Cultural Appropriation

When travelling in India, the funniest thing that I saw was a young twenty-something European woman who was wearing an "authentic" salwar-kameez (a 2-piece suit consisting of a long tunic top, and big puffy pants), but who decided that instead of wearing both pieces, she would only wear the top - as a dress! Now, while indeed this tunic top was long enough to be worn as a dress, the reality was that she basically looked half-naked because she was only wearing half of her outfit! The fanciful saffron sash thrown around her head, the big trendy sunglasses, the "henna tattos", the noisy ankle bracelet, and the fake bindi on her head all looked fairly humorous in light of the fact that she was basically caught with her pants down!

While most travellers do their research a bit more thoroughly than this woman and understand that the pants are an integral part of this outfit, it is sadly common to see young westerners in India fashion some bizarre interpretation of Indian garb, and don it proudly in the streets of major cities. Common examples include wearing a salwar-kameez without a dupatta (a sash traditionally worn with a salwar-kameez)thus again looking half-naked and immodest, the wearing of a dupatta with jeans, or the wearing of some hippy version of "indian pants" which are sold widely in places like Goa. The fact that most Indians who live in cities who are twenty-something dress in jeans and a top, and would not walk the streets in the old-fashioned salwar-kameez that their mothers wore seems irrelevant to these travellers. The point is to look "authentic" at all costs.

Along with the look of course, has to go the absolute "fascination" with Indian culture. Spending hours at various Hindu temples watching people pray is a necessity for such travellers. Making a "pilgrimage" to Varanasi to watch in "amazement" how people bathe in the Ganges for spiritual cleansing, and participating in a puja at the ghaats are all a must-do. All members of this subsect of travellers marvel at the "spirituality" of the experience, commit themseles to learning more about Hinduism, and confirm in their minds that "exotic" ancient wisdom is the best sort of knowledge that there is. But none - not one - bathes in the Ganges themselves. Not one actually takes that plunge to experience this "fascinating" scene from the inside. Not one actually believes in what they're seeing enough to take that leap of faith and step into that "dirty-looking" water for a cleansing.

The thing about this sort of masquerade, is that it tends toward the romanticization of an entire population, with very little depth of understanding. It tends toward people proclaiming an understanding and belief in something, and using very superficial symbols of that belief to propogate an image of "inclusiveness". There is something palpably inauthentic about it.

Imagine for example that the tables were turned. Imagine that Catholicism was the "exotic" religion, and that people who "got the spirituality" of Catholicism were considered "cool". Imagine hundreds of Hindus flying in from India and flocking to Catholic churches to "experience" mass. Imagine some Indian women wore the dress of nuns, men wore the dress of priests, and others yet don the more "authentic" garb of the 16th century chasity belt. All the time, completely oblivious to the fact that other worshippers are dressed in normal pants and skirts. They are "fascinated" when the priest walks in with the cross. They find the smell of the incence "exotic and sensuous". They read all sorts of books on the interpretation of the Bible - but never the Bible itself. They spend days living in monastaries, proclaiming the wisdom gained from such a simple and chaste life. But when it comes to fasting for Lent, they all leave. They do not believe in that part of Catholicism. That part takes too much hard work, and involves too drastic a leap of faith.

So, if you find yourself travelling to India (or any other "exotic" place) in the near future, and you want to be the "coolest" kid at any backpackers hostel, follow this guide:

1) Worship the "sexy" elements of the culture and religion and leave behind the stuff that takes real work and faith

2) Adulterate the cultural symbols to fit some preconceived romanticized vision of what the "authentic culture" is or was

3) Ignore those westernized Indian youth you see on the street - they don't understand the value of their culture and traditions the way that you do

4) Never, ever admit to your own hypocrisy

Blog Action Day - Poverty Demystified

This post is being written in participation with Blog Action Day. This year's topic is poverty.

Poverty. We view it as one of life’s big mysteries. We wonder, “How have we let this happen? How is it that we have created a world around us where millions have little to eat themselves, while others have such excesses of wealth that their dogs spend their days at the spa?”. The problem feels so overwhelming that it hardly seems possible that we can ever overcome it on a global scale.

What is true is that it is an overwhelming and tragic problem that is unlikely to be solved anytime soon. What is false is thinking that it is a mystery how and why this situation exists – a mind-baffling mystery it certainly is not.

Let us do a little mental experiment. Let’s say we have five children, and every day we have ten apples available . Enough for each child to have two apples per day – if our goal was to distribute these equally. But let’s imagine that this is not our goal. Rather, let us imagine that we fashion a game for these children whereby they run a lap around the track, and the child who wins the race gets an apple. The first day, child A, who is naturally talented at this particular game, wins all 10 races, thus getting all 10 apples.

The second day, the other kids realize they need to practice a bit in order to keep up – and so the second day child B wins 3 races and child A wins only 7. With more time, more practice, and more skill developed at this game, eventually we get to a situation where 3 of the children win 2 to 3 races each per day, while the other 2 children continue to come in last place. So, 3 of these children end up accumulating quite a wealth of apples, while the other 2 have none.

As these 2 children become hungrier and hungrier with each passing day (assuming apples are the main source of nutrition available), their chances of ever developing the skill to win this game become lower and lower. Similarly, as the other 3 children nourish their bodies with their won apples, their ability to win the daily races becomes easier and more assured. This pattern perpetuates and, over time, the end result is that 3 children accumulate quite a wealth of apples, while the other 2 remain quite apple-poor. With their malnourished bodies, it becomes almost impossible that the final 2 children will ever be able to catch up in this game.

Is it a great mystery how this situation arose? Is it baffling or mind-boggling? Or is it simply a pre-condition of the game itself – for one to win, another must lose. For one to accumulate masses of a finite resource, another must remain resource-poor.

Let us keep in mind that the world we have chosen to create and propagate is very similar to this analogy above. In a globalized capitalism, those with power will create the rules of the game. As such, they will excel at it and, over time, those who do not excel will move farther and farther away from the start line. It is a self-perpetuating phenomenon.

Poverty is inevitable in any capitalist society. Why? Because the goal of a capitalist society is not the equal distribution of resources. The goal is to accumulate wealth. And wealth begets wealth for the wealthy, while it begets poverty for the poor. So, poverty is simply an expected by-product of a capitalist structure.

The true tragedy is not poverty itself – the true tragedy is that despite the disgusting by-products of the “free market”, we continue to drink from its cup, believing it to be as wholesome as our ginseng-infused pomegranate tea. The tragedy is that we have adulterated a good idea – that of trade and barter for the efficient functioning of society – and turned it into a cash grab at all costs.

