A rchive Date
[ 22-01-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/mansur.html
Sound skepticism aids national identity
By SALIM MANSUR - For the London Free Press
January 9, 2002
As a new year begins, one question that will possess us for now is how to save Canadian politics from becoming an echo of American priorities.
The inescapable reality of Canadian destiny is to swim with Americans and not be swallowed by them. The thrill of being Canadian is in deriving immense pleasure from the excitement of this perilous swim.
It is also of being the greatest superpower's closest companion and yet, against all logic of continental economics and politics, maintaining an independent composure of thought and action in fidelity to those who build this country.
But the political fallout of Sept. 11 is of such proportion never encountered before that continuing to be Canadians, with our own unique history, will require a sensibility not readily evident in the repertoire of the present crop of national leaders and aspirants. This is a steady display of ample skepticism with all the prattle and hyperbole regarding Sept. 11 as the day when world history once again turned on its hinges. Nothing of this sort happened and to state this is not to diminish by an iota the tragedy that unfolded on that fateful morning.
It is important to put in proper historical perspective the crime committed Sept. 11. and the men who are responsible. This was not another Pearl Harbour and Osama bin Laden is not another Hitler or Tojo Hideki. Such comparisons falsely elevate a police action against a bunch of evil gangsters with a medieval mind-set hiding in a part of the world where nothing has much changed for nearly a millennium.
The Americans, however, have remade their priorities to the needs of the war against terrorism that may last for more than a generation, if we are to believe the public rhetoric of their political leaders. They may, in time, change their minds as the costs of this war become untenable, as the images of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar inevitably fade away like the excitement in baseball of the home run chase by Mark McGuire.
We have to protect at all times both our economic interests and our political independence. Our economic interests demand that we closely follow American security concerns. Our political independence demands that we do not surrender our capacity to decide for ourselves on this and other matters. This is not mere semantics. It is the basis of our democracy and freedom.
The pressures to conform with American priorities and abridge our rights to judge for ourselves events that also affect us are irresistible, unless we grow in our skepticism of what we are told. It is in the nature of politics and politicians, wrote H.L. Mencken, an American essayist from an earlier generation, "to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
The cultivation of skepticism, given the pusillanimity of our politicians, is essential for our continued survival swimming alongside the behemoth of the American Moby Dick. It is worthwhile to note the tradition of skepticism in American journalism, however minor it may be, still remains robust. The spirit of Mark Twain and Mencken lives on, for instance, in the columns of Lewis Lapham of the Harper's Magazine.
In the current January issue of Harper's, Lapham writes, "We have more to fear from the fatwas issued in Washington than from those drifting across the deserts of Central Asia. The agents of al-Qaida might wreck our buildings and disrupt our commerce, maybe even manage to kill a number of our fellow citizens, but we do ourselves far greater harm if we pawn our civil rights and consign the safekeeping of our liberties to Mullah John Ashcroft and the mujahedeen in the hospitality tents of American crusade."
Skepticism in these times does not mean being anti-American, as some will quickly conclude, nor being unpatriotic. It is the necessary armour of citizens aware of their vulnerability in the face of official doctrines and manufactured wisdom of the corporate media. It is the weapon of our continued freedom against the odds of history.
Salim Mansur is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. His column appears alternate Wednesdays.
Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@lfpress.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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