PMO ‘central control deepening far more than people know or seem to care about’

2016/05/24 Leave a comment

Good interview with Alex Marland, author of Brand Command: Canadian Politics and Democracy in the Age of Message Control;

Your book also examines political communications under the Harper Conservatives. Has political communications changed under the Trudeau Liberals? 

“The Trudeau brand is refreshing and engaging. Even those who cringe at the selfies and the blatant photo-ops should acknowledge that the change in tone is a welcome relief after the intense negativity that permeated Canadian politics dating to the early 2000s. Hopefully the showmanship will fall away, because a shameless desire for publicity and public adulation can turn many citizens off politics too. For someone like me, the issue is that the more that the media’s glare is on the prime minister, the more power that individual has. I believe that central control is deepening far more than people know or seem to care about. The creation of delivery units in the centre of the Liberal government are an excellent example of PMO control. It is not lost on me that if the Harper administration had created those we’d be hearing howls that Canada is becoming an authoritarian state. It is the role of academics to see beyond the public personas of political leaders, especially when everyone else is distracted by them.”

Why do you say the pursuit of political power is strategic as never before? What do you mean?

“The competition for power involves a level of strategic manoeuvering and tactical execution in ways that are exceedingly complex. Sure, there’s a lot of gut instinct involved—there just isn’t enough money in Canadian politics to enable the kind of data analytics found in the U.S.A. In any event, you cannot form government on the basis of marketing alone. It was sometimes said that Harper was playing chess while everyone else was playing checkers. I would suggest that everyone is forced to play chess now. Even the smallest political parties have supporter databases, are using social media, are familiar with market segmentation to bundle coalitions, and so on. Everything is quick, quick, quick—not only do you need to be sharp-minded, but you need to operate in a media cycle that churns multiple times per day. This is where branding comes in: if you have a core set of messages and values the brand mantra acts as a guide for spinning a message no matter what the circumstance.”

How has branding influenced democracy?

“Branding’s supporters, including in the government, will tell you that it saves money and makes things more efficient. Navigating webpages with a common look and feel is an example; cutting down on the number of sub-brands and logos throughout government is another. Templates for campaign signs, brochures and websites have done wonders for local campaigns, while simultaneously imprinting a central command ethos. Branding also simplifies things for electors—the same messages are repeated, we see the same visuals over and over. Only the most rabid politicos read campaign platforms, or care about policy discussions at party conventions. Most Canadians are busy with their daily lives and pay surface attention to politics. Branding connects with them. It also limits the potential for a brand ambassador to commit a gaffe or so-called “bozo interruption” that undermines the leadership team. So as a strategy it helps to move an agenda forward. The downside, of course, is that candidates and MPs, and even some ministers, become regional sales reps of a message set by people at the top. It becomes a serious problem when all messages align, bordering on state propaganda.”

Where is Canadian politics headed? 

“I am a cautious optimist. The proliferation of digital media means that traditional elite power structures are under stress to change and evolve. This is generally good. What is not good is that the online sphere has become a powerful interest group for the hyper-sensitive forces of political correctness. A healthy democracy is strongest when open-minded citizens carefully deliberate a variety of opinions. As a society, we need leaders who encourage thoughtful constructive debate, who are willing to challenge the wisdom of crowds, who question attachments to party labels, and who aren’t afraid to sometimes take a public punch from their own brand ambassadors.”

Source: PMO ‘central control deepening far more than people know or seem to care about’ |

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How the Big Red Machine became the big data machine: Delacourt

2016/05/24 Leave a comment

As someone who likes playing with and analyzing data, found Delacourt’s recounting of how the Liberals became the most data savvy political party interesting:

The Console, with its maps and myriad graphs and numbers, was the most vivid evidence of how far the Liberal party had come in its bid to play catch-up in the data war with its Conservative and NDP rivals. Call it Trudeau 2.0. Just as the old Rainmaker Keith Davey brought science to the party of Trudeau’s father in the 1960s and 1970s, the next generation of Trudeau Liberalism would get seized with data, science and evidence in a big way, too.

And in the grand tradition of Davey, Allan Gregg and all the other political pollsters and marketers who went before them, this new squad of strategists set about dividing Canada’s electoral map into target ridings, ranked according to their chances of winning in them. In a 21st-century-style campaign, though, the distinctions would be far more sophisticated than simply “winnable” and “unwinnable” ridings. Trudeau’s Liberals divided the nation’s 338 electoral districts into six types, named for metals and compounds: platinum, gold, silver, bronze, steel and wood.

