Writing for the Toronto Star on Saturday, James Travers asks this question:Finally, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is doing the right thing by compensating Maher Arar for damage that can never be fully repaired. Now, will Canadians find it in their hearts to be as generous?
The answer to that is a definite 'no'. Just witness the reactions in Canada's right-wing blogosphere following the announcement of the lawsuit settlement on Friday here, here and here. Some of those are people who deny Arar was imprisoned or tortured - one who even suggests that Mr Arar somehow manufactured his own demise to show how 'weak' western governments are as some sort of broader radical Isalmic plot*. People who think Mr Arar has somehow won the lottery now after showing just how stupid Canada's government is. People disconnected from reality who, in the face of all of the evidence put forth in the Arar inquiry, cannot bring themselves to admit the truth. People who, on one hand, say Mr Arar deserved an apology while on the other hand not understanding why.
Travers goes on:
It's instructive as well as discouraging that some of his fellow-citizens still can't bring themselves to extend the presumption of innocence to the Syrian-born electronics engineer. They skim over the exonerating details of Justice Dennis O'Connor's inquiry to dwell on the doubts spread by a U.S. administration that can't bring itself to say it's wrong or sorry.
If that lingering suspicion is just human nature, then it's the worst of human nature. More troubling still, it reveals how imperfectly this society understands, how lightly it values, rights that define the very freedom our troops in Afghanistan are defending.
And that's the rub, isn't it? After a shining moment when our government did exactly what it ought to have done by establishing an exhaustive public inquiry and finally admitting its mistakes and compensating Mr Arar - our innocent Canadian engineer who was sent to Syria to be abused in the most horrid of ways based on suspicions that were completely wrong - there are those among us who are still completely unwilling to leave Mr Arar to live his life in peace. Mr Travers is right. That attitude is an example of the worst of human nature. It is a position of screaming willful ignorance - the most dangerous kind - for it is that very characteristic that got Mr Arar in trouble in the first place.
The actions of the RCMP and the US government were based on lies yet some people in this country prefer to defend those lies instead of admitting they were wrong so they can maintain their warped sense of pride. What kind of pride is it that continues to condemn an innocent man for life?
As the old saying goes: “No one ever choked to death swallowing his pride”.
And the sad reality is that too many people who have been tortured, as Mr Arar was, have died thanks to the need of some people to be right no matter what the consequences.
Those lingering suspicions about Mr Arar are more than troubling, Mr Travers. They're frightening.
Who are the real radicals that threaten the very fabric of our society?
* This fealty to living in fear and ignorance even extends itself to the point where a picture of a Middle Eastern baby taken completely out of context from the Iranian News agency somehow merits the disgusting headline 'Baby Boomer' - a suggestion that this child will grow up to be a suicide bomber based simply on its ethnic origin. It is exactly that type of stereotyping that stalls progress on these issues.
Update: Those visiting from the blog with the 'Baby Boomer' post (whose owner has now labeled me as being "spectacularly obtuse") who actually do need some context about that picture ought to familiarize themselves with Ashura.
The Day of Ashura (عاشوراء translit: ‘Āshūrā’, also Aashoora and other spellings) is on the 10th day of Muharram in the Islamic calendar and marks the climax of the Remembrance of Muharram but not the Islamic month.
This day is well-known because of mourning for the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad at the Battle of Karbala in the year 61 AH (AD 680).
Furthermore Sunni Muslims believe that Moses fasted on that day to express gratitude to God for liberation of Israelites from Egypt. According to the Muslim tradition, Muhammad (SAW) fasted on this day and asked other people to fast.[1][2]
[...]
some governments has banned this commemoration. In 1930s Reza Shah forbid it in Iran. The regime of Saddam Hussein saw this as a potential threat and banned Ashura commemorations for many years. In 1884 Hosay Massacre, 22 people were killed in Trinidad and Tobago when civilians attempted to carry out the Ashura rites, locally known as Hosay, in defiance of the British colonial authorities.
[...]
According to Sunni tradition, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) observed the Ashura fast in Mecca, as did the local population where it was a common practice. When Prophet Muhammad led his followers to Medina, he found the Jews of that area fasting on the day of Ashura - or Yom Kippur - Ibrahim (Abraham). At this juncture, Prophet Muhammad confirmed and underlined the Islamic aspect of the fast, and it became mandatory for the Muslims.
So, as much as some right-wingers want to make that picture a symbol of suicide-bombers-to-be, they are horribly misguided.
The Ashura is commemorated for the following occasions which Muslims believe happened on the 10th Day of the Muharram:
* The deliverance of Noah from the flood
* Abraham was saved from Nimrod's fire
* Jacob's blindness was healed and he was brought to Joseph on this day
* Job was healed from his illness
* Moses was saved from the impeding Pharaoh's army
* Jesus was brought up to heaven after attempts by the Romans to capture and crucify him failed.
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