Warning: the following post contains significant spoilers about the TV movie 24: Redemption. Those still interested in seeing this TV movie should consider themselves warned.
24 provides painful reminder of humanitarian failure
In just under two months, Barack Obama will replace George W Bush as the President of the United States.
Obama will assume office during what may be the most tumultuous period in the history of the United States. With American troops involved in two separate wars, humanitarian atrocities taking place in any number of places around the world and an economic crisis on the domestic front, Obama will face significant challenges.
As 24: Redemption, the most recent adventure of 24's Jack Bauer, demonstrates one of the greatest challenges Obama will face will be in terms of chasing down whatever gets lost in the transition between administrations.
In the film, Allison Taylor (Cherry Jones) is waiting out the last couple of hours before her inauguration as president.
Across the world in Senegal, however, events are already underway that will shape the early hours of her Presidency. General Benjamin Juma (Tony Todd) has raised an army and is preparing to take control of Senegal.
During the final hours before his attack -- financed by an obscure conspiracy between American financial interests and rogue intelligence agents -- Juma is making a last push to recruit the child soldiers he will use as cannon fodder during his campaign.
His efforts lead him to a school where Bauer (Keifer Sutherland) is helping an old friend, Carl Benton (Robert Carlyle) raise and educate war orphans. When Benton dies in the course of helping the children escape, Bauer will have to face his past and answer a subpoena to answer for his torture of terrorism suspects -- a subpoena he has been running from for over a year.
The film concludes with a heart-wrenching scene replayed over and over throughout the history of the past 40 years -- American troops leaving desperate refugees behind as they evacuate their citizens, leaving men, women, and children to face certain torture and death at the hands of Juma's coup.
The film forces viewers to consider several realities: first off, a scene in which Bauer is tortured in order to force him to reveal the location of a the school's children reminds us that many of the dangerous forces at work in the world today don't respect our values. Neither flexibility nor strictness in how we observe our own values will change that.
Secondly, that hope for a better future simply isn't enough. We in the western world have to keep the courage to live up to our responsibilities, and do whatever we can to keep the world's most dangerous individuals -- whether it be military strongmen like the fictional Juma or terrorist masterminds like the very real Osama Bin Laden -- in check and under control.
Third, the vaunted neutrality of the UN means very little to these individuals. In the film, a UN aid worker helping Bauer and Benton is captured and beaten into revealing the position of Bauer and the children (although, to be just, he doesn't make them beat him very hard).
Finally, we must do whatever we can to prevent scenes such as that playing out in Dakar at the end of the film from ever happening again. Leaving helpless men, women and children to the tender mercies of a brutal military regime is nothing more or less than a betrayal of the values we claim to hold dear.
Whether this means being proactive on various fronts -- including controlling the international black market arms trade -- or simply ensuring that we have the capability to stage effective evacuations of refugees, we owe it to ourselves and to our values to ensure that these shameful scenes -- played out most famously in Vietnam and Rwanda -- never happen again.
For Canada, this means properly equipping our embassies around the world with the necessary security and transportation tools necessary to effect such evacuations. It also requires taking up Lloyd Axworthy's prescribed establishment and reopening of consulates in cities around the world, particularly those where Canada can exert the greatest influence, and do the greatest good.
Our values as a country -- which intersect with those of our allies in so many important ways -- depend on this.
The Canadian conscience simply must tell us "never again". If our allies won't take responsibility for the protection of refugees, we must.
The American political system, sadly leaves a good deal of time for redemption to get lost in the cracks. Canada, however, does not have the luxury of that time. Not if our national values are to survive intact.
Showing posts with label Refugees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Refugees. Show all posts
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Sudan: 60,000 Refugees Can't Be Wrong
Despite Khartoum's denials, carnage in Darfur very real
Despite denials by the Khartoum government regarding the breadth and depth of the atrocities being committed in Darfur, more and more details keep emerging about the crisis.
This past week, the Sudanese government insisted that only 10,000 have died during the past five years of fighting in Darfur.
United Nations humanitarian affairs disagrees. In a statement this past week, UN humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes estimated that 300,000 have died in the course of the conflict -- an increase of 50% since the last time a count was taken.
The Khartoum regime's recent denial is only the most recent in a long litany of denial.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, however, recently received something that should more or less force him to take the Sudanese ambassador's categorical denials with a grain of salt: a survey compiled from among 60,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad.
