Once upon a time, many years ago, Canada was a leader when it came to human rights. We helped create the UN, the Geneva Accords, and even adapted many of those accords into our own legislation. We took pride in being the protector, the one who stood up for the little guy, damning the consequences. However, this recent torture debacle involving our military has my recent suspicions that Canada is in a bit of an image crisis confirmed. Like a teenager that has emerged from puberty a little different, Canada is not the peace-loving, torture-hating nation we all thought it was. Between the adjusting of our voice and the ridding of our pimples, we changed.

Torture has always been a no-no. But we all know it happens. It happens in Guantanamo, it happens in Iraq and it sure as hell happens in Afghanistan. At the very least, our job is to not take part in it, and certainly not solicit and most definitely not condone it. Handing over a detainee when one knows he/she will be tortured is not doing our job correctly. Now I know that in the atrocities of war, worse things have happened. However, this begs the question: is this the only time something like this has happened? Because chances are, it isn’t. War makes many people do things they would not do under normal circumstances, no one is questioning or berating that. We have been putting our military on such a pedestal from past peacekeeping accomplishments we thought our soldiers were immune to such cruel behavioural traits, but clearly they are not. They are after all, only human.

But military aside, I think the problem is beyond one incident, or what may be the tip of the iceberg of many questionable incidents. The problem lies in a fading ideology of justice and human rights from our government. Seeing as the military is guided by the government, it should be no surprise it is going in this direction. Human rights have been slowly pushed out of the government’s agenda book, just slowly enough that Canadians haven’t really noticed. It started with the government pushing their nose into our personal lives at the same time George Bush did it with the Patriot Act. Ours was just called the C-17 Public Safety Act – a much more boring and political sounding bill than the Patriot Act, but equally scary stuff. As a Canadian that grew up proud of what Canada achieved through the UN and our effect on world events, I have become disillusioned with what was once our place in the world. Once upon a time one of our Prime Ministers received a Nobel Peace Prize and once upon a time we helped broker peace. And really, it wasn’t that long ago. What happened in Afghanistan? We have determined that there will be an end and it will be in 2011, but have we invested at all in an outcome, or a resolution? Or do we just want out? What would have happened in WWII if Britain just wanted out in the dark days of 1940? I know Afghanistan isn’t quite WWII, but the comparison is there. We have responsibilities, not just to a nation but to a people and to a principle of justice. Unless of course those principles have changed, then anything is fair game to be considered or ignored. I don’t think Afghanistan is any more stable now than it was in 2002 when this mess started and I don’t know why they think 2011 is a magical date. The Taliban will still be there. But I suppose that can be ignored.

Now I know every nation goes through its growing pains. No one person or nation will ever be exactly the same as time goes on. However there are values…morals…cornerstones, whatever your preferred term, to what makes a nation. There are some things that just will not be accepted. For Canada, I have always thought that human rights abuses were one of those things. I believed that no matter what stage in our growth we were, human rights and justice was something that would always be a priority. Some may say I’m a dreamer, but I didn’t think I was the only one. It can’t just be me and John Lennon – surely not. Am I so far off base with Canadians that I am the only one that feels this way about human rights and its part in Canada’s identity? I really didn’t think so. But I am beginning to feel alone.

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Tags: afghan torture, human rights, justice, taliban

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 12th, 2009 at 4:02 pm and is filed under Federal Government, Our Country. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.