Conservative Party shows its “true colours”

Nobody likes being called racist. The word carries with it so much baggage and negative connotation that even to be painted with the appellation does some serious psychological damage. Nobody reacts more strongly to the label than do those who identify as conservative. The two words, conservative and racist, have been paired so often as to become synonymous. While conservatives, bristling under the accusation, tend to blame this conflation on liberal bias against the long-suffering conservative minority, those of us that actually pay attention to these kinds of things tend to notice stuff like this:

An email sent out by a Conservative campaign staffer in a Toronto riding seeking people in “national folklore costumes” to appear at a photo-op is an insulting use of so-called ethnic voters as props, critics say. Canadian Arab Federation president Khaled Mouamar received an email late Tuesday from a Conservative campaign staffer for the Etobicoke Centre riding asking “representation from the Arab community” for a Thursday visit from Stephen Harper. “Do you have any cultural groups that would like to participate by having someone at the event in an ethnic costume? We are seeking one or two people from your community,” the email signed by Zeljko ‘Zed’ Zidaric said.

This is simply run-of-the-mill political pandering, to be sure. Every party targets minority voters, as they are a growing demographic with increasing political power. There is nothing wrong with looking for ways to increase one’s visibility in minority communities, and the above quotation speaks to the Conservative Party’s strategy to do just that. However, there is a great deal to be learned here about how members of the party view members of these communities. As far as Mr. Zidaric is concerned, members of minority communities are props to be posed in front of cameras, and then promptly forgotten about:

The Conservative government cut off more than $1 million in funding to the Canadian Arab Federation after the president expressed “hateful sentiments” toward Israel and Jews, according to then immigration minister Jason Kenney. “So suddenly now we exist as props for a photo op?” said Canadian Arab Federation president Khaled Mouamar. “This is hypocrisy.”

The way that political representation is supposed to work is that members of special interest groups are courted for their support during campaigns. The price that politicians pay for the support is to move political influence to the benefit of those groups. For better or for worse, this is how groups of people get action from their political representatives beyond the list of campaign promises. However, if you don’t value the people whose endorsement you’re courting beyond what they can do for you in terms of votes, then you’re going to use them like props.

And so, to those of us that have watched the pattern of disrespect toward minority groups from conservative politicians over the years, statements like the above yield a total lack of surprise. Or, statements like this:

Donald Trump once again made headlines Friday over comments he made about President Barack Obama. This time, Trump steered away from the president’s citizenship, suggesting that votes Obama received in the 2008 election were race-based. “I have a great relationship with the blacks,” Donald Trump said on an Albany, N.Y. radio station Thursday morning. “I’ve always had a very great relationship with the blacks. But unfortunately, it seems the numbers that you cite are very, very frightening numbers.”

To a guy like Trump, they aren’t black people, they’re “the blacks”. They’re (we’re) a monolithic group that can be meaningfully defined by the colour of their skin. He doesn’t have to have a relationship with black people, as long as he has a good relationship with “the blacks”. The Conservative Party, at least the ones running the campaign in Etobicoke Centre, are not concerned with forming political partnerships with minority groups – they want photo ops with “the ethnics”. Having Jason Kenney spearhead outreach to communities with large immigrant populations is kind of like having Fred Phelps lead the Pride parade.

So it was a poor choice of words, but it reveals the underlying attitude, and something far worse. Political theatre aside, statements like Mr. Zidaric’s show that despite growing political clout, members of minority communities are considered second-class citizens. Many of the groups that spoke to the media articulated this position:

Shalini Konanur, a member of the Colour of Poverty campaign that released the video, said while the Tories have overtly pursued the ethnic vote, all major campaigns have been guilty of it. “That term, the ethnic vote, is quite a divisive term,” said Shalini Konanur. “We’ve always had the view that we’re all Canadians. We have Canadian issues. And those issues are larger than the “ethnic communities” or the racialized communities that we come from.”

It’s an all-too-real and disappointing fact that many people of colour (PoCs) in Canada are constantly made to feel as though they are guests in someone else’s home rather than members of the family. Having dark skin in Canada invariably means fielding an incessant stream of unsolicited questions about “where are you from?”, as though being white in Canada is the default and any deviations must be investigated. Most of us (if I may speak in such generalities) are capable of treating such interrogation as harmless and well-intentioned despite being tiresome, but to have our major political parties treat us this way is disheartening to say the least.

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The beatings will continue until morale improves

I’m not a parent, so this hypothetical situation might ring a little hollow, but let’s say you caught your 6 year-old daughter stealing cookies. You had indisputable proof of her theft. Instead of denying it, or looking apologetic, she simply looks you in the eye and says “yes, I stole the cookies, and I will continue to do so given the opportunity.”