Where are the checks and balances? What accountability does a large corporation have to its faceless employees who work in factories across oceans? So long as the poor remain poor, they have no buying power and, thus, no voice in the corporate world. Where in the book of capitalism is the concept of not abusing one’s power and not holding people hostage to unfair wages and unfair trade exchanges? The common and misguided argument “at least we’re giving them a job” would be akin to child A above offering a piece of apple peel to starving child D in exchange for doing his/her daily chores for a week!

The checks and balances in small-scale capitalism are the human conscience. But, unfortunately, the globalization experiment has proven that human conscience is limited by what the eyes are able to see directly. No one would ever think of making such unfair face-to-face trades with their poor neighbour. So why do we feel okay to do so with poor individuals overseas? Our conscience is unable to comprehend suffering unless we see it with our own eyes. Our conscience is unable to inform our actions unless we are forced to see the horrific consequences of those actions in front of us. Our conscience does not stop us from buying clothing made in sweatshops, or buying coffee grown by labourers working for pennies a day – because we don’t see them with our own eyes. We can pretend they don’t exist. Once capitalism operates outside of the normal structures of human interaction, the checks and balances disappear. This is the crux of poverty.


No amount of foreign aid will ever help. No amount of “Make Poverty History” schemes will ever help. They might make us feel a bit better about ourselves – but they won’t help create sustainable change. Nothing will ever help, unless we change the rules of our game. So long as we continue playing our make-believe game of free market capitalism on a global scale, the playing field will continue to become increasingly unequal. So long as the goal of our game is to win and accumulate resources, we need to accept that the inevitable corollary of that is that the loser is going to starve. And so long as we don’t have to see people starving while we’re eating our three-course meal, we’re not going to care enough to change the rules of our game.

Addicted to Self-Harm

I just heard a piece on the radio about tanning salons in Canada. It seems that due to the potential harms caused by tanning, the forces that be have decided to regulate tanning studios in the same manner as cigarettes and alcohol - by creating a minimum age policy.

Obviously as a physician, anything that decreases the number of people who choose to artificially bake their skin seems like a good idea to me. However, this certainly gets me to wondering why such regulations are even necessary? Is the fear of cancer seriously not enough? Clearly not. For I have seen, on more than one occassion, patients who are in hospital due to lung diseases caused by smoking, who insist on continuing to go outside for their cigarette fix multiple times a day.

Why are we so addicted to harming ourselves? Yes, in the case of cigarettes, alcohol, heroine, whatever - these substances are chemically/physically addictive. But in other cases of self-harm - gambling, overeating, electing George Bush twice in a row, and yes, even tanning - there is no such confounder. So why do we do it?

The way I see it, we've either lost hope in our ability to have a more meaningful life, and therefore have just decided to choose hedonism over health and longevity. Or we have become so spoiled by the technology and the access to health care we enjoy, that we just figure we can do whatever we want, and someone else will clean up the mess.

Either way, the fact remains that we are the only species that will knowingly do things that harm ourselves and kill us sooner. Isn't evolution supposed to make smarter?

Democracy - can we actually achieve it?

We consider democracy to be our holy grail, our flag that we wave to proclaim that we are enlightened and "have figured it all out". The unfortunate thing is that what I see occurring in our country today seems to be resembling democracy less and less each year.

We have a five party system - four of those parties resemble each other somewhat in terms of economic policies, social spending, and social policy. Of course they have major differences, but they are still closer to each other in ideology than any are to the fifth party. This was of course evidenced in the recent political debate where these four leaders essentially banded together in their attack on the policies (or lack thereof) of the fifth party.

Despite the fact that the most recent polls show that these four parties actually enjoy the support of 62% of the population, the fact is that the Conservatives (the "fifth party" described above) will likely win this election. Yes, the party that has the support of less than 40% of people in this country, will in a few days be "elected" to rule this country for four years.

Democracy?

Okay, so the above example is a flaw of our definition of what makes up a government, and a flaw in our riding system, our "first-past-the-post" system, etc. etc. So even if we change the system - can democracy actually exist in our country in any tangible way??

When I was going through medical school, we were taught that when talking to patients we must use a vocabulary equivalent to a grade 8 level, because this is what the average literacy and education level in our country has been shown to be. When the government publishes health-related literature they deliberately write it to a grade 5 or 6 level.

Clearly we are able to acknowledge that our education system is flawed in that we are churning out adults that have lower literacy (?and possibly lower critical thinking ability?) than that of our 10-13 year-old children.

How can democracy truly ever exist in such a scenario? How can someone with such a low education level possibly be able to sift through the nuances of political discourse? How can this person actually make an informed decision? After all, isn't democracy about informed choice? What is left then to sway voters is not any of things that make a good leader - it is not the leader's intelligence, it is not the leader's ideology, it is not the leader's ability to adopt useful models from other nations - simply put, it is how good the leader's marketing manager is.

We have turned our democratic process into a series of branding excercises - and he/she who can attract the best marketers in the business is more likely to win. So, you hire the GAP's branding team, and you rise 10% in the polls. You learn that wearing a sweater vest, kissing babies, and starting every sentence with "Let's be clear..." inspires confidence, and you win a majority government.

In this age of corporate messaging and branding, our children should surely receive some training in how to sift through these media messages and how to separate the truth from the image. If we truly believe in democracy, should we not also have available in schools courses on current issues that start from a young age? So that political awareness and critique of media messaging becomes ingrained from a young age, pushing out any space that apathy and intellectual vulnerability could take up.

I'll Give You Money If You Promise To Follow My "Religion"

Foreign aid organizations are well-known for linking their aid to ideological change. Usually this involves setting some stipulations upon which the aid money is contingent. These stipulations usually center around the promotion of various Western ideologies - democratic reforms, free-market reforms, women's rights, individual liberties, etc. etc. The IMF is well-known for this, however even smaller NGO's participate in such aid-linked ideological reforms - some explicitly and others more implicitly.

I personally find this strategy to be both ill-founded, and oppressive. I believe that development projects should not be linked to ideological changes for a number of reasons including:

1) it subverts local movements by linking them to western movements which often hold negative connotations in many parts of the world

2) it takes advantage of vulnerable people who need essential service and essentially holds them hostage to promote our own western political views

One example to demonstrate how the (well-meaning) promotion of ideologies by foreigners may paradoxically have the opposite effect of that intended follows below:

As many of you know, Canada has a Communist Party. Now, imagine that there is a Chinese NGO whose mandate is to support communist movements around the world in the hopes of "enlightening people to the joys of communism"(much as we Westerners do in our zeal to "enlighten people about democracy"). This NGO may well consider lending their support to the Canadian Communist Party. What effect do you think this endorsement would have? Do you think it would increase Canadian buy-in to communist values? Or do you think it would do the opposite?

