Full Of Sound And Fury, Signifying Nothing But An Unfitness To Govern

Like one of my favourite Shakespearean creations, Macbeth, the story of a corrupted Scottish king, Stephen Harper's tale unfolds on a landscape that has become increasingly blighted thanks to his diseased leadership. Harper's demagoguery, his total disregard for the moral, social and ethical well-being of Canada, all powerful attestations to his unfitness for the country's leadership, grows more poisonous the closer we come to the next election. A man seemingly without any ethical underpinnings, he exploits every opportunity that presents itself to vilify and condemn, inviting the citizens of our country to participate in his campaigns of hatred and segregation.

Muslims are one of his favourite targets, easy ones given fears about terrorism and the horrific actions of ISIS, an ever-growing group of fanatics who seem to know no bounds whatsoever. And yet, it is the height of stereotyping to conflate such with the overall Muslim population, something Harper does with especial relish.

Zunera Ishaq, in her refusal to doff her niqab for the Canadian citizenship ceremony (which, the laws says, is not necessary) has become an easy target for Harper's vituperation, attended by his claim that the wearing of the niqab is rooted in a 'culture that is hostile to women.' Fortunately, not all Canadians are swept up in Harper's hatred.

As usual, a group that keeps me from total despair, Star letter-writers, offer their reactions to the prime minister's war on the niqab:

Why I plan to wear a niqab at my citizenship ceremony, Opinion March 16

I have thought long and hard about joining the debate on the right of Islamic women to wear the veil for the citizenship ceremony. I cannot remain silent on this matter as we all have to at some point say enough is enough.

First of all, like many non-Muslims and even some Muslims I am uncomfortable with the whole concept of the niqab or burka. However, my discomfort does not give me or anyone else the right to deny anyone to wear them if that is her wish.

The issue in question is not an immigrant demanding that Canada amend its laws to accommodate her views or those of the culture she chose to leave behind. The issue is her asking us to uphold our own law and allow her to take her oath, having already removed her niqab before the judge to establish her identity.
If we allow our uneasiness and fear, which is being stoked by cynical politicians, to allow us to change our laws to trample this woman’s rights, then everyone of us who is different in any way should start looking over his or her shoulder.

When all the Muslims are gone, who will be next?

Denise Irvine-Robertson, Toronto

Tory MPs are kept on very short leashes with their barking restricted to PMO-approved talking points. The recent spate of racist and anti-Muslim comments coming forth from this group appears to be a rather disgusting tactic within Harper’s re-election campaign much like a lawyer who speaks inappropriately before a jury and then withdraws the comment – knowing full well it will be remembered.

These messages are intended to attract, engage and inflame the fearful and prejudiced components of our personalities to motivate us towards voting Conservative. So does Bill C-51 address the radicalization of the Canadian public when it’s committed by MPs and a prime minister?

Randy Gostlin, Oshawa

MP Larry Miller’s inappropriate comments are proof that the veil has finally fallen off the Harper Conservatives hidden agenda. It has been slipping for months as nasty, mean-spirited, bigoted utterances have been made by Conservative caucus members and cabinet ministers.

Harper himself tested the waters with a bigoted comment and when it was cheered by his base Harper, the only economist who thinks one third of anything is most, quickly adopted the mantra that most Canadians agree with him. True to form this chant has been taken up by his cabinet and caucus to support the party policy.

Keith Parkinson, Cambridge

Demanding that a woman take off her niqab during the Canadian citizenship swearing in ceremony offends me deeply. I am a 33-year-old Jewish male. I am proud that Canada is a multi-cultured country. People wear turbans and kippahs and should be proud of their cultural dress.

Philosophically, I don’t love the idea of a niqab, but who am I to judge? I have a thick beard that grows to my eyebrows — my face is technically “covered.” If they have to take off the niqab, I should have to shave.

Many people mistakenly associate the niqab with oppressive Muslim extremists, which elicits fear. But when someone wants to be Canadian, so long as they aren’t harming anyone, they should be accepted for who they are, and what they wear.

Our opinion on their choice of clothing is irrelevant. And if you argue that wearing a niqab is not a choice, just ask Zunera. I’m with her, and offended that this conversation even needs to be had.

David Keystone, Toronto

So 67 per cent of Canadians oppose women wearing the niqab. So what? From time to time, in both personal attitude and public policy, “Canadians” have opposed everything from immigrants to aboriginals to pit bulls to nude beaches – the list is long and embarrassing.

Canada has evolved, with painful slowness, from its elitist, xenophobic roots to a diverse and somewhat tolerant society that was until recently the envy of the world. Now a desperate government is trying to use public opinion polls to drag us back into the dark ages where democracy is equated with majority dictatorship.

Paul Collier, Toronto

Fear In The Streets? It's What He Wants

Those of us who have been following the machinations of our Machiavellian prime minster know that he seems intent on remaking Canada in his own malevolent image - a land where fear, suspicion, and division prevail, a land where only he and his party deserve the people's electoral trust to keep a panoply of hobgoblins at bay.