Or perhaps you’re an employer who catches an employee making pornographic films on company time. “Yes,” he says “I filmed myself porking some low-rent prostitutes on your desk. However, I am planning on filming myself porking them on other people’s desks too.”

Would you think you’d slipped into Bizarro world? Nope, you’re just a voter in Quebec:

It is “normal” for Conservative ridings to receive more cash from Ottawa than those with opposition MPs, a high-profile Tory candidate in Quebec said Thursday. Larry Smith, a former CFL commissioner now running for the Conservatives in Montreal, said it is part of the political process for governments to be favourable to their supporters. The Tories believe Smith represents their best chance at winning a seat on the island for the first time since 1988. In making his case, Smith said his riding in western Montreal could expect more federal funding if it voted Conservative.

Kinda takes the wind out of the sails of your stinging accusation of vote-buying, don’t it? “Why yes, I am buying votes. You should vote for me, so that I will give you more federal money than if you vote for someone else.” It’s nice to see that the Conservatives don’t even have the capacity to feel shame anymore.

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Systematic abuse? Not our problem…

I’ve spoken before about the value of official apologies for historical wrongdoing. While those on the right will squawk that it’s just a drummed-up excuse to make (group X) feel guilty for being (X), the real consequence of apologies is to take an opportunity to own one’s past. There is the old aphorism that “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” – basically the longer we continue to deceive ourselves about what is in our history, or try to pave over the bad things, the more likely we are to make the same mistakes again.

But then there are those times when we actively refuse to deal with history:

The government cannot be held legally liable for abuses during the Mau Mau rebellion against British colonial rule in Kenya, a court has heard. Ministers want a claim for compensation from four elderly Kenyans struck out by the High Court in London. The claimants say they were assaulted between 1952 and 1961 by British colonial officers in detention camps. The Foreign Office says Kenya had its own legal colonial government, which was responsible for the camps.

This is the kind of legal jiu-jitsu that only a mob lawyer could really feel good about. The court did not deny the abuse took place, or that the men were victims of the abuse. They just think that the men should go after the real culprit – the colonial government that no longer exists. Never mind that the colonial government was established by the British Empire, for the sole purpose of stripping Kenyans from the right to self-government. Never mind that it is impossible to sue the colonial government since Britain relinquished control of the colony. No, these aren’t relevant details to the case.

What is relevant is that England can avoid having to own up for its shocking history of colonial atrocities committed against military and civilians alike. It’s like something out of The Shawshank Redemption, where Andy Defresne creates a legal identity for a fake person that can never be prosecuted, because he never existed. The colonial government, under the direction of Britain (I can’t, in this context, bring myself to refer to them as Great Britain), committed abuses and was then dissolved at the end of the colonial era. Nice and tidy way of evading culpability, innit?

The judge heard Mr Mutua and Mr Nzili had been castrated, Mr Nyingi was beaten unconscious in an incident in which 11 men were clubbed to death, and Mrs Mara had been subjected to appalling sexual abuse.

Not relevant.

David Anderson, professor of African politics at Oxford University, who has examined some of the withheld documents, said the files proved Whitehall not only knew what was being done to Mau Mau suspects but also had a part in sanctioning their ill-treatment.

Not relevant.

The government says too much time has elapsed since the alleged abuses.

Ah, now see that’s a reasonable argument! Crippling and ongoing psychological trauma? Not our problem – that shit’s old news! Oh wait, you want an apology? Yeah… take it up with the colonial government – that’s who did it, right?

Oh wait, they don’t exist?

Not relevant.

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Well India is apparently stupid too

In case you were wondering, it turns out that India is also stupid:

A controversial book on Mahatma Gandhi has been banned by the government in his native state of Gujarat. Chief Minister Narendra Modi said that its contents were “perverse and defamed the icon of non-violence”. The book by Pulitzer Prize winning author Joseph Lelyveld contains evidence that India’s independence hero had a homosexual relationship.

I’m not a fan of religion. I am irritated by conservatism. I detest racism, sexism and homophobia. I hate book bans. They have got to be the least useful, most reactionary response to an idea in existence. The entire span of human history is testament to the fact that book bans are a horrible idea. Especially for such petty and transparently ridiculous reasons.