Personally, I think that if such an endorsement were to occur, most people would develop increasingly negative feelings towards the Canadian Communist Party. Why? Because of all of the negative connotations that Chinese-style "communism" holds in most Canadian's minds. Their endorsement would backfire and ultimately subvert the Canadian communist movement.

Similarly, if western women's groups went into Pakistan to preach women's rights (as they do), I believe that it would do a similar disservice to the Pakistani women's movement. Because of the connotations of western women that exist in Pakistan (that we are "loose", "easy", and "lacking in morals") - endorsing a local women's rights movement would actually cause people who may have been sympathetic to move away.

Besides being wholly insulting to the legitimacy of another cultures' chosen world view, besides being an instrument of holding poor people (who need these essential services) hostage to ideological reforms, this ideologically-linked aid in fact has the possibility of having effects that are directly opposite to its intent. Much like Colonialism, these blatant neo-Colonial excercises will no doubt bring about more misery than development.

Herodotus and Relativism

I recently came across this interesting story by Herodotus and a corresponding comment by Mary Midgley (philosopher) in her book "Can't We Make Moral Judgements?" that I thought readers of this blog may enjoy.

Darius the Great, King of Persia "summoned the Greeks (who cremated their dead) who were with him and asked them for what price they would eat their fathers' dead bodies. They answered that there was no price for which they would do it. Then Darius summoned those Indians who are called Callatiae, who eat their parents, and asked them (the Greeks being present and understanding through interpreters what was said) what would make them willing to burn their fathers at death. The Indians cried aloud, that he should not speak of so horrid an act. So firmly rooted are these beliefs; and it is , I think, rightly said in Pindar's poem that custom is lord of all"

Mary Midgley states that the Persian King appears "in the role of the detached, sophisticated, neutral observer above the dispute who understands other people's difficulties. He is the one who can see through superficial symbols to the reality behind them. The Persians, after all, neither burned their own dead nor ate them. They knew very well that they had solved the problem of disposal in the only right way, namely by putting corpses on high towers and letting the vultures eat them"

Flirting with the devil...

As many of you know, Jen and I don't have a car - by choice. Most of the time we're on our bicycles or on public transit. For the few out of town trips we make, we rely upon rentals, and for occasional in-town hauling needs (dog-food, garden supplies, etc.) we are part of a car co-op, and can use cooperatively owned cars at an hourly rate.

Well, we recently learned that there is a new city car "rental" service in Toronto where one can rent a vehicle for just $1 a day!!! Jackpot (so I thought)! Ah wait...there's a catch...the car is covered in advertising...we'd drive the car and spread visibility for the advertising...the company sponsoring the ad benefits and we'd benefit by getting a dirt-cheap rental. In order to make this deal worthwhile for the sponsors, we'd need to drive a minimum of 30km each time we rented.

Could we justify this as a simple symbiotic relationship? A win/win situation that happens to be privately sponsored by big-corporations? I mean, they'd advertise anyhow, wouldn't they? And we'd rent a car anyhow, wouldn't we? So why not help each other out??

And here arises the dilemma...what if your values (such as our own) do not support the promotion of the hedonistic consumerism that these ads likely promote? What if you're vegetarian on principle (like I am) and the car you rent is advertising McDonald's? What if you're a labour activist, and the car you rent is advertising Wal-Mart? What if you're an NDP supporter, and the car you rent is advertising Stephen Harper? What if you're a Catholic, and the car you rent is advertising condoms? What if you're an environmentalist and your trip was only 20km, and you're forced to drive around for another 10km just to meet your minimum quota??

So what initially seemed like a sweet deal, suddenly begins to look like a potential deal with the devil (although I guess some could argue that the difference between mega-corporations and the devil is minimal anyhow!). In the end, we decided that it was more important to not sell our souls for the few bucks we'd save from it all. But it was an interesting process and I thought I'd post it to see if anyone has had similar experiences and/or other thoughts?

On Debate...

With our own elections looming in the near distance, and our southern neighbour's already underway, we can look forward to an autumn of heated debates between various candidates in various levels of politics.

This causes me to reflect on the nature of debate, and the role that it has in our political process. During a verbal debate, candidates do not have the luxury to take the time to actually give some honest consideration to their opponents' point of view - to consider if some of their opponents' arguments may actually have some merit, to critically reflect on their own perspectives and to consider a collaborative solution to the issue which includes these diverse perspectives. In fact, this would be highly discouraged, and it would be considered a sign of weakness.

No, the goal of debate is to show a stubborn adherance to one's own point of view, to show that one can refute any argument no matter how valid it may be. The "winner" is not the one who can intellectually take in all the various arguments and formulate a solution which is collaborative and which may embody new and courageous ideals. The winner instead is someone who refuses to consider opposing reason, and who insists on a partisan solution to complex issues - and he/she who can most effectly avoid giving genuine consideration to the points of the other party and remain rigid in their own view is the one who is deemed the better leader!

Through this process we effectively seek out stubborn, rigid, opinionated leaders rather than intellectually curious, collaborative, and inclusive leaders. And then we act shocked when the democratic process doesn't work, and when the minority's voice and dissenting views are not taken legitimately. Is it really any surprise?

"Excercises" in Narcissism

Staying course on the theme of the Olympics, I'd like to put some thoughts I've had out on the table to see if anyone can enlighten me....

My main thought consists of "what really is our fascination with this??". Yes, these atheletes have ENORMOUS talent. And they have all demonstrated the greatest heights of human discipline. But they have also demonstrated the greatest heights of another less revered human quality - narcissism.

Why does one need to the best in the world? How much stroking of one's ego could one possibly desire, if one needs to prove that they are better than the rest of the 6 billion people wandering this planet?

Let's really think about this for a second....aside from inspiring young people to play sports (and I highly doubt that everyone would stop playing sports if the Olympics ceased to exist), what else do the heights of their careers actually accomplish for anyone other than themselves??

Can you imagine spending 95% of your time working on perfecting one skill, that is of no use to anyone in this world except yourself and your teammates? And somehow then it is not enough to be in the top 1% of your sport, you need to spend even more time making sure that you can beat the others in the top 1% by 0.01 of a second - just to prove that you are the best!

Of course it is fascinating to see what the limits of the human body are - and like everyone else, I have a huge amount of respect for people who are able to reach those limits. But deciding whether you are a fraction of a second (or 5 seconds for that matter) faster than the next guy goes WAY beyond determining the limits of the human body.

I truly do not understand this need to be "best", this need to quantify things to the minutiae of 1/100th of a second, this desire to put on blinders and focus only on the one thing that will make you swell with the pride of superiority. And I really don't understand why we as a society (myself included) place such value on it. I don't get why this display of narcissism is considered a positive thing, rather than a negative thing.

Despite the fact that I myself have found myself on the edge of my seat watching these events, I truly don't have answers to the above questions...

