Baird’s ‘one voice’ in Iraq with Liberals and NDP a notable non-partisan change in tone for the Tories

2014/09/08 Leave a comment

Welcome change in tone and not overly playing to diaspora politics.

Let’s see if applied consistently or partisan temptations too great:

The face of Baird that Iraqis saw just before he left Iraq was not the one politicians and the public are used to seeing in Canada.

Off the top of his closing press conference in Irbil, Baird said a round of thank yous.“I’m also very pleased to be joined by representatives of both the other political parties in Canada,” the minister added.

“I think we speak with one voice: we abhor the barbaric terrorist activity we see in the region and we really want to come and personally stand with you and the people of this great country.”

Baird’s ‘one voice’ in Iraq with Liberals and NDP a notable non-partisan change in tone for the Tories

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Canadian Race Relations Foundation | Awards of Excellence Call for Nominations

2014/09/08 Leave a comment

Call for nominations for the Canadian Race Relations Foundation Awards of Excellence:

Nominations are open for this years Canadian Race Relations Foundation Awards of Excellence for Best Practices in promoting harmonious race relations – but the deadline is fast approaching!

Canadian organizations from the voluntary, private or public sector may nominate themselves, or be nominated by others, and submit their applications no later than 9 a.m. on Mon., Sept. 22, 2014 via the CRRF website at www.crrf-fcrr.ca.

The prestigious Awards of Excellence recognize initiatives that build an awareness and understanding of Canadian values and identity that are reflective of Canadian diversity and respectful race relations.

“Our award winners represent organizations that have taken the ideals of harmonious race relations and social cohesion, and transformed them into successful, sustainable programs that can be reproduced,” said Albert Lo, chairperson, Canadian Race Relations Foundation.

“Winning this prestigious award, and being published by the CRRF, shines a spotlight on these thought-leaders, elevates their public profile and raises awareness of their important initiatives.  These exceptional organizations and agencies become part of a pantheon of other forward thinkers whose work has contributed to our international knowledge base of cutting-edge anti-racism research and practice.”

One award will be given for Best Practices in each of the following six categories: Aboriginal Peoples, community, corporate, education, government/public sector and youth initiatives.

Canadian Race Relations Foundation | Canadian Race Relations Foundation Awards of Excellence.

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Isils Western converts are not motivated by Islam. They are motivated by boredom – Telegraph Blogs

2014/09/08 1 Comment

Tim Stanley’s  take on radicalization from a conservative perspective, noting the similarities to Islamic-inspired radicalization to the European young terrorists of the Baader Meinhoff and Red Army in the 1970s:

To this collage of conservative thought, I’d add two observations. First, alienation from Western materialism being expressed through revolution is far from new. It demands comparison with the urban guerilla movements of the 1970s – all of which were predominantly drawn from middle-class kids who saw their parents’ success as a form of collaboration with capitalism and fascism.

Is there any real difference between, on the one hand, Mahmood allegedly abandoning professional achievement and the life of a liberated Western woman for Jihad, and, on the other hand, Ulrike Meinhof of the Red Army Faction abandoning her children and sparkling literary career for a life of assassinations and bombings in the 1970s German terrorist underground? None, except the contrasting ideological manifestations of their malaise.

And, aside from bourgeois angst, Seventies Marxism and contemporary Jihad are linked by a an obsession with America/Israel as a nexus of capital and military power that is responsible for everything wrong with the world and b an unrealistic sense of their ability to do anything about it. They are, in reality, grubby little criminals poking at the system with a blunt dagger. But they believe they are heralds of a New Order. They all suffer from the arrogance of youth.

….I’m not convinced. Aside from the terrible idea of turning history classes into propaganda about how wonderful the Whigs were, I also don’t believe that alienation is generally reduced by attempts at indoctrination. And while theocracy is a wretched idea, it’s pretty self-evident that the undoubted appeal of Anglosphere freedom is limited. That would be – to return to Michael Brendan Dougherty’s observations – because it offers material rewards but little in the way of spiritual sustenance. Mahmood was perfectly aware of the benefits of Anglosphere liberty (Magna Carta, kangaroos and apple pie?) because she had the privilege of growing up in the midst of its wealth and freedom. Yet, still, her family say that she has rejected it. Perhaps because it was not enough. And that’s the challenge that the West faces when fighting for the souls of narcissistic revolutionaries. What we have to offer as an alternative is, for many of them, not enough.

