Category: civil liberties
The Negro Motorist Green Book
The New York Times previews a play and a forthcoming children’s book about a nearly forgotten travel guide that helped African Americans (and African Canadians) navigate the segregated accommodations that prevailed into the 1960s.
A Harlem postal employee and civic leader named Victor H. Green conceived the guide in response to one too many accounts of humiliation or violence where discrimination continued to hold strong. These were facts of life not only in the Jim Crow South, but in all parts of the country, where black travelers never knew where they would be welcome….
Historians of travel have recognized that the great American road trip — seen as an ultimate sign of freedom — was not that free for many Americans, including those who had to worry about “sunset laws” in towns where black visitors had to be out by day’s end…
“The ‘Green Book’ tried to provide a tool to deal with those situations. It also allowed families to protect their children, to help them ward off those horrible points at which they might be thrown out or not permitted to sit somewhere. It was both a defensive and a proactive mechanism,” [said Lonnie Bunch, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture].
In the introduction to his guide, which became known familiarly as, “The Green Book,” Victor Green wrote, “There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States.”
It ceased publication in 1964, the year Congress passed the Civil Rights Act.
Lest we forget Omar Khadr
Canadian-born child soldier and torture victim Omar Khadr, the only citizen of a western democracy still held in the US Government detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, went on trial this week in the first war crimes prosecution of a child soldier in US history.
Under Stephen Harper, Canada is the only western country not to ask for the release of its nationals from the illegal prison camp. The Harper government has flouted court orders requiring it to take action in support of Khadr’s civil rights.
The U.N. Special Representative on Children in Armed Conflict warned Monday that the legality of Khadr’s trial is doubtful, and his prosecution sets a dangerous precedent that endangers child soldiers worldwide. Radhika Coomaraswamy asked the United States to halt the trial.
Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher in the American Civil Liberties Union’s Human Rights Program, sums up the background to Khadr’s prosecution:
Khadr, then 15 years old, was taken to Bagram near death, after being shot twice in the back, blinded by shrapnel, and buried in rubble from a bomb blast. He was interrogated within hours, while sedated and handcuffed to a stretcher. He was threatened with gang rape and death if he didn’t cooperate with interrogators. He was hooded and chained with his arms suspended in a cage-like cell, and his primary interrogator was later court-martialed for detainee abuse leading to the death of a detainee. During his subsequent eight-year (so far) detention at Guantánamo, Khadr was subjected to the “frequent flyer” sleep deprivation program and he says he was used as a human mop after he was forced to urinate on himself.
In closing arguments before the judge’s ruling, Khadr’s sole defense lawyer, Lt. Col. Jon Jackson, told the judge, “Sir, be a voice today. Tell the world that we actually stand for what we say we stand for.”
The military judge trying Khadr, Col. Patrick Parrish, dismissed the motion without explanation.
It’s the economy, stupid
A column in the UK Guardian by BC writer Douglas Haddow predicts trouble for Canada’s economy if an upcoming referendum in California succeeds in legalizing pot this November.
[Y]ou may have noticed that Canadians have been behaving uncharacteristically uppity of late. This new-found swagger is a result of Canada having the dubious distinction of being the “least-bad-rich-world-economy” – an honour that would be rather unimpressive if the rest of the G8 wasn’t so persistently gloom-stricken….
But beyond the chorus of self-congratulatory backslapping coming from Ottawa, there has emerged a new and immediate threat of economic crisis that is being willfully ignored by Canadian politicians.
This November, in an effort to increase tax revenue, California will hold a referendum on whether or not to legalise the cultivation and use of marijuana. If passed, the change in law would be devastating to the Canadian economy, halting the flow of billions of dollars from the US into Canada and eventually forcing hundreds of thousands into unemployment.
BC Business estimates that province’s marijuana annual marijuana crop alone at $7.5 billion, most of it exported to the US. The magazine puts BC’s pot labor force at 250,000, while Nova Scotia’s entire labour force was less than twice that in July.
Ironically, support for legalisation is stronger in Canada than it is in California. Canada’s most prominent rightwing thinktanks have long supported legalisation, as do the majority of Canadians.
And yet… and yet…
But since the Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, formed a minority government in 2006, drug reform has been wiped off the agenda and the gears have grinded into reverse. In a bizarre twist that defies all rational thought, the Conservatives have decided they want to go in the opposite direction of the Canadian voter and emulate outdated Republican drug war policies that have already proved catastrophic in the US.
The Conservatives have proposed legislation that would introduce mandatory minimum prison sentences for marijuana producers. If passed, the legislation would result in spending billions in order to put more people in prison – the exact scenario that lead California into severe debt and towards legalisation. Even more stupefying, police in Montreal recently raided a “compassion centre” that legally distributes medicinal cannabis, and Conservative politicians have started calling for medicinal centres to be shut down across the country.
Ah, but the Harperites only masquerade as Conservatives. They actually represent the Authoritarian Party.