Those of you who know me well know that I am a huge fan of a show called Clone High. It was a one-season Canadian show that caricatured teen shows, through the lens of a high school populated by clones of famous historical characters. The humour of the show came from its completely irreverent humour and fast-paced weirdness:

One of the main characters was a clone of Mohindas Gandhi, re-imagining him as an extremely hyperactive, self-aggrandizing misfit whose entire driving force was to be accepted despite his zany behaviour. Anyone with even faint knowledge of the life of Gandhi knows that this characterization is completely opposite from the actual living person, wherein lies the funny. However, when the show left Canadian television and was rebroadcast around the world, Indians were up in arms over the desecration of their national hero.

And now someone said he was GAY! OMG U GUYZ!

Here’s the thing: as much as India likes to behave as though it is a secular country, many parts of India cling strongly to “traditional values”, meaning hatred of gays and other strog out-group hostility. While we think of India as a single country, it is perhaps better understood as analogous to ancient Greece – a collection of nation-states that are affiliated but by no means homogeneous. Understanding this fact perhaps gives some insight as to why suggesting that Gandhi was anything less than a macho macho man is likely to raise some eyebrows. The fact that they’re talking about Gandhi, someone whose hero worship goes beyond the man himself and takes on a religious fervor just compounds this.

So fine, I can understand people being upset. I can understand people being so upset that they don’t buy the book, or they protest the book, or they produce scathing critiques that show the poor workmanship and revisionist history that went into writing the book. Instead, they chose to try and ban it.

Now I’ve said that banning is a stupid idea, but I haven’t bothered explaining why. Quick show of hands: who would have heard about this if the government hadn’t banned it? Okay, you can put your hands down now – I can’t actually see you. The point is that elevating this book to the level of controversy that it begins to make international headlines only serves to accomplish the exact opposite of what you’re hoping to do with the ban. If the goal of banning the book is to keep people from hearing about the idea, it is an epic level of fail – one of hundreds of biographies of Gandhi has now jumped to the top of several reading lists.

The worst part of this story, incidentally, is the fact that the author actually didn’t say any such thing:

The author of a book on Mahatma Gandhi has said it is “shameful” that it has been banned in India’s western state of Gujarat. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph Lelyveld said the book was banned on the basis of newspaper reviews. He said the reviews had sensationalised his account of Gandhi’s friendship with a German man, who may have been homosexual.

And it seems like the family doesn’t care, even if he did:

Indian writers and relatives of Mahatma Gandhi have protested against the ban. Gandhi’s great grandson Tushar Gandhi said he was against banning of books, and that it did not matter “if the Mahatma was straight, gay or bisexual”. “Every time he would still be the man who led India to freedom”.

Writer Namita Gokhale said she was saddened by the ban. “Every time a book is banned, it saddens me because you simply cannot ban ideas, you cannot ban thoughts.” she said. “In India a democratic space for ideas is a gift and I think banning a book is the most pointless exercise.”

Book bans not only violate the principle of freedom of expression, they also don’t fucking work. It is basically just setting up a giant flag that says “warning: moron approaching”.

And it seems that Canadians are just as stupid:

A Saskatchewan First Nation has banned performances of an acting troupe’s adaptation of an ancient Greek tragedy because one of the characters in the play is a corrupt chief. She said she believes her adaptation of the 2,500-year-old Greek tragedy Antigone offended the leadership of the Poundmaker First Nation.

Psst… Chief Antoine… want to know how to make people suspect that you are corrupt? Take global criticisms of corrupt chiefs personally! I’ve performed an adaptation of Antigone (many many years ago), and done some literary analysis of it. It’s a great story that well encapsulates many of the issues of governance and how personal conflict enters into discussions of principle. It’s a literary classic that has lots of parallels to band governance, regardless of whether or not a given chief is corrupt. However, standing up and banning it is a glaring sign that the criticism hits too close to home, and elevates that criticism to the national level.

Book bans – they do the exact opposite of what you want. Learn it, remember it.

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Anyone but Harper

If you’re planning on voting strategically (i.e., vote for the non-Conservative candidate to make sure you don’t split the vote and usher in a Conservative candidate), then check out this resource.

Type in your postal code, and it gives you an idea of who has a chance to beat the Conservative candidate in your riding.

Remember, if you live in a riding where there’s no way a Conservative can lose, then vote your conscience. If it’s going to be competitive, then bite the bullet and realize that ANYONE is better than Stephen Harper.

h/t to Jen!

N.B. If this doesn’t work for you, try logging into Facebook first. If you don’t have Facebook, then I’m not sure if it will work for you.

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There’s an election coming up!