GUEST POST - Michael Phelps’ Teeth and the Ugly Chinese Girl

Hi, it's Jen and I have the pleasure of being Shifi's first guest blogger.....

A few thoughts regarding the lip-synching cute girl/ugly girl story from the Olympics opening ceremony…..

Why is this a front-page story for apparently every North American news outlet? Seriously, why? Front page. Above the fold. Top of the webpage. On the front page of what I’ve been led to believe is the intelligent Canadian’s newspaper, the Globe and Mail. Why are even our “best” media outlets so tabloidy these days?

And it wasn’t just headlines. But big side-by-side pictures so you could easily compare the sublime adorableness of one girl to the shocking ugliness of the other. The other one being seven years old, by the way. And famous throughout the world now, at the age of seven, thanks to the professional media, for being not so cute.

Here’s a question my host blogger would ask, I’m sure…. if they weren’t Chinese and somehow “the other”, would the North American media have done this? If they were Canadian or American, would they be posting big comparison pictures on their front pages so you could decide for yourself just how unpleasant-looking this seven-year-old is? (Yeah, maybe I’m giving them to too much credit.)

So we make a big deal about this… (for one day, anyway - writing about it a day later, it already feels irrelevant.) So we potentially ruin someone’s life so we can shake our heads at the Chinese for five minutes. So we tisk-tisk and feel superior with our authenticity and our free speech. But is it really any different than the airbrushing and excessive tooth-whitening we see in half of the pictures in our magazines? Any Torontonians see the picture of Michael Phelps on the front page of the Metro newspaper yesterday (oops, I guess the little girls didn’t make the front of every newspaper)? Apparently in the process of cropping the picture to overlap the masthead, someone took the liberty of normalizing his orthodontically unique teeth. What’s the difference?

Out of sight, out of mind...

As I've travelled around the world, and around more remote parts of Canada over the past few years, it has occured to me that Westerners seem to complain alot about litter.

I cannot count how many white-folk I heard complaining about the garbage in India. In Vietnam I was even "lucky" enough to listen to an 18 year-old Australian girl conduct a twenty-minute monologue on how horrible the litter is, and how the Vietnamese should make a law where they can shoot anyone who litters (this young girl clearly thought she was on to something!).

The same holds true for First Nations reserves in Canada - when I visit these communities, I invariably find myself enduring some snide comments from various (non-Native) nurses who are "appalled" by all of the litter. "If only they kept it clean..." they say, in a judgemental colonial tone.

Forget the fact that the average Torontonian creates 365 kg of garbage per year (that's 1 kg per person per day!). And how about the reality that the average North American eco-footprint is at least 7 times higher than the people from "those poor, dirty countries" that we enjoy chastising and feeling sorry for.

No, we're not any better at "keeping it clean" - we're just better at hiding our mess!

An "Ethnic" Drumstick

I recently saw an ad from KFC advertising "A Taste of Asia". The ad consisted of a picture of a rather spicy-looking drumstick next to a fortune cookie held up by chopsticks.

Now, while I am sure that deep-fried drumsticks are a staple of any traditional "Asian" diet, I nevertheless remain perplexed as to the embodiment of an entire continent within an American fast-food meal. In fact, I also find myself perplexed by the homogenization of close to 2/3rds of the world's population, speaking 2,269 languages, in greater than 50 countries into one defined "ethnicity" of "Asian".

This concept of lumping multiple diverse groups of people under the umbrella term "ethnic" has long intrigued me. Particularly since most people who look at me take liberties to define me as "ethnic". Ethnic people, ethnic food, ethnic dress, ethnic festivals, and ethnic markets - it's the stuff that makes Torontonians proud of their city. The "ethnic" label is naively applied by mainstream folks to anyone they deem as being the "exotic other" - and yet what is it that makes all these "other" people similar enough to one another that they can be lumped under the same heading?

The reality is that I have no clue what "ethnic" means. I'm considered "ethnic", as are the Chinese, the Africans, the Italians, and the Latin Americans, to name a few. I cannot think of anything that I have more in common with any of those groups than I do with the rest of Canada's "non-ethnic" population - so why do I get lumped in with one group rather than the other?

The official definition of "ethnicity" is that of a group of people who identify with one another on the basis of a presumed or real shared ancestry. By this definition, we all have an ethnicity, and we are all "ethnic". However, in colloquial use in Canada, the term is usually used to identify those who are somehow different from the majority. In our case, it refers to those not from Anglosaxon ancestry.

Thus it combines us under a singular heading based what sets us apart from others, rather than what we "ethnics" actually have in common with one another. Such casual use of this rather benign word, may appear at first glance to be so non-politically laden that one might question what purpose a discussion such as this may even have.

However, when the media uses the term "ethnic" to describe who was responsible for a crime, for a gang shooting, for a drug deal (how often have we heard the terms "ethnic-related violence", "ethnic gang-wars", etc.) - this issue suddenly emerges as one of immense importance and gravity. The use of the term "ethnic" in these news reports followed by the use of the term "ethnic" to describe the newest Indian restaurant in town leads to an inevitable linking in our minds between people who may actually have nothing in common aside from the fact that both are non-Anglosaxons!

The utility of this term in our multicultural society is questionable at best. Even when we narrow our umbrella to just one continent "Asia" - the utility of such immensely broad labels is minimal. It communicates very little, and opens the door for promoting the homogenization of our perception of everyone "other".

Who knew a drumstick could be so political?

not just a piece of paper...

My partner and I got married on Saturday! I must say that I previously viewed wedding ceremonies as unnecessary and redundant events which served to only provide legal status to an already solid relationship.

My view has taken a 180 degree turn since Saturday.

It is incredible to realize how important family and community are to building a successful marriage. As one of my dear friends said that day - people cannot exist in isolation, but rather can only flourish as loved members of a community. That is what I have concluded weddings are about - about renewing a sense of community, about drawing loved ones together and touching them with your love as a couple, and about reminding one another why we think each other is so special.

What amazes me however, is how many things got said that day that are otherwise left unsaid. Things that brought tears to people's eyes, only because they were said in mass volume after years of never explicitly sharing how much we all love and respect one another - parents to children, children to parents, between siblings, and between friends.

Imagine how much more joyful our daily lives would be if we could just spread these loving words out over the many days of our lives - if we could distribute our kind feelings and kind words one drop at a time, rather than bottling them in until an event such as a wedding allows the floodgates to open.

Maslov's Hierarchy of Needs

Hello, hello! Sorry for the long delay in postings, but it's been an unusually hectic month.

I have been reflecting a little bit on human prioritization of needs. Maslov theorized that people stratify needs according to necessity, and only once the more base needs are fulfilled do we venture upward in this hierarchy to seek out more lofty fulfillments. At the bottom of his triangle exists animal-like needs such as food, shelter, sex. Higher up lies friendship and family. And even higher exists concepts like self-actualization, creativity, and self-esteem.

