Out of commission

I have mentioned the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism only a couple of times, and always in passing, mostly because I really don't see it as part of my mandate, despite the fact that my beat is, officially, ''social issues and cultural trends.''

A quick summary of what the Coalition is about:

The CPCCA (Canadian Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism) was formed in March of 2009 and brings together 22 Parliamentarians from all parties in the House of Commons for the stated purpose of confronting and combating antisemitism in Canada today. The group is broken into two committees: the Inquiry Panel (chaired by MP Mario Silva) and the Steering Committee (chaired by MP Scott Reid).

The Inquiry was launched on June 2nd, with an open call for written submissions by the Canadian public. After receiving nearly 200 written submissions, the committee will begin its public hearings starting on the 2nd of November. At the conclusion of the hearings, the committee will produce a report to the Government of Canada, and anticipates that the Government will respond to this report no later than the fall of 2010.

The CPCCA is not affiliated with the Government of Canada, any NGO, or any advocacy group. It is associated with the Inter-parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism, the international steering committee which organized the conference in London in 2009.

One could make the case that redefining antisemitism to include criticism of Israel -- which appears to be what the CPCCA's intent is, at least judging from its website FAQs -- is very much a social issue in that it affects Canadians' freedom of speech. But I'll leave that to my Star colleagues Tom Walkom, Haroon Siddiqui and Linda McQuaig as well as blogger Dr. Dawg -- although I have posted articles about it on my Facebook profile to some interesting and very heated discussions. (Incidentally, the CPCCA has received pitifully little corporate media coverage.)

Today I received a copy of an open letter to Liberal MP Hedy Fry which ties directly into what I see as my beat. Here it is, unedited, with some links added by me:

To: Dr. Hedy Fry, M.P.
From: Joanne Naiman
Re: Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism
Date: Dec. 8, 09

Dear Dr. Fry,

This past Sunday—the twentieth anniversary of the Montreal massacre—I attended the memorial you spoke at in Vancouver. Your speech was moving and touched on the real concerns of women across the country. However, while you spoke, I was seething underneath. You see, I am a retired sociologist, an activist, and a Jew. This summer, I made a submission to the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism, of which you are a member. In that submission, I noted that, while anti-Semitism certainly exists in Canada, it is a minor social problem when compared to, say, homelessness, the conditions of indigenous people, or other forms of ethno-racial discrimination. I am ashamed to say that what I didn’t think to compare it to, but should have, is the problems faced by women in this country.

I stood in the cold with you on Sunday thinking to myself that my chances of being harmed—whether with words, low wages, or by a gun—are statistically far greater as a result of my being female than my being Jewish.  For example, if I were a young Jewish woman on a university campus in Canada, I would be at much greater risk of experiencing physical assault or abuse because of my gender than because of my religion. On average, 182 females were killed every year in Canada between 1994 and 2003 (www.statcan.gc.ca) and almost half of all women in 1998 reported having been sexually assaulted after leaving high school (Jewish Women International). And if I were a native woman, I would be at least five times more likely than other women in Canada to die as the result of violence.

I am not trying to make an invidious comparison between the suffering of one group as compared to another, but the facts speak for themselves. Anti-Semitism is an odious but minor reality in Canada, and has been so for many years. Meanwhile, the conditions for women have been deteriorating, and most of the poor in this country continue to be women. In recent years funding to women’s organizations has been cut drastically, a proposed national childcare program has been abandoned, unions are being attacked resulting in lower wages and worsening working conditions for many women (particularly in B.C.), the long gun registry is under threat of being dismantled,  native women continue to suffer the consequence of their peoples’ horrific maltreatment,  and—according to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (Nov 2008)— “...hundreds of cases involving Aboriginal women who have gone missing or been murdered in the past two decades have neither been fully investigated nor attracted priority attention.”  I’m sure, Dr. Fry, that you are well aware of these facts.

