The View From Here

2020-06-15

OP-ED -- We all need to pledge to end racism

In order to harness this social movement we all have to ask: What is our next step to dismantle the racist legacy that Blacks and other communities of colour are confronted with in this country?

Fareed Khan
Founder and Chair, Canadians United Against Hate
https://leaderpost.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-we-all-need-to-pledge-to-end-racism

As a high school student I was fortunate to go to a school that was a mini United Nations. In the Flemingdon Park / Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood of Toronto, in a school with a population of over 1,200, we had people who came from 81 countries from every region of the world. They represented every ethnicity, and every belief system you could think of.

Within the school we had a sizeable Black population, some of who were my friends. I carry a little bit of each of these people within me, and those friendships of long ago are part of who I am. However, despite these relationships I was unaware of the challenges they and their families faced navigating a world dominated by white privilege and racism.

Like Black Canadians, I have been a target of racist violence during my life, with my earliest memory of a racist incident at the hands of some older white boys when I was six. It resulted with me in an emergency room in a downtown Toronto hospital. However, I have never walked in the shoes of any Black Canadian when it comes to racism, and don’t know their lived reality.

Unlike them, I have never left home for a walk or gotten in my car to drive somewhere, feeling worried about crossing paths with police. I have never felt the anxiety they feel when a police car drives by, or stops near them when they are peacefully going about their business. In those instances where I have been stopped by police, I have never felt the fear they must feel about how the encounter might turn out. I have certainly never been “carded” by police, or racially profiled by them as many young Black men have been in Canada’s big cities.

In addition, I will never understand the anxiety Black parents must feel when their teenaged or young adult children step outside the front door. For those with sons, I will never know how they feel when they have to instruct their sons on what they must do and how they must behave if they are stopped or questioned by police, in order to come out of the encounter unharmed.

When I saw the eyewitness video of the death of George Floyd, under the knee of a police officer as he begged for his life, I felt sickened and horrified, like millions of others. But I will never feel the depth of pain and injustice that Black Canadians feel each time there is another such incident reported in the news. Their lived reality is one that is alien to me despite my own experiences with racism and bigotry, and it is certainly alien to anyone who is white.

We are all living through a seminal moment in history, and Canadians seem to have had an epiphany about racism in Canada in response to Floyd’s death. In order to harness this social movement we all have to ask: What is our next step to dismantle the racist legacy that Blacks and other communities of colour are confronted with in this country?

Like thousands of others across Canada, I attended an anti-racism protest last week. I saw people of all ethno-cultural backgrounds and ages stand together, calling out “Black Lives Matter.” I was heartened by all those who joined in the call for justice, and to say there is no place for racism or police violence against Blacks or any people of colour, in a society that claims to be committed to defending human rights and the rule of law.

In order to achieve success, Canadians need to make a long-term commitment to eliminating the systemic and endemic racism that is ingrained in our society. We need to commit to changing the systems that created this reality, and commit ourselves to the goal of racial justice. Finally, we need to work towards a society where regardless of our skin, our tribe, our blood, our belief, our language or our nation, we are all seen and treated equally.

This is my pledge to fight racism, and I ask other Canadians to make it as well.

SOURCE:

https://leaderpost.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-we-all-need-to-pledge-to-end-racism

https://thestarphoenix.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-we-all-need-to-pledge-to-end-racism

https://theprovince.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-we-all-need-to-pledge-to-end-racism/wcm/45780ab6-4f3b-4985-b78e-1c738bcea0ca

2020-01-05

Donald Trump's insanity is leading the world to war

By Fareed Khan

The US has an insane man as a President, and there are respected medical professionals who have made detailed public statements to this effect.

Since becoming the leader of the US and the most powerful politician in the world, Donald Trump has been the equivalent of a wrecking ball, both in American and international politics. During his three years in office he has abused the powers of the Oval Office, he has shredded the US Constitution, ignored the rule of law, violated and torn up international treaties that he didn’t like, dismantled the international legal order that has kept the world at peace since World War 2, and in the process is destabilizing the world. The parallels between what happened in the lead up to the Second World War and what Donald Trump has done as President are too numerous to mention, except today we have the experience of 1930s Europe to learn from – an experience that is being ignored.

