Editor’s Notebook © by John Arkelian
The best of writing, photography, art, and argument – on everything from film to foreign policy.
“Ever dreamed of subscribing to a cultural magazine that doesn’t seem to be eating out of the hand of half a dozen media magnates? Something pluricultural and unassuming but nonetheless covering everything worth seeing, reading, doing or listening to for a season? Well, it exists, and in Canada to boot!”
“There is no on-line version or web site, which either makes John a dinosaur or a man of character. (I opt for the second, since the editorial team occasionally has a kind word for me.)”
John Howe — Canadian artist and co-conceptual designer on all three “The Lord of the Rings” motion pictures.
* Editor’s Note: The age of the dinosaurs has at last come to an end — with the arrival of this website!
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On January 19, 2015
© By John Arkelian
In the aftermath of recent murderous events in Paris, one can only feel profound revulsion. What can possibly be in a human being’s mind to prompt him to take other lives with such casual, cold-blooded brutality? And how can anyone professing to be religious, commit such horrors with (what they believe to be) the name of God on their lips? “Allahu Akbar!” (“God is Great!”) shout those in the act of bloody murder, grotesquely oblivious to the monumental blasphemy of their words and actions.
Wonderfully perceptive, literate, and erudite, the late Polish essayist and foreign correspondent Ryszard Kapuściński described the poisonous characteristics of extremism so adeptly back in 1993 that his words sound as though they were written to describe the brutal violence perpetrated in Paris in January 2015.
“Three plagues, three contagions, threaten the world. The first is the plague of nationalism. The second is the plague of racism. The third is the plague of religious fundamentalism. All three share one trait, a common denominator – an aggressive, all-powerful, total irrationality. Anyone stricken with one of these plagues is beyond reason. In his head burns a sacred pyre that awaits only its sacrificial victims. Every attempt at calm conversation will fail. He doesn’t want a conversation, but a declaration that you agree with him, admit that he is right, join the cause. Otherwise you have no significance in his eyes, you do not exist, for you count only if you are a tool, an instrument, a weapon. There are no people – there is only the cause. A mind touched by such a contagion is a closed mind, one-dimensional, monothematic, spinning round one subject only – its enemy.”**
Such is the foe of civilized man. How then does civilized man respond to violent extremists, to the monomaniacal savages who perversely purport to wield hatred, terror, and murder as though they were the instruments of justice and devoutness? Kapuściński’s next words should prompt us to caution:
“Thinking about our enemy sustains us, allows us to exist. That is why the enemy is always present, is always with us.” **
We need to take care that we do not succumb to a symbiotic relationship with those who want to harm us – each side needing the other as its implacable foe, a mortal enemy that must be crushed at all costs. If there is no reasoning with terror; there is the hope that better education and vigorous outreach can dampen its supply of new adherents. Maybe we need to consider limiting how many new immigrants we import from places whose history and culture are more likely to make some of their expatriates susceptible to the siren call of extremism. Maybe we should ensure that we do not import large numbers of immigrants from places with alien ideas or retrograde norms faster than our society can digest them. Maybe we just need to work harder at assimilating newcomers into Western culture and norms. Maybe we need to find better ways to counter the ideological indoctrination that finds a receptive audience among the dispossessed, the dysfunctional, and those otherwise neglected on society’s fringes. Those who feel included in society, surely, are less likely to strike out against it in violence.
Gradually, but relentlessly, putting in place the devices of a police state (surveillance, warrantless searches, imprisonment without trial, torture, assassination of real or perceived threats, and creeping infringements on free speech), as the West has been doing ever since 9/11, is to admit defeat – to subvert our own societies from within and destroy what’s most precious about them. That is the terrorist’s goal: We must not do his destructive work for him. There are tried and true criminal investigation and prosecution mechanisms in place to combat terrorism. Terrorists commit crimes – shocking crimes, yes, but crimes nonetheless. Let our criminal justice system and law enforcement agencies use the normal implements that have always been at their disposal to respond to this threat. The ordinary implements of our legal system are more than adequate to deal with the particular crime of terrorism.
Instead, there’s talk in Canada (and elsewhere) about further restricting core human rights – by lowering the evidentiary threshold required for criminal investigation or prosecution; by ever greater surveillance (which already unconstitutionally catches in its universal net every law-abiding man, woman, and child); by diluting the essential requirement that a search warrant be issued by a court before a person or premises be searched by the state; or, alarmingly, by employing some kind of “preventive detention,” locking-up potential threats before they can hurt us. Such measures are anathema to a free people. If those intent on violent crime merely conspire to commit it, they are subject to the reach of our criminal law: It is more than capable of dealing with them – without extraordinary police powers or unconstitutional deviations from our most fundamental human rights and freedoms.
