canada. May kindness illuminate my fellow voters to mark their choice.

Coquitlam, BC

Oct. 17, 2015