Platinum ridings were sure bets: mostly the few dozen that the Liberals had managed to keep in the electoral catastrophe of 2011. Gold ridings were not quite that solid, but they were the ones in which the party strategists felt pretty certain about their prospects. Silver ridings were the ones the Liberals would need to gain to win the election, while bronze ridings, the longer shots, would push them into majority government territory. Steel ridings were ones they might win in a subsequent election, and wood ridings were the ones where the Liberals probably could never win a seat, in rural Alberta for instance.

The Console kept close track of voter outreach efforts on the ground, right down to the number of doorsteps visited by volunteers and what kind of information they had gathered from those visits — family size, composition, political interests, even the estimated age of the residents. By consulting the Console, campaigners could even figure out which time of day was best for canvassing in specific neighbourhoods or which voters required another visit to seal the deal.

When the Liberal team unveiled the Console to Trudeau, he was blown away. He told his team that it was his new favourite thing. He wanted regular briefings on the contents of the program: where it showed the Liberal party ahead, and where fortunes were flagging and volunteers needed to do more door-knocking. Actually, he wondered, why couldn’t he be given access to the Console himself, so that he could consult it on his home computer or on his phone while on the road?

And that, Trudeau would say later, was the last he ever saw of the Console. “My job was to bring it back, not on the analysis side, but on the connection side — on getting volunteers to go out, drawing people in, getting people to sign up,” Trudeau said. Clearly he was doing something right on that score — Liberal membership numbers had climbed from about 60,000 to 300,000 within Trudeau’s first 18 months as leader.

Volunteers for the party would learn — often to their peril — that the leader was fiercely serious about turning his crowd appeal into useful data. Trudeau wasn’t known for displays of temper, but the easiest way to provoke him was to fall down on the job of collecting data from the crowds at campaign stops. Few things made Trudeau angrier, for instance, than to see Liberal volunteers surrounding him at events instead of gathering up contact information. “That was what I demanded. If they wanted a visit from the leader they had to arrange that or else I’d be really upset,” Trudeau said.

Source: How the Big Red Machine became the big data machine | Toronto Star

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Azrieli and Herscovitch: Take the lead in Holocaust education, Canada

2016/05/20 Leave a comment

Commentary by Alice Herscovitch and Naomi Azrielli on the need for Canada to take a more active role on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and the need to restore funding for the NGO experts. Agree – the value of IHRA discussions was more at the expert level and discussions than the governmental level during my time as head of delegation:

IHRA’s track record is excellent and includes the implementation of Holocaust education guidelines and a strategic, co-ordinated approach to teaching the Holocaust worldwide. IHRA also provides a critical opportunity for its members to reflect on universal issues – such as teaching without survivors.
The height of Canada’s involvement came during the 2013-2014 session, when we chaired IHRA. Following this, however, Canada’s commitment waned. Canada has not set a national agenda in two years, the delegation has not been given direction and it has lacked consistency and continuity in terms of participation and representation. The key developers of Holocaust education and remembrance initiatives in Canada are no longer the cornerstones of the delegation. This is a reflection of a government decision in 2014 to cease supporting delegate travel. The experts from voluntary organizations who contributed so much time and expertise sharing Canada’s innovative contributions internationally simply don’t have the financial means to assume additional responsibility for the country’s representation.  

This month, a new head of delegation to IHRA was appointed, Ambassador Artur Wilczynski. We welcome Wilczynski and, noting his personal family connection to the Holocaust and impressive track record of leadership, are hopeful that our international engagement will be renewed.

Wilczynski can do a number of things, such as regularly convening meetings between delegates, reinstating funding for delegate travel and, most importantly, defining, with the delegation, an agenda for Holocaust and human rights education in Canada and a set of national and international priorities.

The Holocaust survivors who settled in Canada have profoundly shaped our country. Survivors have been instrumental in creating Holocaust education centres and commemoration programs, and continue to contribute by writing memoirs, through video testimony and by speaking to thousands of Canadians each year. Their legacy directly connects to current discussions about the refugee crisis, respect for diversity and genocide prevention. 

It’s time for Canada to reaffirm its commitment to the Stockholm Declaration and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. With the community of Canadian survivors fast disappearing, we have a responsibility to honour their steadfast work and take it up as our own. 

http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/azrieli-and-herscovitch-take-the-lead-in-holocaust-education-canada

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1 Syrian refugee a week reports being a victim of domestic abuse, agency says

2016/05/20 Leave a comment

Another reminder of the challenges of integration:

That “trauma of migration” can be a trigger for violence, but there are other factors.