As I go through my daily life, I come into very close contact with many people who do not appear to follow this pattern however. Through my work I am regularly in contact with people who give up food and shelter in order to seek out drugs and alcohol. For many of these people, their substances help them to conceal the loneliness and lack of identity that exists within them - and they would sooner use their money to this effect, than to use it toward food or shelter.

These people are seemingly searching for something bigger - some sense of self, some sense of purpose, some sense of identity. Could we say that they are trading up food and shelter out of a desire to self-actualize (albiet going about this in a fairly harmful way)?

I am also reminded of a nurse I once worked with in Northern Ontario. He is originally from Zimbabwe, one of the poorest countries in Africa. There he saw poverty, malnutrition, lack of security, lack of food - lack of all of the things that are considered most base in Maslov's theory. And yet, he states that rarely did he ever see suicide. Now he works in Northern Ontario, in a community that has been ravaged by the legacy of colonial genocide, where children were stripped of their identities and placed in residential schools against their will, and where a sense of belonging and identity remains elusive for many youth. There is plenty of food. There is plenty of shelter. But there is little identity, and little self-esteem. And there is amongst the highest suicide rates in the world.

Surely these scenarios must cause us to give second thought to this theory of Maslov's. I am certain that if we turned this world-view upside-down we may soon be able to find some common-sense solutions to many of our perplexing questions:

Why do the most developed and wealthy nations have the highest rates of depression?
Why do we continue to destroy the planet that gives us our food and shelter?
Why do we strive to maintain a socio-economic hierarchy in our societies?

If we acknowledged that our most base needs are that of identity, self-esteem, and self-actualization (rather than food and shelter), the answers to these and many other questions becomes quite clear.

Small Joys in a Big City

I saw a beautiful thing today on the way to work.

Living in this city of 4.5 million, I have like most people, learned to carefully avert my eyes from most of the people surrounding me. Even (or especially) when packed into a subway or a bus during rush hour. Despite the most intimate of physical contact between me and the person who's butt I'm plastered up against, I still manage to maintain the illusion of boundary and personal space, by simply avoiding eye contact. The goal of course, is twofold: one is to avoid unwanted conversation with a potential weirdo, and the other is to avoid invading other peoples' personal space (as if having my nose in their armpit isn't an invasion enough!).

Today, while hanging onto a pole, and ducking my head between the lady in red's handbag, and the man in blue's shirtsleeve, I spotted a rather disshevled looking fellow, who appeared to be talking to himself over everyone's head. Much to my surprise however, he wasn't talking to himself - he was talking to the pretty young lady standing next to me. The juxtaposition of his rather unfortunate appearance, and her well-coiffed outfit struck my interest, so I decided to be nosy and listen on.

From their conversation, it appeared that they did not know one another, but rather had just met on the subway a few moments ago. Rather than being off-put by this stranger who was chatting with her, this young woman rather seemed to enjoy speaking with him. They covered all sorts of topics, learning things about one another, and found that they even had some common interests (both for example, played a musical instrument).

As other well-dressed folks entered the subway, they seemed to clearly veer away from this fellow (who emitted a rather poignant odour). However they too seemed to stop, and observe this ongoing conversation with interest. Clearly the sight of a disshelved middle-aged man and a pretty, young, well-dressed woman engaged in a mutually respectful conversation was of interest to many of us.

It made me realize how the personal boundaries we put up in a large city are attempts to avoid precisely interactions such as these. How our desire to walk through crowds of people without actually seeing any of them has become so normalized, that it now a point of interest when we see strangers actually interacting spontaneously.

To me, it was a beautiful sight to see two strangers who did not let socio-economic barriers prevent them from seeing the humanity in one another. It made me realize that for all the fears we harbour about the "other", the joys we can receive by opening ourselves up can be immensely larger yet.

Socially Sanctioned Slavery

We no longer bring slaves to our country in order to get cheap labour. Instead, we now travel to their country and exploit them at source.

Whether it be establishing mass-production factories, buying up land from family-farms for large-scale export agriculture, or traveling to developing countries for budget tourism – it all results in the same end: we get too much for too little.

How do we justify the fact that we feel entitled to purchase a t-shirt for a mere $10? Do we stop to think that the cotton in our t-shirt first needed to be planted, harvested, processed, dyed, and woven into fabric? Do we stop to consider that that fabric then needed to be cut, designed, and sewed into a garmet, and that the garment then needed to be packaged, shipped (or flown) over wide oceans, distributed into trucks, and then delivered to the store where we will buy it?

Do we stop to ask how many fingers touched the various components of this garment before it even arrived in our country? The cotton farmer, the dyer, the weaver, the cutter, and the sewer. What are the lives like of the people who own those fingers? How much of our $10 actually goes in their hands? Pennies? Less?

Do we recognize that in most circumstances, every time we make a purchase from a large retailer, we provide a hefty reward to the slave-owner who paid meager wages to his overseas “help” to make our clothing in sweatshop-like conditions?

Some would argue: “At least they have a job now. Before, they were even worse off”.

Thus we convince ourselves that we are helping others while also helping ourselves- a win/win situation. Is it really?? Do we actually believe that the benefit and value we gain is even close to the value those who serve us abroad get? We get low-priced goods which allows us to save extra disposible income to allow for the luxuries of travel, personal growth experiences, and retirement savings. They get a few pennies and a job that is dependent upon foreigners who care more about their profits than the welfare of their servants.

Sadly, slavery is not dead – it has just been outsourced. We can no longer see it, but we support it every day.

Information Culture

We live in an age where information is available to the common person in ways and in amounts never before imaginable. And unfortunately, we also live in an age where our gluttony for information has outshined our critical-thought capacities, and has resulted in the dimming of distinctions between “information” and “knowledge”.

In attempts to undo the patriarchal era of the recent past, where “father knows best” and “doctor knows best” were the prevailing mantras, we have swung the pendulum so far to the opposite, that we now live with the belief that each individual can learn and do anything, if only we had sufficient information.

Despite our love affair with data and facts, our respect and esteem for in-depth study and expertise of a topic seems to have diminished greatly. This is a paradox that I find quite bizarre. That knowledge and information is our ultimate goal, but that experts are often viewed with distrust and skepticism.

As an example, let’s look at a type of individual whom I like to call “Dr. Cyberspace”. This is the fellow who net researches various health topics online, and then feels empowered to “teach” his/her physician about their “illness” and about what medications might be appropriate for him/her.

