Opinions
Canada’s foreign relations
Canada continues to misunderstand others, or to learn that it cannot impose its style and methods on others, or judge them by out-moded imperial stereotypes; this is especially deplorable when championed by the offspring of migrants from totalitarian states, who tend to flaunt their Canadianism with extreme zeal.
Canadians cannot force other cultures to adopt their values, however malign the others might appear. Nor should Canada reproach a nation as it did Saudi Arabia (KSA), without first learning its cultural norms and sensitivities; dissent must be
Canadians cannot force other cultures to adopt their values, however malign the others might appear. Nor should Canada reproach a nation as it did Saudi Arabia (KSA), without first learning its cultural norms and sensitivities; dissent must be
dealt with tact: in short, behave respectfully as it does towards the USA, UK or Israel. Did Canada criticise Bush’s Guantanamo Bay activities, or the previous US massacre at My Lai, Vietnam? We cannot set standards for another country; as a nation we must respect the norms of others, however disagreeable, just as we demand respect from ours; we must give up the crusading zeal that our current leaders display, uncritically, as if Canada was right and others wrong; thus we lose friends, as CBC’s Chris Hall has noted (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-trump-china-saudi-2018-1.4952977).
Our leaders need to learn true “diplomacy”, which comes from understanding and compromise, and by avoiding self-delusion. Canadian politicians must grow up; they must set their house in order; reread the lesson of the beam and mote in Christian ethics.
Canada – sheltering under the shadow of the USA, and beguiled by self-praise as “world class” (whatever that means) –cannot get away with insulting others, as it did India repeatedly through its history: Komagatu Maru, anti-Indian immigration policies, Air India bombing sequel, Trudeau’s caricature of Indians on his spring visit; his partiality to closet Khalistanis, accompanying Sikh ministers and a convicted shooter known to them. These know little of Indian history, like most of the Indian immigrants you meet here, brainwashed with a British education that still prevails in India. Now, Radio Canada’s satirical year-end review of the visit emphasised Trudeau’s gaffes once more, while ridiculing Hinduism, a common game in North America.
It is fashionable to present PM Modi as a fundamentalist, trash his Hinduism and promotion of Hindu causes without any sympathy for the centuries of debasement under foreigners, and decades side-lined by a secular indigenous INC, so that it was a miracle that a revolt had not occurred. Modi might be too far in favour of reinstituting Hindu values to suit some, but remember the magnitude of his problem: a Hindu majority that felt underserved by six decades of INC rule, widespread corruption and class divisions, some 200 million underprivileged, neglected, and poorly educated, if at all, a growing middle class with declining morals and aping Americana in clothing, food, behaviour, and entertainment, assailed by cliques of proselytising Christians, militant Moslem gangs, and greedy wealthy nationals.
If Canada wishes to “reform” KSA – generally overlooked until it became rich enough in the last 40 years to buy entry to Canada (money lightens dark skins) – Canadian politicians must cleanse their hands and minds of the enormous insult, damage and inhumanity to Canadian First Nations, savaged by racial biases, land seizure, forced conversions, systematic abandonment, denial of development and opportunity, and short-changed by the Department of Indian Affairs. Not until Canada improves the status of First Nations, can it dare to lecture anyone on human rights, as our PM and Foreign Minister so glibly do. For the PM, the simplistic appointment of a few women to high political office does not instantly confer equality on all women; in fact, that can backfire unless the chosen women are clearly equal or superior to the competition, and not appear, as some do, to have been scraped up from the bottom of the barrel!
The Meng (Huawei) arrest is another type of confused decision-making, to carry out a US political plan. The action was not taken by the AG (Ministry of Justice), as a legal matter would have been, but under that poltical duo, the PM and Foreign Minister.
Will they have another knee-jerk reaction by targeting Russia for seizing Ukrainian boats? Remember Freeland’s mother was Ukrainian. “New Zealand and Australia have banned the use of Huawei products in their 5G network development, fearing Huawei could use its access to spy for the Chinese government.” (CBC) This is straight from the US state department, dictating to their Pacific (pacified) vassals.
The UK, as expected, and Czech Republic will blacklist Huawei, which has now displaced Apple from second place in Smartphone business. To Trudeau’s credit, he will await the advice of his experts. More of this and reflection, please.
Our leaders need to learn true “diplomacy”, which comes from understanding and compromise, and by avoiding self-delusion. Canadian politicians must grow up; they must set their house in order; reread the lesson of the beam and mote in Christian ethics.