In case you are completely disconnected from what is going on around you (as too many of my friends are, sadly), there is a federal election happening next month in Canada. I gather that the majority of my readers are Canadian, but I know a lot of you aren’t. Right now we have Canada’s equivalent of the Republicans in power, so I am obviously not too thrilled about that. Polls show that they will win this next election, possibly gaining seats in the process, which depresses me to no end.

Anyway, if you wanted to know where Crommunism sits on the political spectrum, CBC has helpfully provided an Electoral Compass:

Click on the image to try it out for yourself and see where you fall. Some of the positions are Canada-specific, so if you don’t know about a particular policy issue, just skip it.

If you live in Canada, vote!

N.B. Pat Dixon has made a good point, one that I meant to put in the article. You should be voting for whatever party has the best chance of beating the Conservatives in your riding. Sadly, we live in a country that has 3 left-wing parties (although I doubt the Green Party would consider themselves as such), and only one right-wing party. This results in vote splitting that allows the minority group to enjoy majority rule. Vote for whoever is likely to beat the Conservatives.

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Unopposed hypocrisy

I am what libertarians would describe as a ‘statist’. I believe that the government can and should play an active role in maintaining the stability of the society, as well as being actively involved in the economy. Of course, the word ‘statist’ has a bunch of other baggage that doesn’t apply to me at all, and I certainly have some libertarian leanings that my more liberal brethren disagree with, but suffice it to say I am not in favour of a completely hands-off approach to governing, nor do I necessarily think that the private sector will do a better job than the public sector in controlling costs or delivering high-quality services.

The only way that the democratic process can work well for the people is if there is a strong and effective opposition. The government’s interests should be to best represent the people, but as history shows us, it tends to become self-serving. Regular elections help balance that out, but an effective opposition can bring light and voter attention to issues that might otherwise escape notice. In the absence of a powerful opposition, or when the opposition has power but cannot wield it effectively, the government has a free hand to indulge in its favourite pastime: soul-crushing corruption and hypocrisy.

US state department spokesman PJ Crowley has resigned from his post following controversial comments involving the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. The news on Sunday came three days after Crowley was reported to have criticised the Pentagon’s treatment of detained US soldier Bradley Manning. Crowley said the defence department’s handling of Manning, who is accused of leaking thousands of confidential US documents to WikiLeaks, was “stupid” and “counterproductive”.

So… let’s get this straight. A non-violent, non-enemy military person leaks non-mission-critical information to a journalistic outlet that makes the info available to the world. That person is locked in a maximum-security prison, deprived of his civil rights, humiliated and held without trial. This, according to the Obama administration, is in no way cause for anyone to be fired. Despite repeated violations of the constitution and basic decency, there are no deleterious consequences for the way in which Manning is being treated.

Someone within the administration voices a perfectly reasonable criticism of this atrocity, and he’s pushed out. Someone, incidentally, with years of experience in a time when experienced state officials are sorely needed. And the rabbit hole of hypocrisy and self-immolation doesn’t stop there:

Of course, it’s also the case in Barack Obama’s world that those who instituted a worldwide torture and illegal eavesdropping regime are entitled to full-scale presidential immunity, while powerless individuals who blow the whistle on high-level wrongdoing and illegality are subjected to the most aggressive campaign of prosecution and persecution the country has ever seen. So protecting those who are abusing Manning, while firing Crowley for condemning the abuse, is perfectly consistent with the President’s sense of justice.

Also, remember how one frequent Democratic critique made of the Right generally and the Bush administration specifically was that they can’t and won’t tolerate dissent: everyone is required to march in lockstep? I wonder how that will be reconciled with this.

This, from a Republican president, would be a not-so-shocking example of executive overreach. From a Democratic president who campaigned on changing the way politics is done in America, this is a disgusting betrayal not only of the trust of those who voted for him, but of liberal democratic principals and basic human decency.

So where, pray tell, is the outrage over this issue? Where are the Republicans to stand up for the constitution, for civil rights, for open and transparent government? Oh right, the Republicans are more concerned over stripping the rights of workers to stand up to their employers and the rights of women to sexual self-determination to bother with something as trivial as the rule of law.

An effective, well-coordinated and disciplined political opposition is crucial to the health of a democratic state. No matter who is in power, she/he will invariably become corrupt and begin abusing her/his power. A political opposition provides a check on that power, to ensure that corruption is exposed. When your opposition is completely incompetent, then the interests of absolutely nobody are represented, and everyone loses.

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The hypocrisy of the religious right

Crommunist is back from vacation, but still slowly putting his life back together. I will be posting something every day, but don’t expect it to be up to my usual standard until next week.