In the aftermath of the murders in Paris, it became popular to declare “Je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”), in reference to the cold-blooded slaughter of editorial cartoonists at the satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo” and the murder of mere bystanders at a grocery store. But, ‘Qui est Charlie?’ (‘Who is Charlie?’), after all? We are right to defend freedom of speech – including the freedom to criticize and lampoon political and religious figures. Such speech (nowhere more so than in the fine art of political cartooning) can inform, console, or critique. Sometimes it can be scathing. Sometimes it can sting, sometimes deeply offend. But it is invaluable in a free society. And, if we are willing to sometimes offend the minority, we must likewise tolerate speech that offends the majority.
Arresting the controversial (and ostensibly obnoxious) French comic Dieudonné M’bala M’bala for utterances that apparently seemed to sympathize with the terrorists’ murder spree seems inconsistent with our impassioned rally to the cause of free speech. Committing violence, or simply advocating it, is a crime – not free speech. Likewise, shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater as a prank is not a protected form of free speech. One person’s freedom ends when it causes actual harm to another person. But that leaves us with much speech that is ignorant, deplorable, or prejudiced. Provided that such speech, as noxious (and possibly hateful) as it may be, stops short of advocating violence or other criminality, it is to be protected. Freedom for decent people means extending freedom (of thought and speech) to those who are indecent.
A free people cannot afford to sacrifice core freedoms in the spurious name of greater security. And spurious it is, too. No amount of arbitrary state power will completely protect us from the danger of an extremist cabal or a lone crazed gunman intent on violence. If we sacrifice freedom for security, we will end up with neither. Further, we have far more to fear from the incremental moves toward police power trumping civil rights than we do from the terrible (but ever so remote) possibility of being killed by a terrorist. Lest we forget, police in Toronto corralled (or “kettled”) and unlawfully detained scores of law-abiding citizens, among other egregious human rights abuses, during the G-20 conference held there in 2010. That happened despite our constitutional guarantees (in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms), despite a mature legal and law enforcement system, and despite supposed systems of oversight and accountability. (To date, Toronto’s chief of police, Bill Blair, has, shamefully, been excused from testifying about his role in authorizing such gross excesses.) If the safeguards failed us then, as they manifestly did, how much more probable is it that the feeblest safeguards extant in the realm of counter-terrorism and surveillance will signify for nothing at all? Meaningful oversight and public accountability are all but illusory in the murky world of state surveillance and counter-terrorism measures. That’s why Canada, of all seemingly benign places, was complicit in past unlawful U.S. “rendition” of prisoners to secret interrogation sites abroad. That’s why Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan were, for a time, handing over their prisoners to local authorities who were very likely to torture or kill them. If we honor the metaphor of “Charlie,” we must stand fast against the seductive temptation to give away our core values and our inalienable human rights.
John Arkelian is an award-winning author and journalist with a background in international and constitutional law, criminal prosecutions, and diplomacy.
Copyright © 2015 by John Arkelian.
**Quotations are from “Imperium” by Ryszard Kapuściński (page 248); translated from the Polish by Klara Glowczewska. (Vintage International, N.Y., 1995) Originally published in Polish in 1993.
On January 19, 2015
As they used to say in “The X Files,” fight the future, by signing this online petition to stop Canada Post’s addle-brained plan to end home mail delivery:
https://www.change.org/p/don-t-let-canada-post-end-door-to-door-delivery
The online petition was started by a concerned Canadian, Susan Dixon. To date, it has attracted over 210,000 signatures, to no apparent effect, as far as Canada Post and its government overlords are concerned. Not for the first time, the will (and best interests) of the people seem to count for nothing by those who purportedly represent us.
And see below for “Postal Follies,” our March 26, 2014 editorial decrying the insupportable move by Canada Post management to unilaterally abdicate their core responsibility.
We happened to come across this nice assessment of Artsforum in the online magazine Offscreen:
Offscreen Notes: Artsforum Magazine — July 6, 2014
“Recently discovered this Canadian wide-ranging cultural issues online journal [Artsforum Magazine] which reminds me in its scope and literary bent of the excellent print magazine, The Believer Magazine, perhaps with a more politically driven interest (and from a Canadian perspective). Still, it is an ‘old-fashioned’ (I mean this in a good sense) liberal arts style magazine with a critical interest in all the arts (film, poetry, painting, photography, music, television, theatre, fiction).”