Among the varying atrocities being perpetrated in Darfur are the largely indiscriminates bombing of rebel areas by Sudanese Antonov bombers. The Sudanese army resumed using the bombers in February of this year.
Despite the presence of African Union peacekeepers in the region, the slaughter by government forces and janjaweed militia has continued. But some activists are looking to the sources of the conflict for opportunities to spread the word on an olympic scale -- via the Olympics.
Dream for Darfur has taken the 2008 Beijing Olympics as an opportunity to go after China for its investment in the Darfur oilfields by going after its sponsors, who organizer Mia Farrow insists "have been frozen into silence on Darfur."
"If the summer Games (in Beijing) go down in history as the 'Genocide Olympics,' it will be because of the Chinese government's support of the regime in Sudan, abetted by the moral cowardice of the sponsors who would not speak out publicly about the genocide in Darfur," Farrow ads.
Hopefully, the survey sent to Gordon Brown will give him a little extra incentive to bring up the Darfur issue with the Sudanese ambassador to Ottawa, while it spurs the Summer Olympics' sponsors to pressure the Chinese government to "deal with this whole Darfur thing".
If not, it may be time for the UN to finally send a peacekeeping mission into the region.
And although we may not necessarily trust them -- with incidents like Tienanmen Square permanently at the front of the international community's mind -- China certainly has the troops to make such a mission possible -- provided that they are willing to submit to foreign command (trusting a Chinese general would be a bit of a stretch).
The attention being directed toward them during the Olympics should certainly give them an incentive to be on their best behaviour -- and the possibility of 60,000 Sudanese refugees casting a pall over the proceedings should give them an incentive to get involved.
Despite denials by the Khartoum government regarding the breadth and depth of the atrocities being committed in Darfur, more and more details keep emerging about the crisis.
This past week, the Sudanese government insisted that only 10,000 have died during the past five years of fighting in Darfur.
United Nations humanitarian affairs disagrees. In a statement this past week, UN humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes estimated that 300,000 have died in the course of the conflict -- an increase of 50% since the last time a count was taken.
The Khartoum regime's recent denial is only the most recent in a long litany of denial.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, however, recently received something that should more or less force him to take the Sudanese ambassador's categorical denials with a grain of salt: a survey compiled from among 60,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad.
Among the varying atrocities being perpetrated in Darfur are the largely indiscriminates bombing of rebel areas by Sudanese Antonov bombers. The Sudanese army resumed using the bombers in February of this year.Despite the presence of African Union peacekeepers in the region, the slaughter by government forces and janjaweed militia has continued. But some activists are looking to the sources of the conflict for opportunities to spread the word on an olympic scale -- via the Olympics.
Dream for Darfur has taken the 2008 Beijing Olympics as an opportunity to go after China for its investment in the Darfur oilfields by going after its sponsors, who organizer Mia Farrow insists "have been frozen into silence on Darfur."
"If the summer Games (in Beijing) go down in history as the 'Genocide Olympics,' it will be because of the Chinese government's support of the regime in Sudan, abetted by the moral cowardice of the sponsors who would not speak out publicly about the genocide in Darfur," Farrow ads.
Hopefully, the survey sent to Gordon Brown will give him a little extra incentive to bring up the Darfur issue with the Sudanese ambassador to Ottawa, while it spurs the Summer Olympics' sponsors to pressure the Chinese government to "deal with this whole Darfur thing".
If not, it may be time for the UN to finally send a peacekeeping mission into the region.
And although we may not necessarily trust them -- with incidents like Tienanmen Square permanently at the front of the international community's mind -- China certainly has the troops to make such a mission possible -- provided that they are willing to submit to foreign command (trusting a Chinese general would be a bit of a stretch).
The attention being directed toward them during the Olympics should certainly give them an incentive to be on their best behaviour -- and the possibility of 60,000 Sudanese refugees casting a pall over the proceedings should give them an incentive to get involved.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Activists Seemingly Favor Open Door Immigration Policy
Hooooooooo Boy...
Every so often, when one fnally begins to forget some of the absurdities of the far left, they do something to remind us.
This is something they have in common with their brethren on the far right, but I digress.
On Saturday May, 6, the controversy over illegal (or undocumented, as you may prefer) workers that has preoccupied the United States spread to Canada. In Montreal, hundreds of individuals identifying themselves as civil rights activists marched in protest of recent deportations of illegal immigrants and refugees.
