International politics – Page 2

“JAILS AWAIT REFUGEES”: York panel discuss the Canadian response to Tamil asylum seekers

October 2010

“JAILS AWAIT REFUGEES” was just one of many sensational and dramatic headlines to grace Canadian newspapers in the past year regarding Tamil asylum seekers from Sri Lanka.

Last October, 76 asylum seekers that had arrived on Canada’s western shore were detained for three months on suspicion of terrorism before finally being released, and before the process of their refugee claim was initiated.

This past August, another boat arrived with 492 asylum seekers, and they are still being detained.

The Tamil minority in Sri Lanka are currently facing violence, persecution and receiving no international aid.

Canada’s actions regarding these refugees and the escalated violence in January of last year (which saw many protests across Toronto, though poorly received by the Canadian government) are being heavily debated and critiqued.

Last month, York University’s Centre for Refugee Studies hosted an informative discussion panel on these recent events.

Present were Sherry Aiken of the Faculty of Law at Queen’s University, Craig Scott, of Osgoode Hall Law School at York University, Jennifer Hyndman of the Cen- tre for Refugee Studies in the Social Science Department at York, and Kubes Navarantnam of the Canadian Tamil Congress.

Susan McGrath, Director of York University’s Centre for Refugee Studies, moderated the comprehensive panel.

Topics covered the historical, geographical and political situation of Sri Lanka, the dangerous route of asylum seekers coming to Canada and their reception by the Canadian government and Canadian media.

When discussing the situation of Tamil refugees, one must consider the political complexity that governs their actions.

First, as Navarantnam succinctly explained, “any Muslim, Sinhalese, or Tamil person [in Sri Lanka] op- posing the government is in fear for their life.”

As we saw last January, the Sri Lankan government’s attempts to annihilate the Tamil Tigers, an organization fighting for an independent Tamil state, resulted in a shameful number of civilian casualties.

Though the Tigers, also known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), have been declared a terrorist organization by the Canadian government, and are obviously enemies of the state in Sri Lanka, there exists scattered support for them among Tamil people in Sri Lanka and abroad.

“I’ve had issues with the methods,” says Mera Sivane- san, Law student at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. “[But] the Tigers provided infrastructure. They had hospitals set up, courts…schools, a credit union.”

“All of that was wiped out during the fighting last year,” continues Sivanesan, “hundreds of thousands of people were herded into camps and now when they’re told to go back home they have nothing to go back home to. This has also been compounded by an active campaign of colonization of formerly Tamil areas with Sinhalese settlements.”

Once the decision is made to seek asylum abroad, however, the journey ahead is by no means an easy or safe one.

Jennifer Hyndman illustrated this point by quoting an Edmonton Journal headline that described the refugee’s journey, “through hell or high water.” She also mentioned that boats used by refugees are those previously deemed not seaworthy, and headed to the boat equivalent of the junk- yard.

Hyndman’s presentation, focusing on the media mania that ensued following the arrival the asylum seekers, illuminated one of the central issues, that the “spectre of boatloads of refugees seems to stir up hysteria.”

This may be because as a part of the process of confirm- ing the refugee status of the Tamil asylum exiles, they must also be cleared of their almost automatic status as terrorists.

Accused of being involved with the LTTE, these émi- grés, are detained first, perhaps welcomed later.

Even after the brutal assault on LTTE institutions last winter, the Sri Lankan government “has been repeatedly say- ing they are regrouping,” explained Navarantnam. Though there is “no evidence of other violent mobilizing” on the part of the Tigers.

“The Tigers have demised but the fight for Tamil independence has not,” he says.

Consequently, anyone coming out of Sri Lanka is guilty until proven innocent. But, Mayoori Malankov, graduate student at York University and attendee to the panel, brings up a valid question: “How would we even know if they are terrorists?”

Considering they have spent such a short amount of time in Canada and that virtually no information is coming out of Sri Lanka, it is viable to question the process by which the Canadian government determines who is terrorist and who is not.

Despite Canada’s international reputation for being open and accepting, it is obvious that the government’s political ties to Sri Lanka and the Western ‘War on Terrorism’ have affected their welcome of these asylum seekers.

In this case, it appears that while the Canadian government loses respect, Tamil refugees are just plain losing out.

as published in the Ryerson Free Press, October 2010

The thing about museums: How English museums illustrate the problem with the contemporary historical exhibit

July 2010

Throughout recent history, England has probably extended its reach to more countries than any other colonizing nation. In fact, at the height of its imperial regime, England controlled a quarter of the world’s population. Under the guise of science, anthropology, religious missions and military exploration, the English crown changed the history of hundreds of nations and millions of people.