Snow globe plot – foiled
The US Transportation Safety Administration now keeps airspace safe from attack by snow globes, as well as toothpaste, mouthwash, and hair gel.
A blog post by Patrick Smith, the airline pilot who posted this photo to his Flickr account, bores into the core irrationality of the phoney security restrictions citizens have acquiesced to since 9/11. Money quote:
Conventional wisdom says the [9/11] terrorists exploited a weakness in airport security by smuggling aboard boxcutters. But conventional wisdom is wrong. What they actually exploited was a weakness in our mindset — a set of presumptions based on the decades-long track record of hijackings. In years past, a takeover meant hostage negotiations and standoffs; crews were trained in the concept of “passive resistance.” What weapons the 19 men possessed mattered little; had boxcutters been on the contraband list, the men would have smuggled something else or fashioned their weapons from items on board. It didn’t matter. The success of their plan relied not on weaponry but on the element of surprise. And in this respect, their scheme was all but guaranteed not to fail.
For a number of reasons, most notably the awareness of passengers and crew, just the opposite is now true. Before the first of the Twin Towers had fallen to the ground, that element of surprise, and the boxcutters that went with it, were no longer a useful tool. Paradigm over. Hijackers today would face a planeload of frightened people ready to fight back, and thus an unaffordable probability of failure. The September 11th scheme is kaput.
Surprise has vanished by the time hijackers took over the fourth plane. Its passengers understood they had to take action, and did so, foiling the plot to use their plane as a weapon, albeit at the cost of their own lives.
Hat tip: Andrew Douglas
Market madness – open the doors
Reflecting on the Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market’s opening day (previous posts here and here), Contrarian reader Jeff Pinhey writes:
You are kidding me. An American Homeland Security regulation, the one requiring a Port Security plan in all ports with ships leaving for a US port, causes that silliness? Let me see, if I were a terrorist trying to sneak into Canada so I could board a ship bound for the states, and I could get as far as the waterfront in front of the market, I certainly could get as far as… Herring Cove, Eastern Passage, whatever. Heck from the Eastern Passage government wharf, I could catch a bus into Dartmouth, take the ferry over and walk down the TransCanada Trail to the Market, have some nice locally grown food, then go find my ship and try to make my terror.
There is zero effective risk of those doors being used for that purpose when so many other easier options to accomplish the highly unlikely event being deterred exist.
There really are too many people in government working too hard to come up with reasons why things cannot be done, instead of why, or how, they can be done.
I don’t know if this is true generally of government, but it is certainly true of government employees acting in the name of security. We are living through a period of crazy imbalance. By simply invoking security, no matter how inane or preposterous, low level bureaucrats can trump every other consideration, no matter who valid of socially useful. A steady drumbeat of fear mongering about the threat of terrorism enforces this dynamic. The assumption is that politicians can’t stand up to this, because they will be crucified for lessening our security. I think the public is fed up, and a politician who gave voice to obvious simple truths about security excesses would gain support, not lose it.
The Farmer’s Market in Sydney was forced to leave that city’s waterfront pavilion over looney enforcement of goofy Homeland Security regulations. How long will we give free reign to small men with high F-scales?
A leadership role for Premier Dexter, perhaps?
The Bloomberg Remonstrance
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s stirring defence of the Muslim community’s right to build a mosque not far from the destroyed World Trade Centre is widely available on the Internet. But it embodies such rare eloquence in a principled, conservative defence of human freedoms and tolerance, it bears repeating here.
First an excerpt:
We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors. That’s life. And it’s part of living in such a diverse and dense city. But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11, 2001.
On that day, 3,000 people were killed because some murderous fanatics didn’t want us to enjoy the freedoms to profess our own faiths, to speak our own minds, to follow our own dreams, and to live our own lives. Of all our precious freedoms, the most important may be the freedom to worship as we wish. And it is a freedom that even here — in a city that is rooted in Dutch tolerance — was hard-won over many years.
In the mid-1650s, the small Jewish community living in lower Manhattan petitioned Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant for the right to build a synagogue, and they were turned down. In 1657, when Stuyvesant also prohibited Quakers from holding meetings, a group of non-Quakers in Queens signed the Flushing Remonstrance, a petition in defense of the right of Quakers and others to freely practice their religion. It was perhaps the first formal political petition for religious freedom in the American colonies, and the organizer was thrown in jail and then banished from New Amsterdam….
This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.
Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.
Watch the video here. After the jump, the full text of Bloomberg’s speech. Read more »
Letter of resignation
The libertarian devotion to individual freedom that led the Harper Government to kill Statistic Canada’s mandatory long form census questionnaire apparently did not extend to the Chief Statistician of Canada’s letter of resignation.
Munir A. Sheikh posted a note about his resignation on the agency’s website late Wednesday night. The Harper Libertarians redacted it Thursday morning, replacing it with an uninformative generic message.
Here, for the record, thanks to Kady O’Malley, is the full text of the Chief Statistician’s censored message to Canadians:
July 21, 2010
OTTAWA — There has been considerable discussion in the media regarding the 2011 Census of Population. There has also been commentary on the advice that Statistics Canada and I gave the government on this subject.