The obvious question, then, is, why have you agreed to participate in this unprecedented and undemocratic Parliamentary Coalition that is spending a great deal of time and money investigating what must be described as a minor social problem? Instead, why aren’t you and your party calling for a similar entity to resolve even a few of the serious problems faced by untold numbers of women in this country? Imagine if we had a Canadian Parliamentary Coalition on Women’s Issues (CPCWI) that planned to make its report to government in the next few months and—as seems to be the case with the CPCCA –expected “that the Government will respond to it by the spring of 2010 (CPCCA news release, June 2, 2009).” Just imagine if this government were to respond to women’s concerns so quickly and so favourably.

Of course, as others have recently noted, the CPCCA—in line with the International Commission for Combatting Anti-Semitism—is not primarily about anti-Semitism at all, but rather is clearly an attempt to muzzle serious legitimate debate about and criticism of the policies of the State of Israel towards Palestinians—men, women and children. This is clear from reading the CPCCA website.  How else can one explain why this Coalition has largely ignored submissions from among the many individuals and groups (including those in the Jewish community) who are critical of Israel’s policies?  Why is the last group to be called to these hearings (in January and February of 2010) police officers, whom, we are told, will make “recommendations regarding standard definitions of antisemitism to be adopted by police forces across the country”? Why else would this Coalition expect the Conservative-led government to respond so favourably and so quickly to its report? Lastly, why, despite statements to the contrary on its website, has the CPCCA refused to date to reveal its funding sources?*

As a Jew, I am proud of our tradition as a caring and compassionate people that has advocated for universalism, that is, the rights and freedoms of all people. It is this tradition that led many Jews to actively support the Black civil rights movement in the United States and the struggle to end Apartheid in South Africa. But while the narrow and dangerous terms of reference of this Coalition therefore make me outraged, they also make me afraid.  As noted in my submission, this unprecedented Parliamentary Coalition will doubtless convince those already predisposed to believe it that Jews hold undue sway in the political arena, and it will therefore inevitably fan the flames of anti-Semitism in this country.  I therefore, lastly, ask you to explain to me why you and your party continue to be part of the CPCCA.

I look forward to your early response in this serious matter.

Sincerely,


Joanne Naiman, M.A., B.Ed.
Professor Emerita,
Department of Sociology
Ryerson University
Toronto
(now living in Vancouver)

c.c. Joyce Murray, M.P.
      Carolyn Bennett, M.P.
      Judy Wasylycia-Leis,  M.P.
      Sid Shniad, Independent Jewish Voices, Vancouver
      Lynda Lemberg, Educators for Peace and Justice, Toronto

Two things I will add here.

As I marked with an * above, I don't know that anybody has actually asked the CPCCA for the source of its funding and has been refused the information. Also, the website states that the inquiry is ''independent of the Government opf Canada, although the hearings are being held in the Centre Block on Parliament Hill.

And, for the record, one submission to the CPCCA, which is currently holding hearings, actually hints that even questioning the need for an inquiry is antisemitic.

And so it goes ...

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: I like this letter to the editor in today's Star. Here's part of it:

The public incitement of hatred section of the Criminal Code should be amended to conform to Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, thereby granting protection to girls and women. Currently, the law only protects those identified by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin and sexual orientation.

Omitting girls and women from the list compromises their safety. This gap between the Charter of Rights and the Criminal Code is a stark piece of unfinished business. Why is it taking so long to deal with it?

Dead silence

Via Canadian Cynic, although deBeauxOs over at Dammit Janet! expresses most like I would.

I paraphrase:

So why is it that, when brown women are killed by brown men, conservatives and/or sexists scream ''Honour killings!'' and demand ''Where are the feminists?'' while professing to care about brown women's rights?

But, when a brown woman gets shafted by our very own Conservative government, these very same people, who are oh-so-concerned about brown women's rights, are silent?

This is a story the Star is all over today here, here, here and here.

... in Canada today, God help you if you're not white, because the federal government sure won't. Indeed, that government creates these problems in the first place.

(Suaad Hagi) Mohamud's case is a perfect example; her nightmare began when a functionary in the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi agreed with a Kenyan airport official and decided she wasn't the woman whose photograph appears in her passport. We were told, incredibly, that it had something to do with her lips. She was immediately declared an "imposter" and Kenyan authorities were asked to prosecute her.