Now, perhaps I sound like a fuddy-duddy conservative patriarchal physician. Let me explain myself before I get barrages of hate-mail about this: I do believe that knowledge and empowerment of all people in all walks of life is important, and in particular I think it is important for people to be informed about choices in their healthcare. However, I do not think that we all have the necessary tools to turn all types of information into knowledge. And I make this distinction between information and knowledge, because information is a collection of facts, whereas knowledge requires the integration of valid information, critical appraisal of that information, an appreciation of the contextual nature of the facts, and a deeper understanding on how these facts fit within broader systems.

I think that most people reading this would agree that I cannot read a book (or worse yet, a web posting) about the components of effective transportation systems, and then seek to be a consultant or an advisor to the TTC. Nor could I read a book about auto-mechanics, and then proceed to advise on the design of an electric vehicle.

So why then do people feel that they can read a book on herbal medicine and start to treat themselves (rather than seeking the advice of a trained Naturopath), or that they can read a website on neurotransmitters, and proceed to tell their physician which anti-depressant they would like to be on? What is it about this that makes people feel that their hour of online “research” on questionable websites somehow trumps years of post-secondary education?

Is there something inherent in the historical hegemony of the medical system that breeds particular distrust? Is there something about large legitimized institutions that makes people feel as though they have limited agency, and therefore causes them to choose a path where they have full agency (despite the sometimes ridiculous and harmful nature of their chosen path)?

If this is the cause, then why is this same distrust not extended by the mainstream population towards other large institutions - such as large mega-corporations? Why does no-one feel a lack of agency when they shop at Wal-Mart? Why is a corporate message that promises “holistic health if you take our nutritional supplements” viewed with more legitimacy than a similar message from the scientific community?

Corporate messaging is clear – it is black and white, and simple to decipher (not to mention branded and developed after years of market research!). Scientific messaging on the other hand, takes a bit more effort to understand – it is couched in uncertainties and probabilities, which often leave one’s mind spinning and feeling overwhelmed. Surely the simplicity of corporate messaging is one major key to its ability to seduce people to its message, often without any deeper reflection or critical appraisal.

Perhaps it is because we live in a culture where we are able to open a few cans and proclaim that we “cooked” a delicious meal. Where results come easily without much effort, and where our every need can easily be met through modern conveniences. Perhaps we see wisdom and knowledge too, as something which ought not to take pains and struggle to develop, but rather to be yet another commodity that we can procure through accessible means.

Or perhaps it is our emphasis on the equality of all individuals that makes us think that we would all be equally competent in any field if only we had the information. Is it possible that it is no longer politically correct to state that we all have different talents, different strengths, and different weaknesses? Would it be blasphemous to state that all minds do not work equally, and that a mind that has not be trained in critical appraisal might have less of an ability to comprehend complex concepts than another?

As we enter this new era of information saturation, as we move through our public space which has been taken over by corporate messaging, and as we struggle to make sense of the mass of political and private propaganda that surrounds us daily, perhaps we should find some means to equip ourselves with the necessary tools of critical analysis before trying to absorb all of this information. Perhaps its time we redefined the “three R’s” as: Reasoning, Reflecting, and Really thinking critically about things.

The American Dream

This post is going to require a bit of work:

1) go to: http://assets.panda.org/downloads/living_planet_report.pdf
2) then go to page 21
3) on this page you'll see figure 22

What you're looking at is a graph which plots human development index (HDI) on the x-axis, and ecological footprint on the y-axis. HDI takes into account literacy, education, GDP per capita, and life expectancy. Naturally, one would expect that the greater a nation's development, the greater its ecological footprint. And surely that is what we see here.

However, what I find amazing in this chart, is how wide the spread of data is amongst the developed countries. For example, of the nations that are above the 0.8 development index, the Latin American countries seem to be the most sustainable, the Europeans next, and much much higher up (i.e. greater ecological footprint) is Australia, Canada, and the US. In fact, Cuba is the only nation that actually falls within the WWF (that's World Wildlife Foundation - not wrestling federation!) sustainability box - that is having a high HDI, but a low ecological footprint.

Which begs the question - why are we North Americans leading development projects, when we clearly don't have nearly as much of a clue what sustainable development even looks like compared with the rest of the world? Why aren't we seeking to learn from Cuba, other Latin American nations, and European nations to find out how it is they are achieving higher sustainability scores without compromising their economic development?

I've heard many people and articles theorize "how horrible the world's environment is going to be when China and India become fully developed". I think this graph illustrates well how much closer we need to first look at ourselves and consider whether we might adopt some changes by learning from more sustainable nations - before sensationalizing potential future risks posed by other countries. Rather than using environmental concerns to legitimize the poverty and underdevelopment of other parts of the world, let us instead seek to deligitimize our own excesses by first acknowledging how obscene we are in our consumption here in North America.

A musing on toothpaste and bland food...

I was having a conversation with a colleague today about the origins of spicy food. She made the observation that historically, people in warm climates put spices in their meat to "cure" it, so that it didn't go bad. I'd heard that before, and it made sense, so I really didn't give it another thought.

It was only later that I wondered: why do we ask the question "Why do Asians eat spicy food?", rather than asking "Why do North Americans eat bland food?". I found it interesting to note that embedded within these rather benign questions, lies assumptions about what is normative, versus what is the "other". We expose our bias of what demands justification, versus what can be simply accepted as legitimate and "baseline".

The example above can be explained through cultural familiarity. But there are other things in our lives that we simply accept as "correct" or "better" just because they are normative. For example, noone asks a meat-eater why they eat meat. But a vegetarian cannot count the number of times they have had to answer this question. Someone who decides not to have kids is questioned as to their reasons - but noone ever asks people why they chose to have kids. In short, we assume that normative behaviours are lacking in choice and hence are passive actions, while we assume that alternative behaviours are borne of active choice - and therefore we seek to understand one's reason's for making such a choice.

Now perhaps if we switched it around, and looked at every action as a choice. Discarded the assumption that normative behaviour is without choice, but rather recognized that inherant within every action there lies a choice. What if we each went through an entire day and questioned (not rejected, but just questioned) every single normative action we participated in. Starting with "why do I use toothpaste on my toothbrush?" and ending with "why do I sleep in a bed, rather than on the floor?".

It would be an intellectually exhausting day, but it may just begin to open up our minds enough to recognize how many possibilities are out there, if we took nothing for granted! We might realize that being politically apathetic is as much an active-choice as being politically engaged; we might realize that driving our cars to work is as much an active-choice as choosing to go by public transit. We would recognize that even in doing what is normal and what appears to be passive, we are still making active choices, and that it is within our control to choose otherwise. Most exciting however is that once we remove the veils of assumption and normalcy, and look at the world afresh, the solutions to our major societal problems may even become startlingly clear.

Or perhaps we'll just realize that we really do prefer bland food..