Among them, women asserting themselves more forcefully upon arriving in a country where they feel freer to do so, said Zena Al Hamdan, a program manager at the Arab Community Centre.

“It creates a backlash on the male partners. They become more aggressive and more defensive and they want to assert dominance more because of the perception that the West, that society will support the female,” she said.

When she arrived in Canada in 2011 from Syria, Hayat Zaid she wasn’t sure how she’d be received.

Then 14, she was scared of being bullied in school but also unsure how much freedom she’d actually have to pursue her own interests.

“When I came, I was really shy because I was a hijabi and I couldn’t do certain things like swimming or other things in my religion I’m not allowed to,” she told the Commons committee Wednesday.

“But my family was really supportive, and the Boys and Girls Club was really supportive too, and I overcame my shyness and I did what I loved.”

Now 18, Zaid has received a scholarship to study early childhood education at Algonquin College in Ottawa and has spent more than 800 hours volunteering with the Boys and Girls club in the hope others can benefit.

“It’s a really free place when you can overcome your shyness.”

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/05/19/1-syrian-refugee-a-week-reports-being-a-victim-of-domestic-abuse-agency-says.html

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Jean-François Lisée propose de réduire les cibles d’immigration

2016/05/20 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see where the other PQ candidates line up:

L’immigration massive est un échec, juge Jean-François Lisée. Le candidat à la direction du Parti québécois propose d’abaisser substantiellement le nombre d’immigrants admis au Québec et de demander au Vérificateur général (VG) du Québec de déterminer les seuils d’immigration optimaux.
« Cinquante mille immigrants par année [le seuil actuel], c’est la recette de l’échec, a affirmé Jean-François dans une entrevue accordée au Devoir. On ne rend service à personne. On ne rend pas service surtout à ces néo-Québécois à qui on doit donner les outils de la réussite. » Il a rappelé qu’en 2002, sous un gouvernement péquiste, le nombre d’immigrants admis ne dépassait guère les 37 000.

 C’est le gouvernement Charest qui a haussé les seuils d’immigration, d’abord à 45 000, puis à 50 000, puis à un maximum de 55 000, pour un retour sous le gouvernement Couillard à 50 000. Ce « chiffre magique » de 50 000 immigrants par année n’a jamais reposé sur une évaluation objective de la réussite des nouveaux arrivants, a déploré le député de Rosemont. « Ç’a été idéologique. Ç’a été peut-être poussé aussi par des organisations d’entreprises qui aiment avoir un bassin de main-d’oeuvre bon marché. »

Dépolitiser

Le troisième candidat en lice pour succéder à Pauline Marois propose de dépolitiser la fixation des seuils d’immigration. Il suggère qu’on demande au VG de les évaluer objectivement. « Si les libéraux veulent 50 000, et même Philippe Couillard disait que c’était intolérant de ne pas vouloir 60 000, ils sont soupçonnés de vouloir importer des électeurs. Et si le Parti québécois en veut moins, on est soupçonné de ne pas vouloir importer des électeurs libéraux », a-t-il fait valoir.

Jean-François Lisée estime que plusieurs données indiquent que le Québec accueille trop d’immigrants par rapport à sa capacité de les intégrer décemment. « Les signaux récents sont assourdissants », a-t-il dit.

http://www.ledevoir.com/non-classe/471433/lisee-propose-de-reduire-les-cibles-d-immigration 

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It’s time for Canada to right historic wrongs against LGBTQ community: John Ibbitson

2016/05/19 Leave a comment

While the focus of Ibbitson’s article is with respect to LGBTQ issues, the broader discussion of apologies was the aspect I found most interesting.

When we were implementing the Conservative government’s historical recognition program for wartime internment and immigration restrictions, the legal aspects of apologies was raised regularly, and appropriately, by Justice Canada officials given fears over liability. At one point in time, we considered doing a policy paper on the question of apologies, their typology, and delivery. In the end, other priorities emerged, but good to see the work that has been done elsewhere:

The Government of Canada should also apologize to the thousands in the public service and military who were dismissed or otherwise discriminated against because they were homosexual, a practice that continued right up until the late 1980s.

The Liberals have been studying both questions for months. Justice Department lawyers often warn that political apologies can expose governments to expensive lawsuits from victims, with the apology serving as proof of guilt.