Today, evidence of that history is unabashedly displayed in English museums.

Brighton’s Pavilion Museum is housed next to George IVs former seaside palace, which was built in the Indo-Saracenic style, a mix of Victorian gothic and indigenous design. This approach was a favourite of British officials living in colonial India, a way to mask orientalist exoticism with feigned respect and appreciation for local art, basically the equivalent of architectural imperialism.

The museum itself is small by comparison but efficiently packs art, tools, clothing and other tokens from indigenous peoples the world over.

Descriptions of these objects glorify ‘armchair anthropology’; a detached and ineffective ethnographic technique critiqued by contemporary academics for its racist essential- ism. The information provided romanticizes the colonial process, using gentle euphemisms when explaining the adventurous ‘collection process’ of what should be declared stolen goods.

The infamous British Museum of London, England’s also glosses over the processes by which artifacts were ‘collected,’ but small and large plaques thanking benefactors for their ‘donations’ are everywhere.

Many of these are personal contributions, which made me question where someone like Major R.G. Gayer- Anderson, who donated the Ancient Egyptian cat statuette, dubbed the ‘Gayer-Anderson Cat’, would have obtained his treasury of historic art. (The Victoria and Albert Museum, also in London, is another of many museums to house Gayer- Anderson’s and his younger brother, T. G. Gayer-Anderson’s, donations).

Despite the fact that a map of Britain’s contemporary and historical political ties could be drawn out based on contributions to the British Museum, it is clear that there is an attempt to depoliticize its collection.

A Tennyson quote on the floor of the Great Court (as you enter the museum), reads: “And let thy feet/millenniums hence/be set in midst of knowledge.” A quote that I believe illustrates the way history and art are romanticized. A self- confessed history-geek myself, I still believe it is important to contextualize historical artifacts to truly understand them.

Political context often goes unmentioned when display- ing said artifacts, in an attempt to maintain what I can only describe as the ‘purity’ of academia, encouraging museum- goers to try and embrace and appreciate the wonders of world history and science without sullying it with implica- tions of cultural theft and global politics.

If one considers the manner in which the museum ob- tained so many of its artifacts, disregarding historical and po- litical context is to disregard a vital part the object’s history. In so doing, we are disregarding the people and the culture it represents. This strikes me as both discourteous and ineffec- tive for an establishment of universal scholarship.

Another important point is that the value of certain his- tories, certain peoples and certain eras visibly changes as one navigates somewhere like the British Museum. Something as basic as the layout of exhibits, I think, illustrates what the institution deems more interesting or important for visitors.

While on the one hand much of the museum’s collection from what we call today’s ‘Global South,’ are stolen pieces of history, it is interesting to note that European territories are still given large wings and sections for multiple time periods while other parts of the world are given smaller and simpler bearings. Despite the British colonial legacy of baseless theft and genocide, the history of the colonized remains less impressive, or less important. 500 years later, Africa is still in the basement.

Tennyson’s quote is an obvious tenet of what the British Museum, and many other museums stand for: knowledge and learning about our past. All I can conclude based on visiting all of these institutions is that we will be in no capacity able to learn from the mistakes of our past if future genera- tions are not taught about them.

And I know I am not the first to say “He who wins the war writes the history books,” so I wonder why it is that centuries of colonial oppression and all its ramifications are not only glorified and venerated by internationally renowned institutions but that their gross misrepresentation goes un- questioned and unchallenged.

It appears that the institution of the metropolitan museum has become another facet of the neo-colonial machine and that education is one more battle to fight in the war for freedom and equality.

as published in the Ryerson Free Press, July 2010

Why Canada must leave Afghanistan now: The ‘bravest woman in Afghanistan’ talks about peace justice and human rights

December 2009

Malalai Joya was just 27 years old when she became the youngest person ever to be elected to Afghanistan’s parliament. That was in 2005. Four years later, she is also an author, a teacher, a peace activist, a women’s rights campaigner and a survivor of multiple assassination attempts.

Joya was recently in Canada to promote her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Speak Out, and to appear at numerous peace events across the country.

In May 2007, Joya was suspended from parliament, a result of her relentless criticism of Afghanistan’s corrupt, warlord government. To this day, Joya continues to face death threats, and must sleep in safe houses. She is constantly aware of her enemies, both inside and outside of parliament.

Joya shares these experiences as she meets and engages audiences across Canada. The topic of her speaking tour hits hard, since the first deployment of Canadian troops joined American soldiers in Afghanistan in early 2002. Military leaders still claim that the purpose of the mission is to re- build Afghanistan, assist development and provide security.