Canada – sheltering under the shadow of the USA, and beguiled by self-praise as “world class” (whatever that means) –cannot get away with insulting others, as it did India repeatedly through its history: Komagatu Maru, anti-Indian immigration policies, Air India bombing sequel, Trudeau’s caricature of Indians on his spring visit; his partiality to closet Khalistanis, accompanying Sikh ministers and a convicted shooter known to them. These know little of Indian history, like most of the Indian immigrants you meet here, brainwashed with a British education that still prevails in India. Now, Radio Canada’s satirical year-end review of the visit emphasised Trudeau’s gaffes once more, while ridiculing Hinduism, a common game in North America.
It is fashionable to present PM Modi as a fundamentalist, trash his Hinduism and promotion of Hindu causes without any sympathy for the centuries of debasement under foreigners, and decades side-lined by a secular indigenous INC, so that it was a miracle that a revolt had not occurred. Modi might be too far in favour of reinstituting Hindu values to suit some, but remember the magnitude of his problem: a Hindu majority that felt underserved by six decades of INC rule, widespread corruption and class divisions, some 200 million underprivileged, neglected, and poorly educated, if at all, a growing middle class with declining morals and aping Americana in clothing, food, behaviour, and entertainment, assailed by cliques of proselytising Christians, militant Moslem gangs, and greedy wealthy nationals.
If Canada wishes to “reform” KSA – generally overlooked until it became rich enough in the last 40 years to buy entry to Canada (money lightens dark skins) – Canadian politicians must cleanse their hands and minds of the enormous insult, damage and inhumanity to Canadian First Nations, savaged by racial biases, land seizure, forced conversions, systematic abandonment, denial of development and opportunity, and short-changed by the Department of Indian Affairs. Not until Canada improves the status of First Nations, can it dare to lecture anyone on human rights, as our PM and Foreign Minister so glibly do. For the PM, the simplistic appointment of a few women to high political office does not instantly confer equality on all women; in fact, that can backfire unless the chosen women are clearly equal or superior to the competition, and not appear, as some do, to have been scraped up from the bottom of the barrel!
The Meng (Huawei) arrest is another type of confused decision-making, to carry out a US political plan. The action was not taken by the AG (Ministry of Justice), as a legal matter would have been, but under that poltical duo, the PM and Foreign Minister.
Will they have another knee-jerk reaction by targeting Russia for seizing Ukrainian boats? Remember Freeland’s mother was Ukrainian. “New Zealand and Australia have banned the use of Huawei products in their 5G network development, fearing Huawei could use its access to spy for the Chinese government.” (CBC) This is straight from the US state department, dictating to their Pacific (pacified) vassals.
The UK, as expected, and Czech Republic will blacklist Huawei, which has now displaced Apple from second place in Smartphone business. To Trudeau’s credit, he will await the advice of his experts. More of this and reflection, please.
Early signs of thrift and wisdom
Romeo Kaseram
There was the time when growing up back home, Ma decided she was too busy with washing floors, scrubbing the black soot off the bottoms of pots with wads of coconut fibre and wood ash, and mercilessly beating her work-clothes with a rock in one hand, and a coarse, blue soap in the other, by the “washing-stand” at the back of the house.
Ma lamented constantly how life was keeping her so busy it would only be possible for her to go “make market” if she could somehow twin herself. The trip to the market was a minimum of two hours haggling, reconnecting with friends, and complaining about rising
prices, with a half-an-hour walk both ways in the hot sun while breathing out of the mouth like an overheated chicken. It turned out I was the next best thing to Ma making a twin of herself, relatively speaking. I was growing into a responsible young lad, and importantly, showing early signs of knowing the value of a one-cent piece. So Ma deemed me fit to make the trip in her stead, but only after half-an-hour of warnings, cajoling, and repeated threats of dire consequences if I “misbehaved”.
Of course, to “misbehave” was subjective in her eyes, which meant something I did with approval on Monday could see dire consequences on Tuesday. However, I readily agreed to head out to the market with Ma’s shopping list, aware the consequences could be either a gentle pat on the head, or a heavy whack to the behind.
So it came to pass I took my young life into my own hands, grim with the foreknowledge I could be the beneficiary of Ma’s gratitude, which could mean the payout of a largesse in an entire penny, which after falling into my eager clutch, could be spent in those days in as many ways as there were swirls on a jalebi. Or I could be the recipient of that fearsome, heaving muscularity that made Ma’s upper arms as defined and sculpted as the biceps Charles Atlas used to con many an underweight weakling who could barely lift the comic book in which those misleading advertisements were printed.
Not only that, but I also knew quite well the efficacy of the healing powers Ma could deliver on my person using her rod of correction, which she constantly refreshed from the medicinal sage that was rooted and nourished from the soapy run-off by the “washing stand” behind the house.
Yet I promised to go directly to the market, purchase Ma’s weekly requirement of yams, sweet potatoes, and roots of the slimy but earthy taro, which we called “dasheen”, wrapped gently among newspapers in the large, wicker basket, and then return home with all haste and dispatch.