Although she produced all kinds of identification – including a driver's licence, OHIP card, social insurance card and a Canadian citizenship certificate to boot – her fate was sealed. The poor woman even spent time in a Kenyan jail, the horror of which one can only begin to imagine.

Meanwhile, her 12-year-old son – clearly another figment of her imagination – languished in Toronto, wondering if, not when, his mother would be able to return home.

Months after Mohamud's ordeal began and even now that its falsity has been exposed, no one in Harper's government has said a word, let alone apologized.

This isn't just another political scandal; this is cause for deep national shame. This smacks not just of prejudice, but of apartheid.

The whole episode, don't forget, began and ended with Canadian officialdom. Even if one accepts that bureaucrats in a far-flung posting make stupid mistakes such as this, the elected government's response has turned that error into something wholly different, namely a matter of policy. Whether that policy is official or not, it's now clear that only certain Canadians can count on the protection of the federal government.

Had Mohamud been a white mother from Leaside, you can rest assured that Harper himself would have led the charge to have her repatriated.

(Preferably if she had been a stay-at-home mother, of course.)

Read some of the comments on these and related stories and you'll be shocked by the number of people who blame the victim because her head was covered. That despite how:

Mohamud quickly presented a credible batch of documents to Canadian diplomats in Nairobi attesting to her Canadian citizenship and residency. They included an Ontario driver's licence, an Ontario Health Insurance Plan card, a citizenship certificate, a social insurance card, credit card, bank cards, a Humber River Regional Hospital card, a Shoppers Drug Mart card, a note from her Toronto employer, and a recent Toronto dry cleaning receipt. Given all this, Ottawa should have been able to confirm her citizenship within days at most.

Yet officials in the high commission rejected the documents, branding her an imposter. They sent her voided passport to Kenyan immigration authorities to help them prosecute her, which could have led to prison or expulsion to her native, wartorn Somalia.

But it's not just blogging conjobs who are silent.

As Dammit Janet! notes:

And among those who demonstrated the most callous bureaucratic and racist indifference to her plight are Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan and Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney - all non-muslim white men of privilege and members of Stephen Harper's Conservative Government.

Oh, but when it comes to women in Afghanistan? They're so there.

Even if their tactics are a failure.

President Karzai has supported women simply through rhetoric. He has promised repeatedly to appoint more women ministers and nominate them to the Supreme Court, but has reneged on both. Worse, he signed the "women’s law," which essentially legalized rather than criminalizing abuse.

Karzai is appointing dangerous warlords who do not respect women’s rights and also pursuing a peace agreement with the Taliban. Feminist organizations must take their resources and work all sides of this equation. Perhaps Karzai should hear from these groups about a campaign to remove him from office instead of allowing him to use women as ballot stuffers.

Helping women in Afghanistan has never been easy, so it must be strategic. Abdur Rahman Khan, who ruled Afghanistan from 1880-1901, was the first monarch to allow his wife to be seen without a veil. This and his quest to bring progressive changes to Afghanistan sparked a rebellion that eventually cost him his crown. Any time reforms are initiated too quickly, or directly oppose traditions, Afghans tend to respond ruthlessly – as they did when the Soviets tried to impose progressive decrees that changed women’s status. What followed was the comprehensive suppression of women’s rights during the Mujahedeen and Taliban eras.

Although international rhetoric is on target, current policy is not.

More from LibArtsandMinds.

So anyway, where are those cons on Mohamud's plight?

<Crickets chirp. Frogs ribbit.>

Chewing the rag

You knew this would happen didn't you?

First, US right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh compares President Barack Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court to the nomination of David Duke, former KKK Grand White Sheet Wearer David Duke and, I might add, an elected Republican.

Okay, in one sense, that's fair. He probably would say that of any non-white nominee, male or female, because, as you know, whitey is super oppressed right now.