According to Aaron Lakoff, up to 500,000 residents of Canada may be undocumented immigrants. Seemingly, mr Lakoff feels they should all be instantly granted resident status, regardless of the customs and immigrations laws they have broken, in the name of civil liberties.
In the end, it all comes down to what one considers a "civil liberty".
In no orderly society, anywhere in the world, should the ability to skirt the means for legal entry into the country be considered a "civil liberty". If anything poses a greater risk of resulting in a lawless society, not many of them are immediately apparent.
If undocumented individuals want to remain in Canada, they should apply through the proper legal channels. A short period of amnesty from deportation for anyone who has yet to do so may be a constructive step in the right direction, but outright absolute amnesty should be considered immediately out of the question.
In the meantime, renewed debate about the role of humanitarianism in Canada's immigration policies should be considered welcome indeed. Take, for example, the cited case of Abdelkader Belaouni, a blind Algerian diabetic who has been hiding from Immigration authorities in Montreal's St. Gabriel's church. A deportation order -- accompanied by an arrest warrant -- was drawn up for Henaway in January.
If anyone should qualify as an immigrant in Canada, surely a blind immigrant must fit the bill. Belaouni fled Algeria's civil war in 1996. While it may certainly be true that Belaouni is unemployed (as are many blind people), and may have no family in Canada, surely there should be some means by which he could stay.
Perhaps members of the many activist groups that have written letters in Belaouni's support could sponsor him, and agree to support him in his life in Canada.
In the absence of this commitment, one should wonder how Belaouni would survive in Canada without any family to support him. While in this specific case, activists should put their money where their mouths are, the Belaouni case clearly uncovers some inadequacies in Canada's immigration policies, particular in regards to refugees.
In the meantime, however, the law is the law. If undocumented immigrants want resident or citizen status, they should earn it like all other immigrants do -- by flipping burger's at your local McDonald's.
(...Okay. That was just a joke...)
Every so often, when one fnally begins to forget some of the absurdities of the far left, they do something to remind us.
This is something they have in common with their brethren on the far right, but I digress.
On Saturday May, 6, the controversy over illegal (or undocumented, as you may prefer) workers that has preoccupied the United States spread to Canada. In Montreal, hundreds of individuals identifying themselves as civil rights activists marched in protest of recent deportations of illegal immigrants and refugees.
According to Aaron Lakoff, up to 500,000 residents of Canada may be undocumented immigrants. Seemingly, mr Lakoff feels they should all be instantly granted resident status, regardless of the customs and immigrations laws they have broken, in the name of civil liberties.
In the end, it all comes down to what one considers a "civil liberty".
In no orderly society, anywhere in the world, should the ability to skirt the means for legal entry into the country be considered a "civil liberty". If anything poses a greater risk of resulting in a lawless society, not many of them are immediately apparent.
If undocumented individuals want to remain in Canada, they should apply through the proper legal channels. A short period of amnesty from deportation for anyone who has yet to do so may be a constructive step in the right direction, but outright absolute amnesty should be considered immediately out of the question.
In the meantime, renewed debate about the role of humanitarianism in Canada's immigration policies should be considered welcome indeed. Take, for example, the cited case of Abdelkader Belaouni, a blind Algerian diabetic who has been hiding from Immigration authorities in Montreal's St. Gabriel's church. A deportation order -- accompanied by an arrest warrant -- was drawn up for Henaway in January.
If anyone should qualify as an immigrant in Canada, surely a blind immigrant must fit the bill. Belaouni fled Algeria's civil war in 1996. While it may certainly be true that Belaouni is unemployed (as are many blind people), and may have no family in Canada, surely there should be some means by which he could stay.
Perhaps members of the many activist groups that have written letters in Belaouni's support could sponsor him, and agree to support him in his life in Canada.
In the absence of this commitment, one should wonder how Belaouni would survive in Canada without any family to support him. While in this specific case, activists should put their money where their mouths are, the Belaouni case clearly uncovers some inadequacies in Canada's immigration policies, particular in regards to refugees.
In the meantime, however, the law is the law. If undocumented immigrants want resident or citizen status, they should earn it like all other immigrants do -- by flipping burger's at your local McDonald's.
(...Okay. That was just a joke...)
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