Unfortunately the so-called adults in the US administration and the US Congress are letting a child play with matches, and he has started a brush fire that is already spreading, and could potentially set the world alight.

In his Twitter rants since the assassination of Iran's top general on January 3rd Trump is also threatening to destroy important Iranian cultural sites if Iran retaliates. Such an act would be a war crime under international law and would result in further US isolation, and attacks against US interests around the world. But it seems the psychopath-in-chief and his enablers don't seem to care how many innocents might die as a result of Trump's insanity. Imagine how Americans would react if there was an attack against the Statue of Liberty or Mount Rushmore or any other significant American cultural or historic site?

There is also the issue of how US mainstream media have been enablers of America's past wars by cheer leading America's illegal acts. What role will they decide to play in the forthcoming evil that Trump has instigated by assassinating the top military leader of another nation? Will they play the role of real journalists or will they whip up rabid American nationalism by once again being cheer leaders for the criminality of the US government (as they were in the lead up to the Iraq War)?

In the judgement of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg following World War 2 there is a section that contains the following statement:

"War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

By assassinating a foreign military leader Trump has very likely committed the "supreme international crime". He has lit the fuse that will lead to a wider conflagration, where potentially tens of thousands if not millions of innocents will die, and of course the vast majority of those innocents who will die at the hands of the US will once again be Muslims.

It is conservatively estimated that four million Muslims have been killed directly and indirectly as a result of actions by the US and its western allies since 1990. In addition, tens of millions have been made refugees. The fact that the targets of aggressive US foreign policy over the last three decades have been Muslims should be proof that US foreign policy comes from a mindset of bigotry against Muslims, racism against Arabs, Iranians and South Asians, and an ideology of hate against the brown skinned peoples of the wider Middle East and North Africa.

People outside the US can do nothing to stop the lunatic who currently occupies the Oval Office. All we can do is appeal to the sanity of those Americans who don't want to see their country and the world embroiled in another futile war where the end result will be hundreds of thousands if not millions of innocent dead and a world more dangerous than it was before.

It is estimated that George W. Bush's illegal Iraq War will eventually cost the US $6 trillion by the time all the bills are paid in the 2050s. Imagine what could have been accomplished for the American people if that money had been spent in the US on education, health care, social services, rebuilding America's crumbling infrastructure, protecting the environment, and other national projects.

The US is currently being governed by a criminal oligarchy led by the biggest criminal megalomaniac to ever hold public office in the US. The demise of the America that has been held up as a beacon to democracy, justice, civil liberties and human rights is getting ever closer unless Americans rise up to remove Trump and his criminal cabal from office. Since Trump’s election Americans and the rest of the world have already paid a price for his criminal insanity. But the price is sure to be far higher and deadlier for the entire world unless sanity returns to the political class in Washington DC.

Those of us watching from outside the US hold out hope that sanity will once again prevail, particularly Muslims who have been the main victims of US foreign policy and its wars for the past three decades.

REFERENCES:

2019-12-27

Aung San Suu Kyi’s appearance before the International Court of Justice showed what the “banality of evil” looks like

By Fareed Khan

Many have heard the term “the banality of evil". It was coined by Hannah Arendt, a German Jew who fled Nazi Germany as Hitler rose to power, and it was the title of her 1963 book about the trial of Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann. Her premise was that not just fanatics or sociopaths commit acts of extreme evil.

The banality of evil is what the world witnessed as Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi tried to justify her nation’s crimes against the Rohingya before the International Court of Justice in The Hague on December 11th and 12th. Her lack of reaction or expressions of remorse as the genocidal crimes were described by Gambia’s representatives, and her defense of what Myanmar did, epitomized Arendt’s hypothesis in practice.