I cannot reveal and comment on this advice because this information is protected under the law. However, the government can make this information public if it so wishes.
I have always honoured my oath and responsibilities as a public servant as well as those specific to the Statistics Act.
I want to take this opportunity to comment on a technical statistical issue which has become the subject of media discussion. This relates to the question of whether a voluntary survey can become a substitute for a mandatory census.
It can not.
Under the circumstances, I have tendered my resignation to the Prime Minister. I want to thank him for giving me the opportunity of serving him as the Chief Statistician of Canada, heading an agency that is a symbol of pride for our country.
To you, the men and women of Statistics Canada – thank you for giving me your full support and your dedication in serving Canadians. Without your contribution, day in and day out, in producing data of the highest quality, Canada would not have this institution that is our pride.
I also want to thank Canadians. We do remember, every single day, that it is because of you providing us with your information, we can function as a statistical agency. I am attaching an earlier message that I sent to Canadians in this regard. In closing, I wish the best to my successor. I promise not to comment on how he/she should do the job. I do sincerely hope that my successor’s professionalism will help run this great organization while defending its reputation.
Munir A. Sheikh
Docking fees
Docking fee: $150 if you’re from around here; $250 if you’re not.
So the summer residents who return year after year — buying goods in our stores, attending our concerts, paying property taxes for services they don’t use, spreading the word about Cape Breton to folks back home — let’s stick them for an extra 67%. Wouldn’t want them to think we’re neighbourly, or appreciative of their commitment to Cape Breton, now would we?
Mean-spirited. Dumb.
Kansas defends the niqab – updated
Jane Kansas takes time out from her walk to mount the simplest, most easily understood defence I’ve heard of a women’s right to choose face coverings like the niqab and the burka. Money quote:
At the beaches of Nice, Cannes and Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat most women were young and slim and topless. In all the cafes, women wore only tiny bikini bras and sarongs, or simply sat and scarfed down their Croque Madames and Ricards in their bikinis. It was what was done.
I sure didn’t. I come from a place where women do not sit in restaurants in their bikinis. I would be uncomfortable anywhere in a bikini. And topless? Please. I feel strongly that away from the beach, cottage or lawn mower, everybody should keep their shirts on.
No one agitated for me to assume a state of address [sic] I would be uncomfortable with, for whatever reason: religious, body image, habit. I would have felt like a skank, no matter if everyone else was doing it.
If you have spent your adult life wearing a shirt in public, you don’t want to go without one. If you have spent your adult life wearing a face covering in public, you don‘t want to go without one. Having your default sartorial splendor legislated away must so totally suck.
She even wore one herself for an afternoon. [Photo: Maggie Lucas.]
[Update] Contrarian reader Cheryl Cook is of mixed mind:
It’s hard not to blur the debate about the right of women to choose what they wear in this part of the world, with the discussion of what they wear in parts where they have little to no choice. This lack of choice being mandated over such a long time surely plays a huge role in determining why anyone would choose to continue wearing a particular piece of clothing when offered the chance not to. To paraphrase Ms. Kansas: it’s what you know, it’s part of your culture/religion etc.
But in talking about parts of the world where women have this choice, be careful to peel the layers away there and acknowledge the women who perhaps don’t really have so much choice. It’s never quite as simple as “we said they could wear what they want, surely that’s permission enough.” People live within communities and subcultures, and the news gives us plenty of examples of women who took the choice to live as they like in countries such as Canada and the UK and paid the price.
For the record, I support anyone’s right to wear what they like. Which means I support the choice of a women in Canada to wear a niqab, even if I don’t like it. But I also fully understand the loathing and mistrust that many have for items of clothing that have been used for such a long time to subjugate or mark my gender as necessary of being hidden, or ‘protected’ because of the way we were born. Sugar coat it as you like with cultural or religious relativism, but it comes down to women being a temptation. Call it protection of honour or whatever, but it’s all done because of our gender. Until that sort of bullshit thinking goes away, and I doubt it ever will, there will never really be a choice for a lot of women. Even some living here.
Facing up to an unflattering mirror – Feedback, updated
Aside from a small issue of geography, reader Ivan Smith says the Globe and Mail’s take-out on racism in Nova Scotia, got it right.
The popular notion that racism has disappeared from Nova Scotia is just as wrong as that geography. Racism is still here. Not as bad as it was in the 1960s or even the 1980s, but we still have a long way to go.
How many Nova Scotians know that there were black slaves here?
Smith recommends Simon Schama’s Rough Crossings, a book and subsequent film depicting the treatment of blacks in Nova Scotia in the 1780s, available on DVD here.
A copy of that DVD should be available in every public library and school library in the province.
[Update]. Bob Collicutt reports:
There is one copy of Rough Crossings in the Halifax Regional Library system. As of 6:45 a.m. today there are 12 holds on it, including mine. Thanks to you & Ivan Smith for making us all aware of this film.
