The Politics of Division

An American journalist's view of Harper

"As an American journalist visiting my wife's relatives in Canada, I've always been struck by how ardently the country's political discourse focused on substance — the budget, health care, schools, roads — with little of the cheap theatrics and angry divisiveness of U.S. politics and punditry. But in my visit this past summer, I noticed that the tone of Canada suddenly had changed." >by Richard Fricker
http://www.rabble.ca/politics.shtml?sh_itm=96ea8d831f53196ffbf2b536241afe53&rXn=1

Telling. That's the neo-can strategy (also practiced by Mike Harris in Ontario)- identify the parts of the electorate who could buy into your policies and promote conflict between them and and those groups who won't buy into your policies, and who can become the 'enemy', targeted by government rhetoric and governmrnt policy. The Lebanon conflict is a clear example. The government's position was designed to pit the Jewish community and non-Jews who buy into the "clash of civilizations" view of Islam v.s. the world, against Muslims who may, at the drop of a hat, be suspected of supporting terrorism or even being terrorists, and against "anti-Israel" leftists. Thus, if Lebanese-Canadians protested their country being turned into rubble, it couldn't be just that. Oh, no. For you, see, Lebanon was being turned into rubble "in self-defence" against terrorism. Terrorism, by the way, is what is done "by a known terrorist group" (e.g. Hezbollah), according to Harper. This explains why governments never commit terrorism. So, to oppose what Israel was doing "against terrorism" was to support terrorism.

We need to resist such polarizing policies. Why is it so difficult to acknowledge that everyone has the right to peace, security and dignity? I mean, everyone- so let's resist the siren song of those who'd play some of us against the rest of us- it musn't be seen as a matter of "either-or". Why say- "we support Israel, therefore we don't lose sleep over Lebanese civilians", or "the bombings of Lebanon are an outrage, therefore the Israelis will get what's coming to them". My main criticism of Hezbollah is not that it's a "known terrorist group" (compare its actions with those of Israel during the war, with those of the Syria that tortured Arar, with the U.S. that tortures detainees and razed Fallujah in Iraq, with the armed followers of the main government parties in "democratic Iraq", or the Palestinian groups that have committed suicide bombings in Israel- oh wait, we recognize them as terrorist- must be 'cos they're too Muslim for us). No, my problem with it is that it does the "either-or" dance just as Israel does, just as Harper does.