This theory is also evident in how national leaders respond to acts of evil. In the case of Canada, the US and other Western nations, the banality of evil was present in the lack of action by the international community to halt the Rohingya genocide. The fact that no nations took action to halt the atrocities, particularly Western nations that claim to be defenders of human rights and the rule of law, is evidence to support Arendt’s views.

Eventually it was the small African nation of Gambia that decided to hold Myanmar accountable for its crimes by filing a case at the International Court of Justice under the Genocide Convention. Why it was left to a nation with limited legal resources to launch the genocide case against Myanmar is a question that needs answering, especially since Rohingya rights activists in North American and Europe have repeatedly called for a genocide case to be filed against Myanmar at the ICJ since early 2018.

The West’s failure to prevent genocide when there was sufficient warning it was going to occur, the failure to stop it when it was happening, and the failure to act to prosecute the perpetrators when ample evidence is available, means that Western claims to be defenders of the rule of law and the international order are disingenuous.

To see other examples of the banality of evil in the world today we need look no further than China’s genocide against the Uyghurs, India’s human rights atrocities and violence targeting Kashmiris and other Muslim minority communities in that nation, and the more than 50 years of oppression, atrocities, mass murder and Apartheid committed by Israel against Palestinians. In addition, it is evident in the international community’s lack of urgent action to these egregious criminal violations of international law, and the public's unwillingness to hold governments accountable for not standing up for the values we claim to uphold, that we are collectively complicit in the crimes.

These are just a few examples which show that humanity seems to be reliving the dark parts of history, particularly the rise in the ideology of hate, that led up to the horrors of World War 2. Yet Justin Trudeau and other world leaders do little or nothing to keep it from recurring. It is like being on the Titanic, knowing it will hit an iceberg, but the captain does nothing to change the deadly outcome.

Around the world political leaders are getting away with committing acts of evil with impunity. People like Aung San Suu Kyi, China's Xi Jinping, India's Narendra Modi, and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu epitomize the banality of evil because they see nothing wrong when the governments they lead commit crimes against humanity, mass murder, and even genocide.

Yet Trudeau, and leaders of other nations claiming to defend international human rights and the rule of law, are willing to ignore these monstrous crimes, and only pay lip service to calls for justice for the victims. Witnessing this is not only hard to believe but also infuriating, particularly given the annual public displays of “remorse” by politicians on occasions like Victims of Genocide Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Martin Luther King Jr. said the greatest sin of our time is not the destruction of the good around us by the few but the apathy of the vast majority who do nothing to stop it as it happens. By this measure Trudeau, along with other leaders of nations claiming to be defenders of human rights, committed sins on an unimaginable scale.

We should remember this as we come to end of the Christmas season, the season of “Peace on Earth” and showing goodwill. And for the New Year let’s wish for a future that is far less banal, and work towards achieving it.

© 2019 The View From Here. © 2019 Fareed Khan. All Rights Reserved.

2019-12-12

Canada gave hope to the Rohingya, then failed them by not acting to stop genocide. But there’s a chance for redemption

By Fareed Khan

One of the gravest human rights issues of the past two years has been the genocide of the Rohingya at the hands of the Myanmar government. As Canada marked Victims of Genocide Day on December 9th and Human Rights Day on December 10th, Canadians need to examine how the Canada first gave hope to the Rohingya, then cruelly failed them, and how it can now redeem itself.

The world was aghast in the fall of 2017 when the atrocities committed by Myanmar against its Rohingya minority came to light – acts which were labeled "ethnic cleansing", "crimes against humanity," and ultimately "genocide". Myanmar’s crimes against the Rohingya included the mass murder of thousands of unarmed civilians, the gang rape of tens of thousands of women, and the destruction of more almost 400 villages, which caused an exodus of Rohingya to neighbouring Bangladesh creating the world’s largest refugee camp.