Having made my solemn promise as Ma’s representative and temporary twin, there was a lot of preparation before the trip. No doubt Ma had her reservations, despite my stone-faced and solemn oath. I think if she could have done it, she would have tied a length of string to my shirt-tail, releasing a little from the ball of twine as I walked the winding paths to the market, idly swinging the wicker basket.
With such an entwined lever of control, I could see Ma occasionally pulling the string taut to keep me in line so I did not dally over pools in the lazy river, spitting into the water to watch the fish in frenzy; or giving me a lot of slack after I had irritated a dog or two with a menacing glare, but more likely with a tossed stone, escalating the taunt into hot pursuit so my meaty legs were put in grave danger of bared fangs. And after my purchasing was done, her reeling me back by heaving on the line, her muscular arms pumping like a big-game angler, drawing me home like a reluctant behemoth fighting a deeply-embedded hook.
For me, no trip to the market could not be complete until I had visited the vendor of sweets. To stand by this stall was to be confronted by each sweet calling my name with its multitude of temptations; but the sweetest call that lifted above the symphony of sugar, filling my ear with its music like a siren’s song, came from the golden stacks of jalebi.
I had planned ahead, having grasped premeditation and thrift at an early age. With the knowledge that my job making Ma’s “market” would be well-received, I had already anticipated her reward of that well-earned penny. Consequently, I had haggled during shopping so it rounded out the yams, the sweet potatoes, and the “dasheen”, the totality of left-over change being her anticipated payment for my industry – the sum of an entire penny.
Knowing Ma would ask about left-over change, already I anticipated that penny as payment for helping her out: “You are such a nice child. Keep the penny, son.” Thus reasoning overpowered me – it was in good faith to lessen the burden of returning weighed down with a penny, and even better to invest in the heavenly joy of jalebi.
Of course, to “misbehave” was subjective in her eyes, which meant something I did with approval on Monday could see dire consequences on Tuesday. However, I readily agreed to head out to the market with Ma’s shopping list, aware the consequences could be either a gentle pat on the head, or a heavy whack to the behind.
So it came to pass I took my young life into my own hands, grim with the foreknowledge I could be the beneficiary of Ma’s gratitude, which could mean the payout of a largesse in an entire penny, which after falling into my eager clutch, could be spent in those days in as many ways as there were swirls on a jalebi. Or I could be the recipient of that fearsome, heaving muscularity that made Ma’s upper arms as defined and sculpted as the biceps Charles Atlas used to con many an underweight weakling who could barely lift the comic book in which those misleading advertisements were printed.
Not only that, but I also knew quite well the efficacy of the healing powers Ma could deliver on my person using her rod of correction, which she constantly refreshed from the medicinal sage that was rooted and nourished from the soapy run-off by the “washing stand” behind the house.
Yet I promised to go directly to the market, purchase Ma’s weekly requirement of yams, sweet potatoes, and roots of the slimy but earthy taro, which we called “dasheen”, wrapped gently among newspapers in the large, wicker basket, and then return home with all haste and dispatch.
Having made my solemn promise as Ma’s representative and temporary twin, there was a lot of preparation before the trip. No doubt Ma had her reservations, despite my stone-faced and solemn oath. I think if she could have done it, she would have tied a length of string to my shirt-tail, releasing a little from the ball of twine as I walked the winding paths to the market, idly swinging the wicker basket.
With such an entwined lever of control, I could see Ma occasionally pulling the string taut to keep me in line so I did not dally over pools in the lazy river, spitting into the water to watch the fish in frenzy; or giving me a lot of slack after I had irritated a dog or two with a menacing glare, but more likely with a tossed stone, escalating the taunt into hot pursuit so my meaty legs were put in grave danger of bared fangs. And after my purchasing was done, her reeling me back by heaving on the line, her muscular arms pumping like a big-game angler, drawing me home like a reluctant behemoth fighting a deeply-embedded hook.
For me, no trip to the market could not be complete until I had visited the vendor of sweets. To stand by this stall was to be confronted by each sweet calling my name with its multitude of temptations; but the sweetest call that lifted above the symphony of sugar, filling my ear with its music like a siren’s song, came from the golden stacks of jalebi.
I had planned ahead, having grasped premeditation and thrift at an early age. With the knowledge that my job making Ma’s “market” would be well-received, I had already anticipated her reward of that well-earned penny. Consequently, I had haggled during shopping so it rounded out the yams, the sweet potatoes, and the “dasheen”, the totality of left-over change being her anticipated payment for my industry – the sum of an entire penny.
Knowing Ma would ask about left-over change, already I anticipated that penny as payment for helping her out: “You are such a nice child. Keep the penny, son.” Thus reasoning overpowered me – it was in good faith to lessen the burden of returning weighed down with a penny, and even better to invest in the heavenly joy of jalebi.