Immobilized by Islamophobia? Mr. Harper is on the job, protecting our values from the niqab and fighting ISIS for all that is good and holy. Intimidated by domestic terrorism? Bill C-51 is the answer. Horrified at the prospect of rural renegades? Gun ownership for personal protection is your salvation, intones the Dark Lord. The world is a dark place, and only the strong leadership of Dear Leader can save us from perils too prolific to enumerate.

So goes the official narrative, growing increasingly shrill the closer we come to the next election.

Yet Haroon Siddiqui feels our fears are misplaced. We should be much more wary of Harper's war on truth and transparency. Take, for example, his plan to extend the ISIS mission:

In keeping with the Conservative penchant for saying one thing and doing another, the government is positing the war plan as non-partisan — after having brazenly used the war as a partisan wedge issue to whip up fear, paint critics as terrorist sympathizers (even possibly “a national security threat,” as Greenpeace has been told), and raise funds for the ruling party.

The threat that Islamic terrorists pose to Canada is itself largely a Harper creation:

... the Canadian Security Intelligence Service says that Muslim terrorists are less of a threat than white supremacists. “Lone wolf” attacks are more likely to come from radical right-wingers than radical Islamists.

Harper's fevered campaign attests to the fact that in war (either real or imaginary), truth is the first casualty:

Contrary to facts, Harper links Muslim radicalization with Canadian mosques. And he remains undeterred even though his ban on the niqab during a citizenship ceremony has been tossed out by the Federal Court. He and his acolytes are inventing new rationale on the run: the citizenship oath must be seen to be recited and it should be recited loudly — when there is no such requirement.

The Machiavellian motivation behind his campaign is obvious to those whose intellects allow them to resist the puppet-master's manipulations:

The Conservatives are shameless in using the anti-niqab campaign to raise funds. Similarly, no sooner had Harper told rural Canadians to use guns to protect themselves than the party followed with a fundraising appeal.

Jenni Byrne, the party’s national campaign manager, told potential donors that Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau “want to make life harder for lawful hunters, farmers and sport shooters by bringing back the long-gun registry,” while “opposing everything we do to punish criminals who commit crimes with guns.”

Siddiqui ends his column with this bracing observation and advice, to which I have nothing to add:

The Harperites want us to be terrified of terrorists, niqabis, criminals, thieves, etc. Time for us, in fact, to be terrified of the Harperite bigots, bullies and ideologues.

Understanding Climate Change And Its Impacts In Two Minutes

This two-minute primer shows us how the science of climate change is not, well, rocket science.

An Imperiled Democracy: Civic Illiteracy In Canada

I imagine that bloggers have any number of reasons for doing what they do, ranging from writing as catharsis to sharing information and insights in the hope of informing and/or changing people's views. And while I read a number of blogs on a daily basis that further inform my worldview, I am under scant illusion that our collective efforts have much chance of altering people's perspectives, largely due to the self-selection involved in the reading process. In other words, progressives tend to read progressives' blogs, while regressives reactionaries read the scribblings of fellow travellers. Rarely do the twain meet. The only audience that is 'up for grabs' is the 'mushy middle' and the politically disengaged, neither of whom are likely to be taken with a sudden passion for reading political viewpoints.

So what is the key to having a better-informed citizenry?

In a thoughtful piece at rabble.ca entitled Civic literacy and the assault on Canadian democracy, Murray Dobbins looks back to the time when there was a real appetite for activist governments, a time when people expected government to be a force for the collective good:

That was the so-called golden age of capitalism and it wasn't just because of expanding government services. It was so-called because of a much broader and well-informed citizen engagement -- both through social movements and as individual citizens.

That time, of course, has been replaced with one that emphasizes fear and economic insecurity, ably stoked by a regime that pays little but lip service to the notion of citizenship while systematically dismantling the very underpinnings of what makes a democracy healthy, even vibrant.

It's not just the institutions that are vulnerable, though they certainly are. It's a familiar list, including Harper's bullying of Governor General Michaëlle Jean to force the proroguing of the House, his guide book on how to make parliamentary committees ineffective, the use of robo-calls and other election dirty tricks, his attempt to break the rules in appointing a Supreme Court judge and his neutering the House of Commons question period through a deliberate strategy of refusing to answer questions -- a practice that institutionalizes a contempt for Parliament that spreads outward to the general public. At a certain point it doesn't matter who is responsible -- the institution itself becomes risible and irrelevant to ordinary citizens. Which is, of course, exactly what Harper intends.

But, Dobbins points out, such nefarious actions do not take place in a vacuum. At least in theory, democracy

rests on the foundation of the voting public. The extent to which the institutions of democracy can be assaulted and eroded with impunity is directly proportional to the level of civic literacy. The lower it is, the easier it is for malevolent autocrats like Harper to abuse his power.

"I'm not interested in politics" is indeed sweet music to the ears of autocrats like Harper.

The growing basis for our culture is not community or co-operation but conspicuous consumption and possessive individualism, asserts Dobbins, making Harper's dismantling of our institutions all the easier.

So what is to be done? When we could trust government to do the right things, we could afford to be minimally engaged. That time is long gone.