But as a leading authority in the field points out, not only are such fears overblown, “a meaningful, effective apology can have the opposite effect. Rather than encourage litigation, it can cause people to accept the past more easily.”

Leslie Macleod, a former assistant deputy attorney-general of Ontario, teaches dispute resolution at York University’s Osgoode Hall law school and is a leading authority in mediating and resolving disputes.

“The kind of apology that could be made here would address not only the emotional and psychological interests of those who suffered very dire consequences, it would also address the concerns that we as a society have about how people were treated in the past,” she says.

In that sense, people who see no reason for governments to apologize for acts that no one alive today committed miss the point: We apologize to remind each other of when we fell short in the past, so that we do not fall short in some other way going forward.

A meaningful, effective apology conforms to what could be called the Seven Rs. As described by Ms. Macleod, it involves the specific recognition of the harm caused; expresses remorse for that harm; takes responsibility and repents for the transgression; gives reasons for how the situation came about; offers reparation by way of making amends; and promises reform so nothing similar happens again.

The legislation to prevent discrimination against transgender people could be seen as in the spirit of fulfilling the seventh, and most important, of the seven Rs.

As for reparations, public servants I have talked to who lost their jobs because of their sexuality have, for the most part, gone on with their lives. They do not want money; they just want to be told that, on the terrible day when they were brought into a room, accused of being a homosexual and fired, the person on the other side of the table was in the wrong, not them.

Lawyer Dale Barrett has written about the apology laws on the books in most provinces, which make it easier for governments to apologize by reducing their liability. “It’s very important for government and society to reflect upon the changes in law and changes in sentiment and changes in attitude,” he says, “to acknowledge that society has changed, and to consider what changes we should be making in the future.”

With this new law protecting the rights of transgender people, Mr. Trudeau has advanced the cause of equality for Canada’s LGBTQ community. He should also acknowledge, on behalf of all Canadians, our collective responsibility for those in this community who suffered in the past at the hand of their own government.

Source: It’s time for Canada to right historic wrongs against LGBTQ community – The Globe and Mail

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Trudeau’s plan to apologize for the Komagata Maru is no solution to racism, say critics

2016/05/19 Leave a comment

Ujjal Dosanjh and others on the Komagata Maru apology:

Justin Trudeau, for instance, promised before the 2015 campaign to apologize in Parliament because some Punjabi-Canadians were upset that his predecessor, Stephen Harper, had tendered an apology on behalf of Canada at an event in Surrey.

“As Pierre Trudeau predicted, it’s becoming a slippery slope. There’s no end to it. And there are other apology-seekers at the gates now.”

He said his only exception is in accepting Harper’s apology to Aboriginal Canadians for residential schools in 2008 and Mulroney’s to Japanese-Canadians two decades earlier as both involved Canadian citizens.

But he said even in these cases, he is only accepting the reality of these apologies after the fact. In retrospect, Dosanjh said, he wishes Pierre Trudeau’s successors had followed his lead.

“Just because there’s an apology there won’t be an end to racism,” he said. “It’s not like we’re going to wake up tomorrow and there’s going to be no poverty or inequality or discrimination. That’s where the efforts need to be.”

Dosanjh also criticized Trudeau for announcing his pending apology last month at a Sikh religious event in Ottawa, saying it’s “dangerous” to mix religion and politics.

B.C. Liberal MP Randeep Sarai, whose wife’s great-grandfather was on the Komagata Maru and who was wounded and imprisoned after the riot, said he strongly disagrees with Dosanjh.

“This symbolizes who we are as Canadians, it’s hugely symbolic,” said the MP for Surrey Centre. “It helps heal wounds, and you feel more Canadian once a wrong has been righted.”

B.C. historian Hugh Johnston said Tuesday that both Justin Trudeau and Harper, rather than apologize for a single incident, should have focused instead on the policy that severely restricted immigration from “non-traditional” countries like India before the 1960s.

“The really big thing is the policy over half a century, not just one incident,” said Johnston, author of The Voyage of the Komagata Maru, the first authoritative book on the incident.

Canada went from a country of roughly 30,000 Sikhs in 1971 to about a half-million today, he noted.

“That strikes me as more significant than turning back a ship with less than 400 people aboard in 1914,” said Johnston, whose book was first published in 1979 and revised and expanded in 2014.

But Johnston, like Dosanjh, questions the notion that politicians should apologize over events in the past.

“I’m an historian. I share Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s view. You can’t rewrite history.