Except, as one of my Twitter pals noted, it's hard to think of Limbaugh as white, "fair-complexioned,'' what with his head so far up his own butt. (Edited to add: A friend noted that some people may misinterpret the joke. I hope not.)

So, anyway ...

Via Think Progress, comes this, out of the mouth of ex-con and tax evader G. Gordon Liddy, who must love judges, on his radio show.

LIDDY: Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then.

Give a listen:

So here's what I'm thinking. if an when Sarah Palin, whom jackasses like these seem to adore, runs for the White House in 2012, think we'll hear Liddy express concerns about PMS and going nuclear?

Tick, tick, tick ...

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: More on the oppressed white man from Salon. (reg. req'd.)

You might not think, in that world, that early opposition to the court nominee would involve accusing her of being racist and sexist, and steadily questioning her intelligence in a way that implies she's an affirmative action pick. That might seem, in fact, like a fairly self-destructive strategy, one that even the opposition party's most hardcore base would want to avoid. But welcome to 2009.

"White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw," wrote Newt Gingrich -- whom conservatives routinely fall over themselves to praise as a driving force of ideas for the Republican Party, and who is also, at least for now, making noises about running for president in 2012 -- on Tuesday on his Twitter feed. The ex-House speaker managed to make the sentiment sound even more Neolithic by compressing it to fit Twitter's 140-character limit. "Latina woman racist should also withdraw." He seemed to be grunting, not tweeting. (Gingrich was then forced to fend off questions about whether he had posted that item while touring Auschwitz -- which he denies, and which you couldn't make up.)

UPPITYER WOMEN DATE: MOMocrats has a gruesome photo of Liddy.

Sharia mania

In case you missed the commentary about that controversial Afghan law on the Star's main website  today, here it is, or at least part of it, again. It's by Nelofer Pazira, president of Pen Canada and author of Return to Kandahar, who is none to pleased by the Western reaction to the law.

Any law or practice that treats any members of society, men or women, with prejudice should not be tolerated. But with the hysteria the West has showered on this issue, I wonder whether we're not projecting our own fears of sharia onto what's unfolding in Afghanistan. In Canada, we hear the word sharia and we tremble because all we know of Islamic law is the Taliban, the Danish cartoons affair and executions in Saudi Arabia.

In the case of Afghanistan, the new legislation will affect women of the Shiite minority – about 5 per cent of the population. The majority of all Afghan women are in fact hostage to far more draconian practices, enshrined in customs and traditions that date back to pre-sharia days – and are in some cases contradictory to Islam.

These practices include dowries, forced marriages and women's absolute obedience to men. Even in its conservative interpretation, Islam recognizes women's rights to land ownership. It insists on the "consent" of both sexes when entering a marriage contract or sexual relations.

What is branded as "sharia" for Shiites in the legislature is basically giving Afghan men the right to control their wives, which is already practised widely throughout the country. While Hamid Karzai's government may call for review of the law – even going so far as to provide verbal assurances to its Western patrons that the law will be revised – the attitude of Afghan men won't change with the rewording of a legal document through external pressures, especially from the West.

<SNIP>

Sure, we must fight to protect the legal rights of women. But we must also seek ways to bring about change so that legislation is relevant to the lives of women and men in Afghanistan. The majority of Afghans cannot read and write; an even greater majority don't go to the courts to resolve family and marriage problems. The few who are educated enough to seek legal help are skeptical about the rule of law because of the corruption and lack of trust in the Afghan government and the judicial system.

This government has lost its legitimacy because most Afghans view Karzai as a Western puppet. Karzai, of course, has been making concessions to conservatives to prove he is the leader of a sovereign state – in the hope this will help him win the next election. But causing him this international public embarrassment and forcing him to give in to even more Western dictates is undermining his already shrinking local popularity – let alone any chance of re-election.

By all means, help Afghan women. But spare me the hysteria.

Especially since, as I and others have pointed out, there is a racist element to the ''hysteria'' that is not at all helpful to advancing peace in the Middle East and the '''Stans.''

Like I have said before: You know what might work in Afghanistan, since the West is propping up its own man anyway?