Secular Fundamentalism: good intentions with harmful consequences

Somewhere deep in the heart of the average development-oriented NGO worker, lurks a missionizing spirit. A spirit not so far removed from the old missionaries of British colonial times, or of the Christian settlers who preached and converted Indigenous populations in the newly "found" Americas. Somewhere deep inside this charitable, peace-loving soul, lies a reflection of an ugly past - a past paved by good intentions but riddled with skeletons of brutality and cultural dominion.

Today’s missionary is masked behind the cloak of international development, and foreign aid. The goal is no longer conversion to Christianity, but rather embracement of secular democracy. The scripture is no longer the Bible, but rather sacred contemporary scriptures such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights. The creed is no longer monotheism, but rather atheism in matters of the state. But the message is the same: we have the Truth, and we must bring this Truth to the "less enlightened" corners of the world. Indeed, secularism – in its most fundamentalist interpretations - is the new religion of “missionaries”:,and secular democracy the new creed of colonizers.

Secularism is an ideology which is defined by the absence of theologic principles in its world view. The absence of God in this world view, does not necessarily confer an absence of faith-based assumptions at its core. Even scientifically-based world views, have at their core, basic assumptions which are no more provable than the resurrection of Christ, or the existence of Nirvana.

Take for example the basic scientific principle that one’s senses are accurate measures of the material world around us. Or the precept that time is an actual entity that is linear in nature and measurable. These are amongst the many basic assumptions upon which many scientific theorems are built. However these are assumptions for which there is no method of proof or calculation, and thus they are principles which must be taken on faith. As such, the theorems upon which they are built represent incomplete truths – resting upon a foundation based upon faith itself, rather than upon immutable proofs. Over the centuries, many a scientist, philosopher, and theologian have thus posited that non-theological world views are in fact faith-based “religions” much like the theologically based religions themselves.

One of these core assumptions, the linearity of time, ironically has its origins in early Protestant thought. The conversion of St. Augustine to Christianity brought about a dramatic shift in time-perception within ancient Greece from that of cyclical time, to that of linear time. Embedded within the ideologue of linear time exists the sense that humanity is moving forward in time in a unidirectional fashion, toward some inevitable and desired destination. In this the concept of “development” is intimately intertwined. One who is closer to this ultimate destination is clearly the more developed, and hence a hierarchy of social evolution is established.

At around the same time period as the development of linearity of time in Western thought arose, a second social phenomenon emerged – the rise of capitalism. Max Weber linked the rise of capitalism to of the rise of the Protestant work ethic which embraces self-discipline in work, but which denounces participation in worldly materialistic pleasures. This situation ultimately results in the generation of sizeable income, with no socially-sanctioned manner in which to spend one’s earning. The logical outcome of this is re-investment of the profits into one’s own business, thus giving birth to an infantile form of modern-day capitalism.

While the concepts of God and Christianity have now been disengaged from secural western thought, the concepts of capitalism and linear social development continue to be revered as sacred chalices from which all human happiness must surface. Indeed the generation of capital has in turn itself evolved into a goal, perhaps even the ultimate destination along the linear continuum of time on which we believe we are traveling.

Thus we come to modern secularism. A world view whose foundations are rooted on faith-based principles (for as discussed above, even science at it’s core rests on faith), which believes in linear social evolution, which has an ultimate stated destination, and which has non-theological scriptures codifying its values and creeds which are believed to contain absolute Truths and “Rights” applicable universally to all people. Indeed secularism could be poised to be one of the most tolerant, and respectful of all world views, would it have the wisdom to avoid the errors of the religious groups that came before it. Unfortunately, fundamentalist interpretations of secularism are becoming increasingly mainstream, and as such secularism seems to be slated to walk down the same ill-fated paths of religious eras gone-by.

Currently, we are entrenched in a war that claims to have been waged in the name of secular government, free capital markets, and in the name of liberation from the clutches of religious fundamentalism. It is being waged in the name of the human rights, which are codified in sacred documents revered by secularists. The name of economic and social development has also raised its head. US leaders have stated explicitly that this is not a religious war. I would argue that it is a war between two opposing fundamentalist world-views: the religious fundamentalists of the Islamic world, and the secular fundamentalists of the Western world. The ultimate goal being the replacement of a theology-based society with a secular society – a society which will hold sacred all of the ideals, values, and customs considered palatable to most western secularists. Thus success would result in the propogation of one world view, and the diminution of another.

Currently, there are thousands of international development organizations working in countries around the world. The stated goal is to enhance individual liberties, improve capital potential, and enhance material well-being. The goals of the agencies are intimately intertwined with a secular values and are tolerant of local customs insofar as they do not contravene codes of conduct set out in secular scriptures. When such contravening customs are noted, the aid immediately becomes contingent upon altering local beliefs and practices to be more in alignment with secularism.

Take as an example practices such as child labour, or female genital mutilation – both are clearly practices which contravene sacred secular beliefs in universal human rights, and both are amongst practices which are likely to be linked to the cessation of aid should governmental efforts to quell these practices not be made. Thus a value-judgement is made upon the validity of one world view versus another. Practices which honour tradition are dismissed as based in superstition. Secularist belief in the linearity of time renders one to believe beyond a doubt that customs based in ancient tradition and theology are socially lower along the development spectrum, and that one must strive to move forward along the continuum of social evolution towards non-theologically based practices. Assisting another community through this process is, with few exceptions, considered a noble act by most securalists.

Coming from a feminist western secularist school of thought myself, child labour, FGM, child marriage, wife-burning, etc. don’t sit very well with me personally. Similarly, to a strict muslim the concept of women having unlimited sexual freedoms, and dressing in revealing manners must not sit well with them either. A similar reaction could be expected of a strict Catholic, at the thought of legalized abortion.

However, the key difference between a fundamentalist, and a moderate is the belief in relative realities. The ability to see the grey spaces. The ability to be passionately self-critical about the validity of one’s own beliefs before setting the microscope upon the beliefs of another. In practical terms it means recognizing that the gold-standard of ethical human behaviour is not found in any one world view, and that human truths are relative rather than absolute and immutable.

The coercive application of one faith-based non-theological world view, over another theology-based world view is unfortunately a practice which is becoming more readily accepted by mainstream western secular societies. The belief that we are further along the social development spectrum, closer to the ultimate goals of human development, and that we ought to share our evolved understanding of the world with others who remain entrenched in tradition and religion are explicitly and implicitly ingrained into secular thought in the western world. Unfortunately however, these beliefs and assumptions are mired with the same fundamentalist ingredients that were present in the colonialists and Christian missionaries of the past - and these are the same beliefs which in the past contributed to centuries of oppression and slavery.

Though well-intentioned, our international development efforts will continue to carry forward the seeds of colonialism and cultural dominion until we are able to separate ourselves from these fundamentalist mantras which cloud our secular framework. Until that time, we cannot remain confident that history will not look back at us, and marvel at the stains of bloody oppression on our hands.