Isils Western converts are not motivated by Islam. They are motivated by boredom – Telegraph Blogs.

From the National Post, a profile on Aqsa Mahmood, the woman mentioned in Stanley’s piece:

Inside the life of a 20-year-old Scottish woman who ran away to become a hardline supporter of ISIS  

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The Myth of the Invisible Jetsetting Jihadi | TIME

2014/09/08 Leave a comment

Good series of articles putting the risks – they are real – of returning ISIS and other extremists to the West.

Starting with the Globe’s Doug Saunders, who notes:

In other words, there is a good chance that at least one Canadian will return to attempt an attack here. While returning terrorist fighters are nowhere near Canada’s top terrorist threat in terms of numbers, they should certainly be watched very closely by intelligence agencies.

This is where you’ll find one small silver lining in this otherwise dark development: By going abroad to fight, such Canadians become very easy for intelligence agencies to notice, track and monitor. “We’re going to know who these guys are and we’re going to watch them closely as they transit home,” Brookings counterterrorism scholar Will McCants told an interviewer this week. The fact that these fighters aggressively use Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as propaganda tools makes them even easier to find.

Plus, their mortality rate is very high, and rising. So viewed from another angle, by going abroad to fight, our extremists – already very few in number – are self-culling dramatically and rendering themselves far more visible to authorities.

They are a genuine threat, but not the largest or most ominous one facing us. We should be afraid, but we should not be very afraid.

Homegrown terror – be afraid, sort of afraid

From Time’s David Sternam, a similar message:

Three years into the Syrian civil war, there has been only one lethal attack in the West – the murder of four people at a Jewish museum in Brussels by Mehdi Nemmouche, a veteran of the Syrian jihad. In the United States, no one returning from or seeking to join a Syrian jihadist group has even been charged with plotting an attack inside the United States. In comparison, there have been two deadly incidents in the United States committed by individuals motivated by far right ideology in the past six months. If thousands of extremists were only a plane ride away from American cities, one would hardly expect such a limited record of Syria related violence in the West.

None of this is to say that Jihadist groups in Syria should be allowed to fester and develop the capability to conduct attacks in the United States, or that it is impossible that a returning Syrian foreign fighter will evade the layered defenses that protect the American homeland. That Abu Salha was able to return undetected to the United States after participating in Jihadist training should concern law enforcement. The layered defense system may need reinforcement to deal with new challenges, but the constraints it imposes upon jihadist activity ought not be obscured, particularly when making the case that the threat posed by foreign fighters calls for military action. Doing so does a great disservice to the admirable efforts of Muslim communities, local and federal law enforcement, and American citizens in confronting Jihadist extremism at home.

The Myth of the Invisible Jetsetting Jihadi | TIME.

Calls for parliamentary testimony on radicalization and the implications for Canada:

Liberals want hearings on Islamic radicals who have returned to Canada

Lastly, a good overview and profile of ISIS in the Globe:

 How a former U.S. prisoner of war created an Islamic state 

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RCMP looking at ways to identify young people at risk of becoming radicalized

2014/09/06 Leave a comment

Good overview by Douglas Quan on the various approaches being taken to reduce the numbers of those drawn to extremism:

For those who show signs of becoming involved in violent extremism but who have not yet crossed that threshold, the RCMP is developing an intervention program — set to roll out by the end of the year — designed to link those individuals with community mentors for “advice, support and counselling.”

Dash confirmed that public safety officials have been studying different intervention models, such as the Berlin-based EXIT program, which provides help to Germans trying to leave the neo-Nazi movement. A few years ago, the group created an offshoot program to support families of radicalized Muslims.

Dash declined to say what criteria the RCMP have developed to decide who merits intervention. She did say that someone who expresses extremist views is not necessarily going to be radicalized to violence. “It could be just someone who is being curious. We don’t want to stigmatize anybody.  There’s no one-size-fits-all indicator,” Dash said.

Experts say various “diagnostic tools” have been developed around the world to assess where someone falls on the “spectrum of dangerousness,” but no consensus has been reached on which one is best.

In the U.K., a police-led early-intervention program called Channel saw in its early days referrals of young people simply for wearing what were deemed to be “radical” clothes, according to a 2012 report by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence. “People were not sure what to look for and so they erred on the side of caution,” a Channel coordinator was quoted as saying.