But when a politician suddenly appears on the scene willing to systematically violate democratic principles as if they simply don't apply to him, then the demand for increased civic literacy is just as suddenly urgent and critical. Yet it is not something that can be accomplished easily or quickly. Three sources come to mind: schools, the media and civil society organizations and activity.

Education

Despite the best efforts of teachers and their unions over the decades, civic literacy is extremely low on the curriculum totem pole in Canadian schools. Provincial governments have resisted such pressures, which should hardly come as a surprise. There is a built-in bias in a hierarchical, capitalist society against critical thinking -- precisely because in liberal democracies the over-arching role of government is to manage capitalism with a view to maintaining it along with all its inherent inequalities. Having too many critical thinkers is not helpful.

The Media

The media, of course, are largely responsible for helping put Stephen Harper in power. Ever since the Machiavellian Conrad Black bought up most of Canada's dailies, they have been used (by him and his successors) as an explicit propaganda tool for the dismantling of the post-war democratic consensus. While there are some tentative signs that they now recognize they've created a monster (Globe editorials criticizing the PM on a number of issues like C-51) it's a little late. Twenty-five years of telling people there is no alternative to unfettered capitalism has had a pernicious effect on both democracy and civic literacy.

Civil Society Oragnizations

...despite their objective of informing people about the myriad issues we face, here, too, the model falls short of significantly expanding the base of engaged, informed citizens. Ironically, much of the defensive politics of the left are the mirror image of Harper's reliance on fear (of Muslims, criminals, niqabs, terrorists, environmentalists, unions, the CBC) to energize his base. We peddle more mundane but substantive fears -- of losing medicare, of climate change, of higher tuition fees, of unprotected rivers and streams and dirty oil.

Dobbin concludes that we must look elsewhere for inspiration, specifically to the Scandinavian countries, where informed citizens are not easily manipulated by fear and their level of trust in government remains high.

"Swedish prime minister Olof Palme once said that he preferred to think of Sweden not as a social democracy but as a 'study-circle democracy.' The idea … is associated most of all with the efforts of the ABF (the Workers' Educational Association). …The ABF offers courses in organizing groups and co-operatives, understanding media, and a broad range of contemporary issues, as well as languages, computers, art, music, and nature appreciation."

There were 10 other groups doing study circles -- many of them subsidized by the government. Half of all Swedish adults were involved in them.

Much work needs to be done to reinvigorate our democracy and reengage our citizens. Articles such as Dobbin's only represent the start of what will be a long and very difficult process.

And time is very short.

More About That Gun Thing, Mr. Harper

Despite Stephen Harper's strong warnings last year about its dangers, two professors of criminology have thrown caution to the wind and 'committed sociology.'

In today's Star, Irvin Waller and Michael Kempa use that dark art to question Mr. Harper's recent professed enthusiasm for the use of guns as personal protection, especially in rural areas.

The professors assert that the facts, never especially useful to an ideologue like Harper, suggest otherwise:

In Canada, home invasions and violent assaults by strangers in rural areas are so rare that they are virtually unrecorded and unreported threats.

And random gun violence is only slightly more likely in urban areas. A quick glance at our recent police data confirms 505 homicides last year for our whole country of 35 million.

More importantly, of the 131 murders with a gun, 85 were gang-related shootings, which by definition do not occur in our typical rural communities. So you are left with 46 gun murders or less than 10 per cent of the total. There are few occasions where guns are likely to be useful for self-defence.

Beyond those indisputable facts, however, lies another element that makes Mr. Harper's demagoguery dangerous:

Suggesting that gun owners have their weapons ready for self-defence will encourage rural Canadians to break our laws requiring ammunition and guns to be stored separately. These laws are important because it is well-known that storing loaded weapons increases the suicides, accidents and murders that occur in emotional situations, especially in those tragic cases involving domestic violence.

Another statistic shows the folly of having loaded weapons readily available:

Nearly nine out of 10 Canadian homicide victims are killed by someone they know, too often their distraught spouse or separated partner. By loading up more guns, Canadians can expect to have more innocent victims killed, not fewer houses invaded by strangers.

Towards the end of their piece, Waller and Kempa commit full-bore sociology:

Rather than take the easy path of following some of the U.S.’s worst gun failures, rural safety in Canada would profit most through developing crime and violence reduction programs that have been proven through mostly American research. Massive databases of program evaluation results confirm that sensible prevention approaches that provide non-violent conflict resolution training in schools and community centres protect two of the most over-victimized groups in our society: women and youth.

Clearly, their words will be lost on a heart as densely obdurate as Harper's. One can only hope that there are sufficient numbers of Canadians who have not been infected with the prime minister's dark visions and philosophy and recognize his ideology as the true danger stalking all of us.

Attention, Shoppers: Don't Let The Terrorists Win!

An important message to all Canadians from Stephen Harper:

A Work In Progress

The website SHD (Shit Harper Did) is currently completing a documentary looking into Canada's surveillance programs. Now in post-production, it is seeking donors to help complete the process. If you would like to contribute, you can click here.

Following is a trailer of their work: