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 1st “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 20th 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 19th 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 2nd 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
