New Media

… the sovereigntists are going to hate it.

“There’s probably some political risks here,” Mr. Griffiths said. “The Bloq Quebecois and sovereigntists aren’t going to like the focus on military history or Canada’s journey from colony to nation state.”

Well, yeah. Isn’t that the point? How about we ignore the dead-enders and focus on promoting the values we want to our newest citizens who actually want to be here.

In a democracy, elected representatives are supposed to get props for talking to the people so they can build goodwill and obtain grassroots ideas about how to improve things. But when it comes to Canada’s discussions with First Nations people, it gets complicated.

Most Canadian Aboriginals live off-reserve, so the governing party in Canada has decided that we ought to be talking with their representatives, not just the First Nations people living on reserves (Vancouver Sun). This seems to be in keeping with our political system, which takes into account not only the population as a whole but also regional and municipal groupings. Nothing wrong there.

But members of Canada’s loyal opposition don’t like what they’re seeing. They’ve trotted out a number of wince-inducing quotes from Conservatives in a press release, mostly spoken with extremely poor timing, to boot, claiming that Canadians “won’t be fooled”.

But aside from the perhaps ungenerous timing of the very first quote tossed into the press release, from a Conservative on the day of the Residential Schools Apology, I’m not sure what’s terribly bad about Pierre Poilievre’s statement about Native Reserves:

“There’s too much power concentrated in the hands of the leadership and it makes you wonder where all of this money is going. …Now along with this apology comes another four billion dollars in compensation… Some of us are starting to ask are we really getting value for all of this money and is more money really going to solve the problem.”

Why is this statement considered beyond the pale by the opposition? Canadian First Nations reserves are ground-zero zones for unemployment, poor education outcomes, suicide, substance abuse and near-pervasive corruption by band councils. Why is it unfair to point out that Canadian taxpayer dollars have been subsidizing this mess, or that it’s high time we asked for better results?

Canadians do want better results. Talking with First Nations representatives living off-reserve seems like a good way to get some momentum going on improving the status of First Nations people in this country.

Free speech is under attack in Canada, by anti-Western ideologues using our own legal system against us.

From Ezra Levant’s blog:

Khurrum Awan, the youth president of the Jew-hating Canadian Islamic Congress, has threatened me with a lawsuit…

Awan is an experienced practitioner in the soft jihad of “lawfare”, the abusive practice where lawsuits are filed against critics of radical Islam just to harass them and silence them, Erin Brockovich-style.

Par for the course.

Someday, we will find a way. Someday… Someday, the darkness fades away.

Release all political prisoners in Iran. Freedom for Iran.

I am firmly in solidarity with Iranians and others around the world protesting the regime’s failure to provide democracy and basic human rights. Heck, if you live in a democracy, there is no other moral position to take. Human rights and the longing for genuine freedom are universal. I am pleased to see that the protests in Vancouver and other cities around the world are still very much alive.

But for some months now, reports of protests inside and outside Iran have consistently shown two types of messages amongst demonstrators. The first type is familiar and inspiring, but the second gives me the chills. I see Iranian protesters potentially falling into the trap that Canadian Tamil protesters recently found themselves in, of believing that the worthiness of their cause permits the use of bloody rhetoric.

From a CTV News story today, here’s what I’m talking about in terms of the two types of messages with very distinct implications:

* “We are here to show our solidarity with the people of Iran and to urge the Iranian government to respect human rights” – Tom van den Brand, a spokesman for Amnesty International in Amsterdam.

* “Death to the Islamic regime!” – group of anonymous protesters.

Some of my friends will probably say I’m just being squishy, or that unity of the protest movement is too important to quibble about semantics. But I feel the words you choose to protest with are not a minor, inconsequential thing. When a state still holds a monopoly on violence and all you have is your voice, your message defines you. How the democratic revolution finally comes to Iran will depend in part on the words the movement chooses to engage its supporters.

For decades, we’ve heard “Death to America”, “Death to Israel”, “Death to…” whatever, from mass gatherings of furious Iranians. (I can’t recall a mob chanting “Death to Canada”. When that happens, I suppose that means we’ve hit the big leagues). It’s not just in Iran, but the Islamic Republic is practically synonymous with massive rallies incorporating these frightening modern versions of the Two Minutes Hate.

I’ve attended and observed plenty of protests in Canada. Typical slogans at protests include “This is what democracy sounds like!”, “Justice for the (INSERT-NAME-OF-PERSECUTED-GROUP)”, “Freedom for the (INSERT-NAME-OF-PERSECUTED-GROUP)!”, or “Hell no, we won’t go!”. Chanting “death” to anything is pretty much beyond the pale, because we recognize the obvious danger that such words are incitement to violence. That’s not only illegal, but it’s also a practice, if it were to become mainstream, that could lead to violent acts. The proof of this ranges from violent hate crimes by racist thugs to acts of genocide, like in Rwanda. And let’s face it: there are no problems in Canada that would require demonstrators to commit acts of violence against fellow citizens or the state to get what they want. We’re lucky that way.

So here’s a problem. I’m not convinced that the Iranian regime will fall to a democratic movement without bloodshed, as has happened most recently in parts of Eastern Europe. The ruling thugs have shown a clear willingness to deploy axe-and-gun-wielding militias against their own people. And they have to be mindful that during and after the last big Iranian revolution, tens of thousands of the ruling classes were tortured or killed. With that kind of precedent, even if the regime’s leaders and apparatchiks were of a mind to allow a transition to democracy, simple survival instinct will have them maintain the status quo at any cost.

So if there is going to be a democratic revolution in Iran, people may have to die. When the protesters’ chant, “Death to the Islamic regime”, they know that a “regime” doesn’t really die – the people who run the regime do. Such chants may be very pragmatic preparation to steel Iranians’ minds for coming violence.

I understand that decades of chanting “death” to anything is ingrained in the culture of political protest in Iran or other countries in a way that we just don’t get here. But these words don’t just offend “decadent” Western sensibilities: I suspect that they have already sapped a significant amount of goodwill towards the Iranian protesters.

It’s not enough for the protesters to want democracy. The words they use to motivate their own democratic revolutionaries will help determine the kind of society that comes after the regime is swept away. There needs to be a culture of basic respect for human life, to the obvious minimum standard that you don’t shout “death” to anything. Let the Iranian regime issue the death threats. This movement needs to be better than that.

Iranians chanting “Death to the Dictator”

Iranian rally shouting “Death to America”