Tag Archives: rule of law

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Harper + Aung San Suu Kyi + G20 Protesters = Hypocrisy

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On Saturday, Stephen Harper issued a fantastic statement explaining why Canada is happy that the Burmese totalitarian regime released Aung San Suu Kyi.

The amazing thing is how many of his criticisms of the despotic regime apply to him and his treatment of G20 protesters. The DFAIT/PMO bureaucrats must have had an awesome time crafting this statement. Let’s track the similarities:

Statement by the Prime Minister of Canada on the release of Aung San Suu Kyi

13 November 2010

Yokohama, Japan

Prime Minister Stephen Harper today issued the following statement on the release of Nobel peace laureate and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi:

“I am pleased that Aung San Suu Kyi has finally been released from house arrest in Burma. She is an unwavering champion of peace, democracy and respect for human rights in Burma, despite being held in detention for 15 of the past 21 years.

via Statement by the Prime Minister of Canada on the release of Aung San Suu Kyi – Prime Minister of Canada.

Peace: the G20 featured thousands of peaceful protesters who consistently argue that the neoliberal capitalist agenda of the G20 undermines peace around the world by exacerbating material disparities and preventable poverty and despair. Hundreds of peaceful protesters were rounded up in terrifying fashion, then detained and charged with either NOTHING or non-existent breaches of the criminal code.

Democracy: the G20 is a patently anti-democratic body that sets the global economic agenda from the perspective of…take a breath here…the 20 richest nations in the world. Protesters oppose this kind of wealth totalitarianism.

Respect for Human Rights: the beatings and Charter violations of G20 protesters in Toronto are widely documented and a stain on Canada’s reputation as a nation that respects human rights. Mind you, this is not surprising when the Harper government “endorses” the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but with this disclaimer: “in a manner fully consistent with Canada’s Constitution and laws” which means the government will nod happily at what it likes and ignore the rest if it contravenes our current despotic relationship with indigenous peoples of Canada…much like Bush’s signing statements.

“Neither her trial nor appeal process were conducted in line with international standards. She was not granted due process and should never have been detained.

Due process: I laughed out loud when I read this when I considered the absolute lack of due process afforded to hundreds of detainees at the G20 in Toronto. The Canadian regime that enforced the draconian response to peaceful protest in Toronto failed to meet Canadian standards, let alone international standards.

“Canada has long supported Ms. Suu Kyi in her efforts to bring genuine democracy to Burma. In recognition of her struggle to promote fundamental freedoms and democratic principles, she was granted honourary Canadian citizenship by the Parliament of Canada in 2007.

Genuine democracy: we have no democracy when people have legitimate fears of being rounded up and detained for dozens of hours, perhaps beaten and intimidated, certainly abused for peacefully protesting, partaking of a “free speech zone” or merely walking in public near a protest. The chill factor created by the G20 abuses is designed to discourage future protests/demonstrations. The Orwellian bail conditions foisted upon Alex Hundert and many others undermine fundamental freedoms, the rule of law and democratic principles.

“Canada stands resolutely with Burma’s democratic forces and like-minded members of the international community in the quest to restore civilian government to the Burmese people. We continue to call on the Burmese authorities to release all political prisoners and allow the meaningful political participation of all Burma’s opposition and ethnic groups.

Restoring civilian government: I would like to see a return to civil government that respects the Charter pro-actively, rather than gambles that it can violate the Charter and our rule of law, then hope it avoids/delays sufficient scrutiny until the psychological trauma has been fully embedded in the population.

Release all political prisoners: I call on Stephen Harper to release the G20 protesters still held, initiate a non-partisan public inquiry into G20 security abuses, and initiate judicial review of all charges and bail conditions.

Meaningful political participation: I call on the prime minister to apologize for G20 security excesses and abuses and enact restorative measures towards the protesters and the public at large to affirm for Canadians that his regime is not designed to undermine meaningful political participation in Canada.

“In December 2007, Canada imposed the toughest sanctions in the world against the Burmese regime to indicate its condemnation of the regime’s complete disregard for human rights and its repression of the country’s democratic movement. Those sanctions will remain in place.”

Toughest sanctions in the world: I call on the global community to condemn the behaviour of the Harper government’s G20 security abuses. Harper likes to spin “tough on crime” rhetoric, in this case championing our sanctions on Burma, but he clearly refuses to permit democratic expression at home. His “complete disregard for human rights and…repression of the country’s democratic movement” stemming from the G20 abuses demand that the world community act in whatever way they deem suitable to pressure the Harper regime to acknowledge and actually champion the rule of law, for the sake of democracy in Canada.

The delusion/arrogance that Stephen Harper must now be carrying to have the gall to release this statement condemning the Burmese totalitarian regime and its treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi that also apply to his treatment of G20 protesters is unfathomable.

