time to toss the salad and melt the pot
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If Canada is the world in one place, as it proudly claims, what kind of a place is it becoming? In the troubling aftermath of 17 Toronto "terrorism" arrests, the answer is both dramatically different and depressingly familiar.
Just for a moment, turn a few hundred years of Western civilization on its head and presume the teenagers and men appearing in court today are not innocent but guilty. Should that eventually emerge as the legal rather than emotional judgment of peers, this country, led by its federal government, faces tough and lasting introspection.
Why? Because all those charged are Canadians, no more, no less.
That's pivotal because this is a domestic problem with offshore roots, not just a foreign problem manifesting itself at home. If the allegations are true and the plot more than a fantasy that became a conspiracy, we are under attack from ourselves.
After last year's London transit bombings, Britain faced the same wrenching realization that the enemy, by virtue of a tolerant culture and ethnic mosaic, is inside the wire. That makes resistance so much more difficult than demonizing strangers before sending troops to fight a distant war. Most of all, it means scrutinizing a complex mix of policies to determine if something is broken internally and urgently needs to be fixed.
What led to the weekend arrests isn't new and is only different in detail. Once again, those who have lived here long enough to distance themselves from inherited hatreds and imported conflicts allegedly found those passions irresistible. It's a familiar pattern that repeats with almost every immigrant wave. Among others, the IRA and Tamil Tigers found this country ripe for militant fundraising while constant Middle East violence continues to divide Canadian Jews and Canadian Arabs. Usually the worst results of those activities explode over there. But from time to time, as they did in the 1985 Air-India bombings, they implode here with devastating impact.
What's different now is that the danger zone has expanded beyond state-based conflicts into the no-compromise extremes of beliefs. Along with making it easy to tar the many with the actions of a few, it makes it attractive to assume the fault line runs through one community instead of across Canada. In pursuing multicultural tolerance, Canada has been negligent in reinforcing essential, common-denominator values. Most of those are self-evident: human rights, the rule of law and the understanding that one person's freedom ends where another's begins. These are all-defining and remain easily powerful enough to make this country a magnet.
But what's slipped through cracks is that being Canadian requires a commitment passed from generation to generation. Stripped bare of rhetoric and religion, politics and ethnicity, citizenship requires putting the national interest first. To their shame and often for partisan advantage, politicians have been blinking when influential communities and interest groups fall below the threshold of what it means to hold a share in a nation of 33 million. As this weekend's events compellingly argue, that blindness is not sustainable.
In celebrating its differences, Canada must also protect the values that map the perimeter of its shared and evolving space. Along with all levels of government, every community leader, group and ethnic fragment shares responsibility for deciding what is acceptable and exposing what won't be tolerated.
Canada chose long ago to be the world in one place and, happily, that choice is not reversible. But the tougher decisions remain ahead for a country that must forge cohesion as immigration continues to rise and becomes even more diverse.
Just for a moment, turn a few hundred years of Western civilization on its head and presume the teenagers and men appearing in court today are not innocent but guilty. Should that eventually emerge as the legal rather than emotional judgment of peers, this country, led by its federal government, faces tough and lasting introspection.
Why? Because all those charged are Canadians, no more, no less.
That's pivotal because this is a domestic problem with offshore roots, not just a foreign problem manifesting itself at home. If the allegations are true and the plot more than a fantasy that became a conspiracy, we are under attack from ourselves.
After last year's London transit bombings, Britain faced the same wrenching realization that the enemy, by virtue of a tolerant culture and ethnic mosaic, is inside the wire. That makes resistance so much more difficult than demonizing strangers before sending troops to fight a distant war. Most of all, it means scrutinizing a complex mix of policies to determine if something is broken internally and urgently needs to be fixed.
What led to the weekend arrests isn't new and is only different in detail. Once again, those who have lived here long enough to distance themselves from inherited hatreds and imported conflicts allegedly found those passions irresistible. It's a familiar pattern that repeats with almost every immigrant wave. Among others, the IRA and Tamil Tigers found this country ripe for militant fundraising while constant Middle East violence continues to divide Canadian Jews and Canadian Arabs. Usually the worst results of those activities explode over there. But from time to time, as they did in the 1985 Air-India bombings, they implode here with devastating impact.
What's different now is that the danger zone has expanded beyond state-based conflicts into the no-compromise extremes of beliefs. Along with making it easy to tar the many with the actions of a few, it makes it attractive to assume the fault line runs through one community instead of across Canada. In pursuing multicultural tolerance, Canada has been negligent in reinforcing essential, common-denominator values. Most of those are self-evident: human rights, the rule of law and the understanding that one person's freedom ends where another's begins. These are all-defining and remain easily powerful enough to make this country a magnet.
But what's slipped through cracks is that being Canadian requires a commitment passed from generation to generation. Stripped bare of rhetoric and religion, politics and ethnicity, citizenship requires putting the national interest first. To their shame and often for partisan advantage, politicians have been blinking when influential communities and interest groups fall below the threshold of what it means to hold a share in a nation of 33 million. As this weekend's events compellingly argue, that blindness is not sustainable.
In celebrating its differences, Canada must also protect the values that map the perimeter of its shared and evolving space. Along with all levels of government, every community leader, group and ethnic fragment shares responsibility for deciding what is acceptable and exposing what won't be tolerated.
Canada chose long ago to be the world in one place and, happily, that choice is not reversible. But the tougher decisions remain ahead for a country that must forge cohesion as immigration continues to rise and becomes even more diverse.
— JAMES TRAVERS, Toronto Star (2006/06/06)
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posted by þΛųL jØŋαŦhΛŋ @ 10:00
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