But Joya sees things differently: “These occupation forces, they are victims of the wrong policy of their own gov- ernment that sent them to a bad, costly war. Democracy will never come by war, by cluster bomb or by the barrel of a gun.”

In May this year, over 150 civilians were killed by US air strikes in Afghanistan; most victims were women and chil- dren. Eleven bodies are still missing. In September, another 200 civilians were bombed.

Between NATO air strikes from above and the dangers of warlords and drug lords on the ground, the people of Afghanistan are caught in the middle of a bloody war that is supposedly being waged for their own liberation. At least that’s the line according to NATO leaders, including Stephen Harper.

Joya has also been fighting for women’s rights in Afghanistan, from the early days of the Taliban until now. She says: “The situation of women was, without a doubt, the best excuse for the US government to occupy our country—under the banner of women’s rights… But they pushed us from the frying pan into the fire.”

Afghan women face more hardship today than in 2001 when the war began. They have less security, and largely only enjoy human rights on paper. They are the primary victims of NATO’s bombing campaigns, and are often threatened with rape and murder by the warlords.

This is far from the image of women’s rights in Afghani- stan peddled by the Canadian government and NATO leaders. For instance, one article on NATO’s website describes a meeting between 13 female members of the Wolesi Jirga (Af- ghanistan’s lower house of parliament) and NATO officials, citing “the progress made in recent years to integrate Afghan women at all levels of society” and “the current historic politi- cal empowerment of women in Afghanistan, with 68 women parliamentarians in the Wolesi Jirga…”

It is true that the percentage of female parliamentarians in Afghanistan is higher than in Canada, but Joya explains how many of these women either support the warlords or have no real power. “Most of them have only a symbolic role… They are just a show-piece.”

During one of Joya’s appearances in Toronto, she asked Canadians for their “helping hand, [their] honest, practical, helping hand.” She went on to say that this helping hand does not mean nearly a decade of foreign occupation, or the farce of democracy in the Afghan government. “There is a huge difference,” says Joya, “between ordinary people and policy- makers […] between the people and their government.” It is the people Joya calls for support, not the military.

“As a great people, as anti-war people, as human beings … [you] should raise [your] voice against the wrong policies of [your] government.”

There are many ways that people in the West can sup- port the people of Afghanistan, and none of them require ammunition, says Joya. International solidarity, educational support and moral support are just three examples of what Afghans need and seek from allies in Canada. In her memoir, after describing three decades of turmoil in Afghanistan, Joya says that the last thing the Afghan people need is more war.

“Education is the key to our emancipation” says Joya. The job of Canadians, she continues, is to learn, to educate themselves and each other, and to become aware of the real situation in Afghanistan.

NATO troops, including Canadian soldiers, are sent to war in the name of democracy, says Joya. But Canadians must recognize that the war in not about democracy, which can only come about through the struggle of the people of Afghanistan themselves.

“The US government, Canada and NATO: they play chess with the destiny of my people… If they left us a little bit in peace, then we would know what to do with our destiny.”

as published in the Ryerson Free Press, December 2009

Drop in spending will hit Third World producers

March 19, 2009

The economic recession, characterized by billion-dollar corporate bailouts and a suffering housing market, is spreading from North America and spilling into the economies of other countries.

Developing nations are not always associated with North American companies on the edge of bankruptcy, but they are not unaffected by them either.

Far from being detached, the marginalized Third World suffers a little more for every penny lost in the economy of developed nations.

What we are seeing now is only the first phase of the crisis, says York University International Development Studies Professor Eduardo Canel.

Most media reports explain how the economy is affecting workers and citizens in Canada, but it is the long-lasting effects that will be felt in the Third World.

These nations depend greatly on the demand for goods that they export to the First World. If demand goes down, or disappears, their economies could collapse.

Canel gives a good example: for every Starbucks macchiato you skip due to the financial crisis, someone does not get paid for the products that would have gone into it.

In 2001, coffee prices dropped, hitting their lowest in 30 years, according to the Oxfam Policy Papers.

“Now we are taking our children out of school because we cannot afford the fees,” said a Tanzanian coffee farmer quoted in the 2001 report. “How can we send our children to school when we cannot afford to feed them as well?”

According to International Coffee Organization data, prices are again declining after a peak earlier last year.

According to the World Bank, the value of exports from Third World nations will drop as much as $95 billion (U.S.) this year. This amount exceeds what the developing world receives in aid annually.

Financial aid promised by developed nations is also expected to decrease as the growing economic crisis continues and governments are forced to cut back on financial initiatives.

“They are in a straitjacket,” says Canel, “it is the best illustration of their dependency. It is a crisis they did not create, but they are likely to suffer the most.”

Originally published on thestar.com as part of the Global Voices program