So obviously this title will raise exactly zero eyebrows among those who have read my previous discussions of religion. I find so many aspects of religious expression hypocritical (accusing atheists of arrogance whilst insisting that the universe is created specifically for them, accusing others of immorality whilst maintaining a hideous behavioural track record), there is one form of hypocrisy that I find unique among the political right wing:

A florist in Riverview, N.B., is refusing to provide wedding flowers to a same-sex couple, according to the event’s planner. After agreeing to provide the flowers for a wedding, Kim Evans of Petals and Promises Wedding Flowers sent an email last month to the couple, saying she didn’t know it was a same-sex wedding and would have no part of the ceremony. “I am choosing to decline your business. As a born-again Christian, I must respect my conscience before God and have no part in this matter,” the email said.

The religious right has two gods: their own perverted vision of Yahweh as some kind of doting father cum eternally judgmental asshole, and free market capitalism. If one takes even a fleeting glance at the agenda of the Republican party of the United States (and anyone who thinks that Canadian Conservatives are functionally different from Republicans, or that the evangelical wing of the Christian faith is anything other than CPC boosters needs to pull her/his head firmly from her/his asshole and take a look around), one cannot help but be inundated by people who’ve never cracked Friedmann in their lives talking about “common sense economics” and the virtues of small government.

It is certainly defensible to hold these two positions in concert, although it should be fairly obvious that neither one is contingent upon the other. It does not follow, for example, that limited government is necessary because Yahweh deems it so. Conversely, being a laissez faire capitalist who believes in allowing the chips to fall as they may does not lead one down the path to accepting the supremacy of Jesus Christ. The conflation of the two non-overlapping positions is a carefully constructed marriage, match-made by the Republican party in an attempt to get a single-issue voting bloc.

Laissez-faire capitalism dictates that someone should attempt to make as much money from a potential customer as possible, provided that doing so does not break the law (well, strictly speaking it doesn’t, but I’ve never encountered a libertarian or conservative who believes that people should flout the law to make money). Considering that gay marriage is legal in Canada, Ms. Evans is behaving in a decidedly anti-capitalist way by refusing to provide a service to a law-abiding person.

Now I have no proof that Ms. Evans is a conservative. My suspicion in this matter stems from the fact that I have yet to meet any evangelical who does not also immediately grant the superiority of unregulated free markets. If she is not a conservative, she should be strongly condemned by conservatives for being anti-capitalist. However, the comments section overfloweth with supportive comments from her CPC brethren.

Dollars to donuts this is going to soon end up on a Christian website as a “prime example” of religious persecution against Christians.

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Yeah because THAT’S fair…

Crommunist is on vacation this week, so blogging will be spotty. I’m going to make sure there’s at least SOMETHING up every day, but they’ll be short. Things should be back to normal by April.

Fair warning – this post was written whilst VERY drunk.

A revised citizenship study guide for new Canadians released Monday contains a single sentence on gay and lesbian rights, which is a sentence more than in the first version of the book published a year and a half ago. The added material on gay rights — a topic completely absent from the first release of the federal government’s guide in November 2009 — was among several notable additions to the document unveiled by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, including denunciations of violent extremism and forced marriage.

I am usually fluent in the English language. In the state I am currently in, I would barely pass the citizenship test that is the subject of this news post. I am trying to marshall all the cognitive ability at my disposal. Fuck Jason Kenney. Fuck the Conservative Party of Canada.

While it is commendable that  SOME mention of Canada’s gay population made it into the citizenship guide, considering the fact that Canada was one of the first countries to bite the bullet and recognize that gay people are PEOPLE, this should be a selling point; not a shameful thing to sweep under the rug. The CPC is wearing its cross on its sleeve.

Sooo not sober. I blame society.

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Movie Friday: Tim Wise and the illusion of “post-racial”

I am depressed.

I am depressed for two reasons. First, I am depressed that no matter how hard I work, I will likely never get as good at talking about issues of race and racism, history and the importance of advocacy as Tim Wise is:

The second reason I am depressed is that it seems like the forces of reason are losing the fight to the forces of revisionist history, post-hoc rationalization and short-sighted self-interest. I realize this post is much longer than what I usually post for Movie Friday (and has fewer jokes), but if you’ve found any of my posts on “the good old days” or the importance of recognizing black history, or really anything that I’ve said about race to be interesting (and the numbers suggest that at least some of you do), then you’ll absolutely love this clip.

Any of you who have watched any black beat poetry or other forms of spoken word, you’ll recognize that Tim uses a lot of their cadence and punctuated rhythm to get his points across. It’s not just a lecture – it’s verbal poetry. Amazing stuff, and I really really hope you watch it.

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