The program has since developed a “vulnerability assessment” framework consisting of 22 behaviours to look out for. They include spending time in the company of extremists, changing style or appearance to accord with the group, loss of interest in friends, and condoning violence or harm towards others.

RCMP looking at ways to identify young people at risk of becoming radicalized | canada.com.

And Wesley Wark, as usual, pointed in his criticism for the lack of serious discussion by the Government:

The 2014 Public Report on the Terrorist Threat to Canada sums all this up. Whether you agree with the government statement or not (and maybe there are other things we should be worrying about, such as cyber threats, climate change impacts, pandemics, a new Cold War, etc…) the report moves our thinking into the present and nudges us out of a frame of reference dominated by legacy fears of Al Qaeda.

So why the whisper? Maybe the government can’t find the headline in its own report. Maybe it feels uneasy because it can’t say with certainty what the exact threat to Canada from terrorism is in the post-Al Qaeda age. Maybe it feels the public doesn’t really need an education on the new terrorism threats or is not interested. Maybe it thinks there are no votes here. Whatever the answer, it’s simply not right. We need a little less megaphone on the world stage and a little more at home.

Wesley Wark: Where’s the megaphone on the threat to Canada?

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Muslim America: Islamic, yet integrated | The Economist

2014/09/06 Leave a comment

The Economist’s survey of Muslim Americans and the contrast with European Muslims. Same general pattern with Canadian Muslims (about 3 percent of Canada’s population) in terms of the diversity of communities and outcomes, although overall have a higher low-income percentage.

And like the US, we also have that small number of those who radicalize and go off to fight in Syria, Iraq or elsewhere:

America’s Muslims differ from Europe’s in both quantity and origin. The census does not ask about faith, but estimates put the number of Muslims in the country at around 1% of the population, compared with 4.5% in Britain and 5% in Germany.

Moreover, American Islam is not dominated by a single sect or ethnicity. When the Pew Research Centre last tried to count, in 2011, it found Muslims from 77 countries in America. Most western European countries, by contrast, have one or two dominant groups—Algerians in France, Moroccans and Turks in Holland. This matters because the jumble of groups in America makes it harder for Muslim immigrants and their descendants to lead a life apart.

Different traditions get squashed together. When building mosques, says Chris McCoy, a Kentucky native who is a prolific architect of Islamic buildings, “the question is usually not whether we should have an Indian- or a Saudi-style dome but, can we afford a dome?”

Mixing breeds tolerance: Pew found that most American Muslims think that their faith is open to multiple interpretations, making them the Episcopalians of the Islamic world.

America’s Muslims are better off than their European co-religionists. They are almost as likely as other Americans to report a household income of $100,000 or more. The same cannot be said of the Pakistanis who came to work in the now-defunct textile mills of northern England or the Turks who became guest workers in West Germany. Many American Muslims arrived in the 1970s to complete their higher education and ended up staying. Muzammil Siddiqi, chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America, which issues fatwas, or religious opinions, to guide the behaviour of the country’s Muslims, is typical: he was born in India and holds a Harvard PhD in comparative religion.

There is a stark contrast between this group and some of the more recent immigrants from Somalia, who have fewer qualifications and lower wages as do African-American Muslims, who make up about an eighth of the total. This divide, if anything, makes America’s Muslims look more like the nation as a whole.

Muslim America: Islamic, yet integrated | The Economist.

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ICYMI: Salman Rushdie on Kazuo Ishiguro: His legendary novel The Remains of the Day resurges – The Globe and Mail

2014/09/06 Leave a comment

For fans of Salman Rushdie and Kazuo Ishiguro and depictions of the English aristocracy and butlers, Rushdie’s re-review of The Remains of the Day worth a read, along with the reflection of how a great writer can write beyond his context and identity:

With The Remains of the Day, Ishiguro turned away from the Japanese settings of his first two novels and revealed that his sensibility was not rooted in any one place, but capable of travel and metamorphosis. “By the time I started The Remains of the Day,” he told the Paris Review, “I realized that the essence of what I wanted to write was movable … For me, the essence doesn’t lie in the setting.” Where, then, might that essence lie? “Without psychoanalyzing myself, I can’t say why. You should never believe an author if he tells you why he has certain recurring themes.”

Salman Rushdie on Kazuo Ishiguro: His legendary novel The Remains of the Day resurges – The Globe and Mail.