In 2017 and 2018 Canada took international leadership in the Rohingya crisis through some key initiatives. Canada was among the first nations to condemn Myanmar's atrocities. In November 2017 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Bob Rae as a Special Envoy to Myanmar to look into the crisis, report back, and recommend a course of action. Following the release of Rae's final report in April 2018, Canada committed $300 million over three years for humanitarian assistance to Rohingya refugees (but ignored the majority of the remaining 17 recommendations).

As host of the G7 summit in 2018 Canada put the Rohingya issue on the agenda, and raised it in other international forums. In addition, Canada used Magnitsky Act sanctions against a number of Myanmar's military officials, and supported the work of Canadian human rights jurists and organizations who filed legal briefs at the International Criminal Court in The Hague regarding the crime of forced deportation of Rohingya.

In the fall of 2018 Canada's Parliament passed two unanimously supported motions which officially acknowledged the atrocities committed by Myanmar against the Rohingya as "genocide" (the first nation in the world to do so). Subsequently, Parliament also revoked the honourary Canadian citizenship conferred on Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 2008, and expressed its opposition to the repatriation of any Rohingya back to Myanmar without guarantees of safety and security.

But that is where Canada's leadership on the Rohingya crisis ended.

Despite repeated calls by the Rohingya Human Rights Network and other human rights organizations, Canada took no action at the United Nations to protect the more than 500,000 Rohingya remaining in Myanmar still being subjected to genocide. Most importantly, since the beginning of 2018, Canada has been deaf to the many Canadian human rights voices, calling on the government to live up to its international treaty obligations by filing a complaint against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, despite the support shown for this action in a petition signed by more than 75,000 people.

For more than a year and a half the Canadian government has refused to live up to its international legal obligations by filing a genocide case against Myanmar at the ICJ, notwithstanding that this proposed action has the support of a third of the Senate, MPs from all parties, and human rights and civil society organizations.

The small West African country of Gambia has taken the lead in seeking justice for the Rohingya by filing a case for genocide against Myanmar at the ICJ. The opening statements were made by the legal team from Gambia on December 11th. The same day, disgraced Nobel Peace Prize laureate made an opening statement on behalf of Myanmar by trying to refute allegations that her nation committed genocide against the Rohingya, despite the overwhelming evidence available to prove otherwise.

Rohingya from around the world travelled to The Hague to be present on this historic occasion, to say thank you to Gambia, to stand in solidarity with that nation for taking on the genocide case against Myanmar, and to stand in defiance of Aung San Suu Kyi who has transformed from a human rights defender into someone complicit in genocide. Rohingya were in The Hague to show her and the world that they will not be silenced, they will not be intimidated, or forgotten, despite the horrors and atrocities that have been inflicted on them by the Myanmar government, recently and over the past four decades.

There are also Rohingya Canadians who traveled to The Hague to stand shoulder to shoulder with their brothers and sisters. They did this to send a signal to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that if Canada wants to be a “rule of law” nation and defender of human rights, as he and former Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland have so often stated, then they should take lessons from Gambia, which is living up to its legal responsibilities under the genocide convention, and defending the human rights of the Rohingya. Where Canada has offered platitudes and slogans with no actions behind the words, Gambia is offering a real hope for justice.

However, Canada does have a path to redemption. If the prime minister wants to show that Canada is truly a defender of the rules-based international order and human rights, then he needs to instruct Canadian officials to take actions which will allow Canada to become a party to Gambia’s genocide case. All those who have been lobbying the government to stop the genocide in Myanmar, which continues to this day, still want Canada to participate in the genocide case, and put its legal expertise and international weight behind this prosecution in a substantive way.

Words of support for the Rohingya are cheap, and Rohingya activists and their allies have heard far too many words from the Canadian government followed by too little action. It is actions that matter. Especially when it comes to helping those Rohingya who have survived genocide, and those who continue to be subjected to it.

Sitting on the sidelines is not an option. Canada needs to show leadership and join Gambia in prosecuting the Rohingya genocide at the ICJ. Because to be a leader on the international stage requires action, and now is the moment to act and demonstrate Canadian leadership in a case where justice for survivors of genocide is the goal. Words are important, but actions always matter more.