Donato Totaro, Ph.D
Offscreen (an online magazine)
Visit Offscreen at: http://offscreen.com/notes/view/artsforum-magazine
On May 27, 2014
Egyptian democracy crushed under the boot of another military ‘strongman’
© By John Arkelian
“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same. Nowhere is that more true than in Egypt, which has fallen back into the rigid embrace of military tyranny after a painfully brief flirtation with democracy. In February 2011, a protracted popular uprising, part of the so-called “Arab Spring,” swept one general turned president-for-life, Hosni Mubarek, from office after his nearly 30 year autocratic reign. Parliamentary elections in November 2011 gave Islamist candidates two-thirds of the seats, with half of those bearing allegiance to the 85-year-old Muslim Brotherhood movement. Then, in June 2012, a member of that movement, Mohammed Morsi, was elected president with 51.7% of the vote. It was a first for Egypt, despite that country’s long history – the democratic election of a civilian head of state. While this magazine holds no brief for Morsi or for the Muslim Brotherhood, it does appear that their electoral success was free and fair. Likewise, it appears that they adhered, more or less, to lawful measures once they assumed leadership of the government. But they remained bitterly unpopular with a large segment of Egypt’s divided population. Those who opposed them took to the streets en masse to angrily demand their ouster. Egypt’s military was only too happy to oblige, especially after the Morsi government amended the constitution in a failed attempt to bring the military under civilian control.
In July 2013, barely a year after he took office, Egypt’s first democratically elected president was forcibly (and unlawfully) removed by a military coup d’état. If that were not bad enough, the West acquiesced in the coup, declining even to call it by its rightful name, lest our own laws oblige us to suspend our sizeable military aid to the Egyptian generals. In the months that followed the coup, a travesty of justice has ensued, moving from one excess to another. An estimated one thousand Morsi supporters were slain in the streets while protesting the military overthrow of the elected government. Journalists have been suppressed and in some cases arrested. More recently, kangaroo courts have pronounced mass death sentences on hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, on what gives every indication of being grossly trumped-up charges: On one occasion, 529 defendants were sentenced to death at the same time; on another occasion, an additional 683 were sentenced to death – among them Mohammed Badie, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. Unsubstantiated charges of “terrorism” were levied against Morsi, allegedly pertaining to his dealings with the Hamas administration in the Gaza territory that borders on Egypt. Morsi has been reduced to appearing in court isolated – from his lawyers and everyone else – in a soundproof glass cage. Apparently, Egyptian “justice” is not just blind, she is also deaf.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s new man on a white horse, General Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, not content to exercise an iron grip behind the scenes, answered the (real or imagined) ‘call from the people’ to throw his camouflage helmet into the ring as a candidate in today’s (May 27th) presidential election. Having killed, cowed, or imprisoned his strongest rivals, effectively disenfranchising half of the nation’s population, this tin-pot pharaoh is a sure-bet to take the reins as Egypt’s latest military dictator. It’s quite an accomplishment for a man who previous claim to fame was defending the so-called “virginity tests” perpetrated by police on female protesters in Egypt’s 2011 popular uprising against tyranny, nepotism, and corruption. The tangle of competing motivations and aspirations that embroiled Cairo’s Tahrir Square and other flashpoints is difficult to sort out; but one thing is clear. Among those clamoring for change in 2011’s ill-fated Arab Spring were idealistic voices calling for true democracy, rule of law, respect for minorities, and secular government. Those who sought true democracy, freedom, and justice have been betrayed – by Egypt’s military, and by the rest of the world for acquiescing in the violent overthrow of a government which we may not have liked very much but which had in its favor the unique distinction (for Egypt) of having been freely elected. Sadly, too many in Egypt have been jubilant at the return of an autocrat. What a wasted opportunity for the Arab Spring to bear lasting fruit.
John Arkelian is an international affairs analyst, lawyer, and former diplomat.
Copyright © 2014 by John Arkelian.
Editor’s note: A tin-pot dictator (including those of the pharaonic variety) is an autocratic ruler who has little or no political legitimacy but abundant delusions of grandeur.
On April 15, 2014
Putin’s aggression in Ukraine and the West’s weak response
Vladimir Putin doubtless indulges delusions of imperial grandeur, but the Shirtless Czar is nothing but a KGB thug. And his autocratic regime certainly knows how to act the part. Putin’s interference in neighboring Ukraine crossed the line into naked aggression and lawlessness with his recent seizure of Crimea. How then ought the West to respond to Great Power aggression? Today, it is Russia; in the near future, it is just as apt to be an expansionistic China. Alas, however, the West has thus far confined itself to stern words and vigorous finger wagging – empty gestures which can only embolden Putin to stay his aggressive course. A host of meaningful measures sit idly on the table, awaiting only our resolve to put them into place. Author and international affairs analyst John Arkelian sets out a measured response by the West at: https://artsforum.ca/ideas/the-wide-world
Copyright © 2014 by John Arkelian.