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Canada Inspires Scandinavian Policy Rethink – New Canadian Media – NCM

2014/09/05 Leave a comment

Looking at the Canadian model from the Nordic perspective, an interesting paper and interview with a European academic currently at Bishop’s University. Most interesting point for me:

Q: You found in your study that Canada has managed to reconcile important welfare state objectives with increased immigration and diversity? Could you please explain?

A: The notion that there is a potential trade-off between a more open and accommodating approach to immigration and the maintenance of a robust welfare state has been increasingly expressed in many European countries.

However, Canada has managed to reconcile important welfare state objectives and principles with increased immigration and diversity.  Although not as comprehensive and generous as the Scandinavian welfare states, the Canadian social security system includes unemployment insurance, child tax credits, universal childcare benefits, medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, old age security, and social assistance. In contrast to many other countries, Canada has not actively sought to fence off the welfare state from newcomers.

Further, public attitudes in Canada reveal little tension between ethnic diversity and support for social programs. In fact, the welfare state and multiculturalism are for many Canadians the two most important ingredients in the Canadian identity, i.e. what it means to be Canadian.

Canada Inspires Scandinavian Policy Rethink – New Canadian Media – NCM.

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Vietnamese flag at Ottawa City Hall angers protesters

2014/09/05 Leave a comment

More diaspora politics. But if we recognize the country, and have diplomatic relations, hard for a municipal government to have any other policy but the current one of basing it on diplomatic recognition:

“The flag of the communist regime being flown here today is something that represents a government that denies human rights,” said Kalvin Nhan of Canadian Youth for Human Rights in Vietnam, which organized the protest.

“We don’t believe that it should be flown side by side with the Canadian flag, something that represents freedom and hope.”

…. Under city policy, any country with which Canada has diplomatic relations is invited to provide the city’s protocol office with a flag to fly outside city hall on that country’s national day. The city defers to the Department of Foreign Affairs on which flags the Canadian government recognizes.

“Right now the policy that we apply is we will fly the flag of any nation that is recognized by the Government of Canada,” said Cathy Bowles, the city’s chief of protocol. “It’s a practice that has continued over the years to recognize our diverse population, and to recognize the number of embassies that make Ottawa their home.”

Bowles said Tuesday’s controversy was “unexpected” because this is the eighth year the flag has flown at city hall. “We have flown it since 2006, and this is the first year that we’ve experienced resistance.”

Nothing that prevents members of diasporas from protesting what the flag represents to  them.

Vietnamese flag at City Hall angers protesters | Ottawa Citizen.

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Vancouver real estate titles reveal city’s racist history

2014/09/05 Leave a comment

A reminder of our not so distant past, and how it has been overtaken by reality (Vancouver, along with Toronto, are almost 50 percent visible minority):

Early immigrants to B.C. faced not only the hardship of settling into a new home, but also seemingly racist policies — Chinese and Indo-Canadians did not have the right to own property and only got the right to vote in 1947.

In Vancouver, West Vancouver and Victoria, owners tried to use restrictive land covenants to keep minorities from buying land — and many of those covenants remain in place to this day.

Realtor Wayne Hammil recently spotted a covenant in a land title dating back to 1928 when he was putting a Vancouver home up for sale.

“One of the clauses in the restrictive covenant makes reference to not selling to certain ethnic minorities in the world,” said Hammil.

The covenant prevents the sale or rent of the land to people who are of Chinese, Japanese, Indian and African descent or any other Asiatic race.

“[Theres a ] total irony because most of the buyers are from mainland China,” said Hammil. “If this was enforced, it would preclude them from purchasing the property.”

Ron Usher, general counsel for the Society of Notaries Public of British Columbia, says Sec. 222 of the Land Title Act makes the discriminating covenants void.

“I would imagine though there are probably hundreds if not several thousand lots covered by this,” said Usher. “Where they find these, they’ve already put on the title the Except for Clause X notation.”

If this note has not yet been made on the title, Usher says its simple to have title updated through a phone call to the province’s Land Title and Survey Authority.

The race-based covenants are still embarrassing because of what they stand for, he says, but getting them completely removed from the land title can be an expensive process as they almost always have other provisions that are valid restrictions on the use of the property.

Vancouver real estate titles reveal city’s racist history – British Columbia – CBC News.

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