Source: Trudeau’s plan to apologize for the Komagata Maru is no solution to racism, say critics

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Liberals’ replacement for Office of Religious Freedom will promote broader range of rights | National Post

2016/05/19 Leave a comment

Less new than meets the eye and unclear regarding resources(there was an existing Human Rights Division with 14 people) so it may be more repackaging and reorientation:

The Liberals have unveiled a long-awaited replacement for the Office of Religious Freedom, which will now include championing the rights of indigenous peoples abroad.

Canada has a “duty” to speak up for and help indigenous peoples around the world who may be struggling for their rights, Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion said in an exclusive interview to mark the launch of the new Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion on Tuesday.

“If we are improving, as we hope, the situation of indigenous people in Canada, we have the duty to try to do the same around the world,” Dion said from Vienna. “The situation of indigenous people around the world is worrying. There is a lot of room for improvement, to say the least.”

The emphasis on indigenous rights creates a potential conflict with Canada’s commercial interests, especially in Latin America and Southeast Asia where local populations have opposed Canadian mining operations. But Dion said he believed most Canadian mining companies would welcome the new approach.

“I’m sure that the overwhelming majority of the mining industry of Canada will welcome this focus and will say it’s exactly what they want,” he said. “In order to do good business, you have to have the support of the populations. … So they will be willing to work with this office, I’m sure.”

The new office effectively replaces the Office of Religious Freedom, which the Conservatives established in 2013. Representatives from some faith groups had urged the Liberals to keep the religious freedom office open but the government let its funding expire in March.

Dion described the new office as a “pooling” of the former Office of Religious Freedom’s resources with Global Affairs Canada’s work on human rights promotion. He said the new office will have a budget of $15 million — three times that of the religious freedom office.

Dion said it was a “mistake” to “isolate” freedom of religion from Canada’s broader human rights efforts. The new office’s mandate will include promoting religious freedom, and an official will be in charge of interacting with faith groups and other stakeholders. But the work will fall under the broader rubric of inclusion.

“Inclusion is not only the freedom of religion,” Dion said. “It could be sexual exclusion. It may be political exclusion. So inclusion includes freedom of religion with other aspects of our society. Pluralism. Rights of women. Rights of refugees.”

Source: Liberals’ replacement for Office of Religious Freedom will promote broader range of rights | National Post

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Don Macpherson: Quebec’s unfunny comics have no right to an audience 

2016/05/19 Leave a comment

Valid:

This year’s Oliviers awards show wasn’t the usual televised celebration of what some critics say is the overall mediocrity of Quebec humour. It was a protest rally against “censorship.”

There were stirring speeches by award presenters and winners. At one point, several comics dramatically mounted the stage, the lower half of their faces covered by dust masks with Xs in red tape on them, and stood in silence.

Were they demonstrating against the imprisonment and barbaric flogging by Saudi authorities of blogger Raif Badawi, whose wife and three children have settled in Sherbrooke? Or in support of the brave comics in other countries who risk imprisonment by using humour to criticize repressive regimes?

Neither. They were defending their own claim to a right to a television audience for jokes like this:

“Do you know why Jews give gold IUDs to their wives? Because they love to get into their money.”

That’s one of the jokes in an early version of the script, published in Le Journal de Montréal, for a presentation of an award during the Oliviers by star comics Mike Ward and Guy Nantel.

The theme of the script was freedom of expression, and that joke was an example of the ones about minorities, unattractive people and other underdogs in society that supposedly are no longer allowed on television.

The video opening of the show made it clear who was to blame for this situation: humourless pressure groups, including minorities.

Ward and Nantel didn’t perform their number in the show. They pulled out after failing in several attempts to rewrite their script to satisfy a lawyer for the company insuring the show’s broadcaster, Radio-Canada, and its producer, the Quebec comedy industry professionals’ association, against the cost of possible legal action.

(Yes, comedy is an industry in Quebec, supplied by a publicly supported “national comedy school,” of which Ward and Nantel are graduates.)

So what the comics were protesting against was that somebody else refused to put their money where the comics’ mouths were.

And while asserting their own freedom of expression, the comics in the audience applauded when one award winner, Louis Morissette, demanded immunity for them from criticism. The thin-skinned Morissette lectured the public that it must shut up and tolerate offensive humour, or change the channel.

Amid the adolescent tantrum, a rare dissenting voice was that of another winner, Martin Matte. “Artists or communications people who drape themselves in freedom of expression to get away with low nastiness or words that incite hatred make me uncomfortable,” he said in accepting his award. “I don’t support that.”