On March 26, 2014
Canada Races to Enter the Ranks of the Third World
© By John Arkelian
In December 2013, Canada Post shocked Canadians by abruptly announcing a perverse plan to end door-to-door delivery for the millions of people who still have it and to practically double the cost of domestic postage. Those destructive policy plans make an insolent mockery of public service – and of Canada Post’s very raison d’être, which is to deliver the mail to all Canadians. It is an unacceptable abdication of the post office’s core responsibility. Canada Post should be extending door-to-door home delivery to everyone, not ending it for those of us who still have it! If fewer people are sending first-class mail, why drive the rest of us away with exorbitant price increases and a unilateral withdrawal of door-to-door service? Canadians would rather pay more and keep door-to-door service; or, if need be, sacrifice one day of mail delivery each week.
Delivering the mail to Canadians’ doors should be regarded as a public service; not a business decision based on profit and loss calculations. It is in the public interest to encourage Canadians to maintain their age-old custom of corresponding and sending greeting cards – keeping in touch with scattered family and acquaintances is the glue that helps bind us together. It makes us more civilized. Group boxes are insecure – they are susceptible to vandalism and mail theft – and they are enormously inconvenient for seniors, for disabled people, and, yes, for everyone else who relies on convenient daily access to incoming mail. People with community boxes often fall out of the habit of checking the boxes every day; some do not bother even checking the boxes every week! Substituting community boxes for delivery at the door thus exacerbates the alleged underlying ‘problem’ (of purported declining reliance on hard-copy mail) by conditioning Canadians to care less about hard-copy mail and to accordingly use it ever less. Far from responding sensibly to a perceived long-term trend, Canada Post has opted to ‘switch sides’ and actively drive mail users to abandon hard-copy mail altogether. It should also be pointed out that having a mail carrier walk a route serves a socially useful purpose: Carriers often greet people on their route and come to know them; in the process, they detect when something is amiss on their route – maybe a shut-in is in trouble or a home has been broken into. And, in a country whose main export in recent years has been its jobs (most of them destined for Asia in the spurious name of “globalization,” more accurately known as maximizing enrichment for the one percent at the expense of everyone else), Canada Post mail carrier positions constitute a much-needed source of good jobs for Canadians.
And Canada Post’s cries of financial hardship are clearly absurd. Canada Post ran a steady stream of full page and three-quarter page color advertisements in big Canadian newspapers, as well as commercials on prime-time television, in December 2013 and January 2014. Such advertising comes at an enormous cost in dollars. How did they find the mountain of money to pay for those pointless advertisements, if they cannot afford to deliver the mail? Even worse, all that advertising did was to state the obvious – that Canada Post delivers parcels. Canada Post may as well run ads telling us that the sky is blue! If funds are so short that Canada Post and the federal government want to cripple existing mail delivery, why waste supposedly scarce resources on redundant advertising?
And then there is the matter of the grossly exorbitant sums with which Canada Post is remunerating its own senior management. Its CEO, Deepak Chopra, “earns” $650,000 per year, including a bonus – a figure that is six times higher than it ought to be. And his fiefdom is positively bursting at the seams with senior subordinates – there is an oversized compliment of 22 vice-presidents. Who needs that many senior managers – particularly when they cannot even do the job they are paid for?
Replacing door to door mail delivery with community boxes is another step in Canada’s headlong decline from a respected member of the developed world to a Third World has-been. Henceforth, we will be the only country in the G-7 group of leading economic nations to be without door-to-door mail delivery. One suspects that we may be the only country in the much larger OECD group of developed countries to have that pathetic distinction. Canada Post has raised postal rates by a few cents every year for years on end; apparently those endless increases have not been sufficient to keep paying its top executives like kings. Now, they intend to dispense with small increases and to instead nearly double the cost of domestic mail. An increase of that magnitude is nothing short of highway robbery.
Canada Post’s plans are wrong-headed and an insupportable affront to its customers – the Canadian taxpayers who rely on Canada Post to maintain (and even improve upon) its longstanding level of excellent door-to-door delivery and affordable rates. Instead of endorsing this embarrassing race to the bottom, our inept federal government should immediately direct Canada Post to abandon its reckless plans – and insist that they fight to keep its loyal customers instead of driving them away! The moment Canada Post announced its scandalous plans, its entire cadre of senior management should have been fired, without severance compensation, for their abject, miserable failure to do the job for which they have been so handsomely overpaid. Otherwise, if the government continues to acquiesce in the shameless reduction of Canada to the postal equivalent of a Third World country, why not go the extra mile and close Canada Post entirely? If it refuses to provide its core service to Canadian taxpayers, Canada Post no longer serves any useful purpose by existing at all.
Copyright © March 2014 by John Arkelian.
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