As long as Canadians permit this kind of abuse of our democracy, Harper will continue to beat us, in full irony, with the text of our Charter.

Please, feel free to forward this post to our irony-loving prime minister at pm@pm.gc.ca so you can let him know that he needs to live up the standard he demands of…of all places…Burma!

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Monbiot, Progressive Activism and What’s Wrong With Toronto

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Toronto, ok greater Toronto, elected Rob Ford as mayor. Canada is a pariah of climate change activism and at the UN. We can’t stop Stephen Harper from being prime minister. Canada is no longer my Canada.

But why?

In my seemingly endless quest to figure out why progressive activists are fighting resignation and cynicism instead of global neoliberal capitalism and the tremendous threats to universalism, communitarianism and social progress, I finally got the courage to read one of George Monbiot’s recent pieces. I started it a few times, but I needed to be in the right kind of stable, emotional headspace to not get all depressed.

He addresses why people make self-destructive political decisions:

Instead of performing a rational cost-benefit analysis, we accept information which confirms our identity and values, and reject information that conflicts with them. We mould our thinking around our social identity, protecting it from serious challenge. Confronting people with inconvenient facts is likely only to harden their resistance to change.

This is why films like An Inconvenient Truth didn’t lead most of the OECD world to sell their cars over the last few years.

But more, Monbiot writes:

Politics alters our minds as much as our circumstances. Free, universal health provision, for example, tends to reinforce intrinsic values. Shutting the poor out of healthcare normalises inequality, reinforcing extrinsic values. The sharp rightward shift which began with Margaret Thatcher and persisted under Blair and Brown, all of whose governments emphasised the virtues of competition, the market and financial success, has changed our values.

What’s the Matter with Kansas? is part of Canada now with Mayor Ford. But then maybe Canada was never as progressive as I nostalgically recall?

I think it was, it’s just that after three decades of neoliberal individualism, the evil doers are eroding our culture of compassion and community.

Conservatives in the United States generally avoid debating facts and figures. Instead they frame issues in ways that both appeal to and reinforce extrinsic values. Every year, through mechanisms that are rarely visible and seldom discussed, the space in which progressive ideas can flourish shrinks a little more.

Like faith-based policy making among US conservatives, Harper’s blatant rejection of the long-form census, real data, and evidence-based policies reduces the space for compelling arguments that violate his beliefs.

The progressive response to this trend has been disastrous. Instead of confronting the shift in values, we have sought to adapt to it. Once-progressive political parties have tried to appease altered public attitudes.

This explains why so many progressives are disillusioned with the organizations that we have historically turned to for political expression. In Monbiot’s analysis, we must:

stop seeking to bury our values and instead explain and champion them. Progressive campaigners, it suggests, should help to foster an understanding of the psychology which informs political change and show how it has been manipulated. They should also come together to challenge forces – particularly the advertising industry – which make us insecure and selfish. Ed Miliband appears to understands this need. He told the Labour conference that he “wants to change our society so that it values community and family, not just work” and “wants to change our foreign policy so that it’s always based on values, not just alliances … We must shed old thinking and stand up for those who believe there is more to life than the bottom line.”

So if we find our progressive political parties refuse to commit to principles or policies that are rooted in our sense of a civilized culture with a progressive agenda, we become disillusioned. We are constantly searching for champions who will actually pursue our goals. But that might be a futile vestige of some nostalgia past.

Monbiot’s warning reminds us why organizations that are not political parties are attracting so much activist talent lately:

We cannot rely on politicians to drive these changes. Those who succeed in politics are, by definition, people who prioritise extrinsic values. Their ambition must supplant peace of mind, family life, friendship – even brotherly love.

So we must lead this shift ourselves. People with strong intrinsic values must cease to be embarrassed by them. We should argue for the policies we want not on the grounds of expediency but on the grounds that they are empathetic and kind; and against others on the grounds that they are selfish and cruel. In asserting our values we become the change we want to see.

The citizen politician. The citizen leader. The citizen activist. Gandhi said it too: “we must be the change we want to see in the world.”

When the people lead, the leaders will follow. This is the threat that Alex Hundert and the other G20 harassed activists represent: the people rising up against a corrupt state that actively opposes the best interest of the populace and the planet.

So it makes sense that 30 years of neoliberal brainwashing leads us to a place where we can tolerate massive assaults on the rule of law we have seen at the G20, and a Glenn Beck for mayor in Toronto.

And while the political sociologists will have a good time trying to explain how Calgary and Toronto ended up with each other’s mayors, the rest of us have an uphill battle of redefining a progressive culture against the politicians, corporations and media all designed to individualize us.

Time to roll up our sleeves and start hosting more salons!