Adults know that freedom of expression isn’t absolute. And there is no fundamental right to a television audience or, for that matter, a newspaper column (I know, I’ve checked all the charters).

In my business, we have an expression: “lawyering.” It means to have a lawyer for the people who pay the bills go over an article before it’s published to suggest how to avoid legal action afterward.

Anyway, the advent of the Internet has made censorship futile in societies that don’t block their citizens’ Internet access, as Ward and Nantel themselves proceeded to demonstrate.

Source: Don Macpherson: Quebec’s unfunny comics have no right to an audience | National Post

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The controversial plan to give Kuwait’s stateless people citizenship of a tiny, poor African island – The Washington Post

2016/05/19 Leave a comment

Another illustration of some of the unsavoury aspects of Gulf countries:

Comoros, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, is one of the smallest countries in Africa. Excluding the contested island of Mayotte, the Comoros archipelago covers about 640 square miles, roughly half the size of Rhode Island. Fewer than a million people live on the islands, made up of a variety of ethnicities that reflect the nation’s location at a historical crossroads.

But if a new plan gets the go-ahead, Comoros may gain significantly more citizens — by offering thousands, if not many more, of stateless people from Kuwait “economic citizenship.”

And many experts are not so sure this is a good thing.

(FILES) In this photograph taken on January 25, 2013, Stateless Arabs, locally known as bidoons, hold signs demanding Kuwaiti citizenship during a demonstration in Jahra, 50 kms (31 miles) northwest of Kuwait City. Oil-rich Kuwait's announcement on November 9, 2014, that tens of thousands of stateless people will be offered citizenship of the impoverished African nation of Comoros has highlighted their decades-old plight. AFP PHOTO/YASSER AL-ZAYYATYASSER AL-ZAYYAT/AFP/Getty ImagesStateless Arabs hold signs demanding Kuwaiti citizenship during a demonstration in Jahra in 2013. (Yasser Al-Zayyat/AFP/Getty Images)

These stateless people are mostly from Kuwait’s Bidun population, which numbers about 100,000. Almost by definition — their name comes from the Arabic phrase “bidun jinsiya” or “without nationality” — they do not have citizenship and are considered illegal immigrants. Some are the descendants of nomadic tribes who never asked for citizenship when Kuwait became independent in 1961. Others are Arabs who joined the Kuwaiti army in the 1970s and ’80s but never gained citizenship. Others have been refused citizenship for political reasons.

The Bidun form a sizable minority in Kuwait, where the total citizenship is about 1.5 million. They are often disenfranchised, having long been refused the generous state benefits that Kuwait awards to its citizens. Kuwait, perhaps fearful of what an angry Bidun minority may do, offered some limited reforms in 2011: allowing Biduns to claim health care and education, for example, and register their births, marriages and deaths. But Human Rights Watch noted at the time, many Biduns complained that bureaucratic processes meant it was difficult to get these benefits. And there remained no path to citizenship.

The government announced this would change in 2014 — but there was a catch. The citizenship on offer wasn’t going to be Kuwaiti. Instead, Sheikh Mazen Al-Jarah Al-Sabah, assistant undersecretary for citizenship and passports affairs in Kuwait’s Interior Ministry, revealed in an interview that the government was negotiating with a foreign country that would be willing to offer the Biduns citizenship in exchange for economic benefits. Later that year, the government confirmed Comoros was the country in question, although no officials from Comoros commented.

It was only this week that Comoros finally ended speculation and confirmed that it was willing to accept a deal. “Yes, it is something we are ready to do if officially requested by the Kuwaiti government,” Comorian External Affairs Minister Abdul Karim Mohammad, on a visit to Kuwait, told a Kuwaiti newspaper. Although the details have not been announced, it looks as if the plan is gathering steam.

Why would someone living in Kuwait want citizenship of a small island off the coast of Mozambique? There are some cultural links here — Comoros is largely Sunni Muslim, and it is a member of the Arab League — but the deal largely comes down to economic factors. Kuwait, bolstered by its oil industry, has a gross domestic product per capita of $43,500. Despite its idyllic natural beauty, Comoros’ GDP per capita is just more than $810; about 18 percent of the population lives on less than $1.90 a day. The country’s small economy has been strongly hindered by political instability. Since gaining independence from France in 1975, there have been more than 20 coups and secession attempts for which it gained an unfortunate nickname the “coup-coup islands.”

Source: The controversial plan to give Kuwait’s stateless people citizenship of a tiny, poor African island – The Washington Post

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