Torture a dog, torture a cow...

I just read an article about a guy in Costa Rica who tied up a stray dog in a museum and left it to starve until it eventually died. This was supposed to be an art exhibition - the dog itself and its death were the piece of art.

I don't know if this is true - or if it is urban legend - but I do know that there are several online "petitions" to denounce this artist's actions.

My first impression was that of severe repulsion and anger. But first impressions are not necessarily the most valid, and so I sought to explore this issue further.

This fellow stated as his reasoning for doing this: "The purpose of the work was not to cause any type of infliction on the poor, innocent creature, but rather to illustrate a point. In my home city of San Jose, Costa Rica, tens of thousands of stray dogs starve and die of illness each year in the streets and no one pays them a second thought. Now, if you publicly display one of these starving creatures, such as the case with Nativity, it creates a backlash that brings out a big of hypocrisy in all of us."

This leads me to pose the following questions (for which I have no real answers):

• if one's intention is that of greater awareness and understanding, is the sacrifice of one individual acceptable?
• are such utilitarian ethics even applicable when the species for whom utility is being sought (in this case dogs) has no means of communicating what they would consider utility, and what they would consider a fair sacrifice?
• with what authority do we protest another nation's choices? While such an exhibit would be illegal in Canada, it may be legal in another country. Do we call for the sacrifice of a nation's autonomy to protect the autonomy and safety of an animal? To what extent do we respect cultural relativity?
• we torture cows and chickens on a daily basis in mass-production commercial farms in Canada - through overcrowding, limited movement, and diseased living conditions - how is this any different from torturing this single dog? I don't see people refusing to buy mass-produced meat. Our protest of this artist, would be akin to people in India protesting our treatment of cows. Would we view such petitions with equal legitimacy?
• this artist clearly saw his work as a "harm-reduction" strategy - reduce harm to the greater dog population, by exposing the suffering of one individual dog. Can someone external to a context (i.e. us) truly understand the necessity of harm-reduction strategies that are context-specific? Do we not also have harm-reduction strategies which may seem bizarre and even oppressive to those external to our context? (e.g. needle-exchange, abortion policies)

No answers...lots of questions...

China/Tibet versus Canada/First Nations - are we looking in a mirror?

Like much of the world, I feel sadness and disappointment in China’s reaction to protests in Tibet, and applaud those who have the courage to stand up and voice their dissent publicly. My question however is this: would we create the same rousing protests if the Olympics were slated to be held in Los Angeles? Would the US government’s human rights violations in Guantanamo Bay compel us to stand up with equal vigour and call for a boycott of the Olympics being held on their soil? And the US occupation of Iraq, which has been found to be illegal and unwarranted, and which has resulted in uncountable human rights violations - would these human rights violations be sufficient to call for a boycott of a US Olympics, much as some are calling for in China?

I would hope so. Any other reaction would prove so inconsistent that we would need to step down from our self-appointed role of moral policing, and admit that we embrace a double standard in our view of global morality.

However in reality, the dwindling voices of dissent around these issues bear testimony to the realities of our world today: the level to which a nation is held morally accountable for their actions in inversely proportional to their global economic power. And while China’s economic power is sizeable enough for world leaders to hesitate upon overt condemnation; it does not yet have the superpower immunity the US enjoys that allows US leaders to unilaterally invade nations unprovoked, without fears of international calls for economic sanctions, and boycotts.

The same holds true for Canada. How many of us in Canada see ourselves as illegal occupiers of Aboriginal lands? The reality is, the lands upon which we now build our luxury suburbs were previously occupied by people who never actually ceded their land to us in any legal manner. We simply came in, slaughtered those who dissented, and planted our flags on their soil. Our continued occupation of this land, and the close to 1000 unsettled land claims which exist today here in Canada bears more resemblance to China’s occupation of Tibet than most of us would feel comfortable admitting. A closer look reveals that protests by First Nations people around legitimate land-claim issues have been dealt with by the Canadian government in a manner that also mirrors China’s response to Tibet.

Many of us will recall the Oka crisis of 1990 in which sacred burial ground rights came up against the private interests of a golf course’s expansion. The result was a bloody and violent confrontation that resulted in the use of military force by our government in an effort to suppress the protests. The world’s attention was called to the human rights violations committed by our government, and the deaths of Aboriginal protestors that were caused as a result. Similar struggles on a smaller scale continue across Canada even today.

Have we really done much better than China at dealing with dissent and uprising from our own occupied territories? Do we really have any moral authority with which to judge or condemn China given our own human rights violations where Aboriginal rights are concerned? How would we react if one-day people in say Rwanda decided to stand up and protest Canada’s treatment of our Aboriginal people? And if this protesting fervour spread through the rest of the African continent causing nations like Zimbabwe and Kenya to stand up and point accusing fingers at us citing human rights violations and calling for a boycott to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics - would we listen? Or would we laugh? How could we take these protests seriously in light of the human rights violations those countries themselves have participated in recently.

Similarly, we must ask ourselves this same question. Do we have a record of moral behaviour that is so pristine that it allows us to stand behind a pulpit of moral superiority and dictate to other nations how they should deal with internal dissent? Or should we instead focus our attentions first towards ourselves, and look critically at our own shortcomings in this area before we begin to interfere in the autonomy of other nations? The reality is that we in the West have the luxury of viewing the actions of other world nations through a lens that focuses on their flaws of governance, and focuses on the negative consequences of their human rights discretions. While at the same time, we view our own government’s actions in a way that minimizes our perception of our own human rights violations - legitimizing them, and normalizing them through utilitarian paradigms.

I admire the intentions of the activists who are standing up passionately for what they believe in, and I feel immense sadness for the suffering of the Tibetan people. However, I also recognize that like Canada and the US, China will as an autonomous nation likely make the mistake of continuing to deal with this uprising in a heavy-handed manner. The question that I have is whether we in Canada actually have any moral ground upon which to judge China’s actions, while we continue even today to suppress dissent from lands that we illegally occupy.

I would challenge each activist to look within him/herself and ask whether they will extend the same moral abhorrence toward their own country. Whether in Canada, or in the US, we all have reasons to ask difficult questions of our governments and to demand that they answer for their behaviour.

We can either take this opportunity to promote the usual rubric of western libertarian thought and point fingers at other nations; or we can embrace this opportunity to critically examine our own poor track record of human rights in Canada, and begin to move forward in a manner consistent with our outwardly preaching. Rather than resting on our heels, confident that our status as a developed and westernized society protects us from external scrutiny in the area of human rights, perhaps we should be aware that similar calls for boycotts thrown our way could be almost as legitimate as today’s calls for boycotts toward China. And with the 2010 Olympics around the corner, what better time to start asking than now?