Kick out the guys from the government and put in a bunch of women, women who obviously will never be able to leave a fortress of a capital for their own protection.

Any nation that treats women like dirt will always remain in the muck.

Pearcing words

Just a note to say how much I appreciate your dropping by and, especially your comments. Whether we agree or not, it heartens me to have a debate, openly and freely.

My only regret is that I don't have final authority over what comments get published. That's up to the Star's overworked goderators who must abide by our policy. (No flaming, no cussing, no hate, no endless quoting from other sources, no slander ...) Me, I would publish everything, except hate and anything that could pose a legal problem.

It's not often that I pull out a comment and publish it in a separate post but I just could not resist doing that today with these words from ''Barb Pearce'' -- if that's her real name, I don't know -- deep down in the Spermicide for the Mind thread below. It's response to other comments, and it's a doozy. I added some links.

Dianne: First the feeling of pain argument has not been scientifically proven. .... Before thalamic connections exist to the cortex, (22 weeks) responses to noxious stimuli are reflexes..

Why pro-life people think this argument will “sway” women is beyond me.........I'm pasting a statement by a anti-choicer who actually sees stupidity in the argument.

Douglas R. Scott, president of Life Decisions International, worried that arguing "pain to the fetus" will only mean requests for anesthesia...which might make women more likely to go through with an abortion. "The mother can believe she is making a benevolent choice, even as she simultaneously participates in a heinous act," he wrote on Christian Newswire. "I can hear it now. 'At least the fetus didn't feel pain...'"

Jean and Steve:

You are denegrating women! It's offensive that you imply abortion is something us poor dimwitted women are coerced into. Women are fully capable of making correct choices for themselves
Anti-Baby? From what I see, Pro-lifers spread misleading information and use fear mongering and physcological warfare. Comparing women to Nazis, calling it the "easy way out" (yet at the same time explaining the easyway out leads to a lifetime of guilt and mourning - yah, really easy),telling women that abortion causes breast cancer, is just sick.

When you wake up today, you should get off your self righteous high horse. While you drink your coffee think of all the child slaves that lost their lives so you can have your perk. Look at your pyjamas and pray to god that the child who sewed them didn't lose another finger. How many kid's did you kill today so you could purchase useless crap at low prices?

You all seem to forget about that. How convenient. I suppose loudly opposing abortion is kind of like off setting that guilt. No wonder the most stringent anti-choicers vote conservative regardless of their promotion of selfishness (oops I mean individual freedom) and their total lack of empathy and regard for their fellow man. All they have to do is hold up the anti-abortion card and you line up like sheep, selfishly hoping it will give you a get in free pass at the pearly gates.

It doesn’t matter how horrific pro-lifers present abortion. It is a deeper issue. It is an issue, regardless of a women's stance ( for/against), that sounds off alarm bells. The inequality of women is very obvious.....especially to women.

Women are not valued as equals, the pro-life philosophy is an attack against our reproductive rights...or an attack simply for being a women.

That's why polls show Canadians believe in choice. Most Canadians get what's at stake. A National Post poll from November 2002 (there are many, many polls like this) found 78% of respondents answered "yes" to the question: "Should women have complete freedom on their decision to have an abortion?".

In a June 2008 Angus Reid Strategies poll found only 5% of Canadians would outlaw abortion altogether.

So....the majority of people, including those who personally disagree with abortion, agree it is still a women’s choice.

You need to wake up and look around at the inequality women face at home and worldwide. When you have governments that force abortions of female fetuses (because the women have NO choice - No is also a choice), governments that view women as nothing more than incubators, and the fact that the majority of anti-choice leaders are men (an estimated 70%) who happen to be the same ones who promote the insane “True Women Manifesto” (god ordained female submission to the man) the majority of women will stand together stronger. Women have no other option than to protect ourselves.

Pro-Choice is really a matter of survival for women.

Instead of sticking your nose where it doesn't belong, I suggest you look in the mirror and then start picking your own cotton, sewing your own clothes, growing your own coffee beans, and stop shopping at Wal-Mart.

All I would add is, shop fair trade.