The Dominion - Harsha Walia

Really, Harper: Canada has No History of Colonialism?

dawn — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:21:14 +0000

At least the PM isn't a history teacher

"We also have no history of colonialism..."
—Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

VANCOUVER—On the heels of a massive exercise of US police repression against G20 protestors, including use of a wartime sonic acoustic weapon also being used in Iraq, Stephen Harper made the above declaration. The comment came during a press conference in Pittsburgh where it was announced that Canada would be hosting the next G20 meeting in 2010.

Perhaps Harper and I are not on the same page—is colonialism not defined as the practice and processes of domination, control, and forced subjugation of one people to another? As most bluntly stated by Duncan Campbell Scott, Head of the Department of Indian Affairs in the 1920s: “Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question.”

I expect Harper has read the federal government’s own report on the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which explicitly lays out Canada’s imposition of a colonial relationship (indeed, that is the heading of one of the chapters) on Indigenous people. Measures of this relationship include the Indian Act, residential schools, forcible relocation including onto reservations, the imposed Band Council system, institution of a pass system (which was subsequently borrowed by apartheid South Africa), germ warfare, outlawing of ceremonies such as the potlatch and traditional activities such as fishing, failed treaty processes and other forced assimilation polices including the Act for the Gradual Assimilation of Indian Peoples.

Considering that his government has so ardently voted against it, it would be safe to presume that Harper is aware of the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. If Canada has no history of colonialism, then what else would explain that Canada—along with other settler states such as Australia—have yet to sign the Declaration? Other than the glaring and painful reality of colonization, what would make the Declaration “unworkable for Canada,” as stated by the Harper government?

This Declaration, endorsed by an overwhelming majority of the 144 UN member states, recognizes that “Indigenous peoples have suffered from historic injustices as a result of, inter alia, their colonization and dispossession” and therefore affirms that “Indigenous peoples have the right of self-determination.” According to the Declaration, this includes: right to autonomy and self government, right to maintain and strengthen political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, collective right to live in freedom without being subjected to acts of genocide, and right to redress and compensation for the lands, territories and resources confiscated, taken, occupied, used or damaged without free, prior and informed consent.

And was it not Harper’s government that finally issued an official apology for residential schools which separated children from their families, communities, and culture in order to "kill the Indian in the child?" It has been extensively documented that children suffered unimaginable abuses—including sexual violence, physical beatings, emotional and psychological torture, and death—in residential schools. The traumas of this colonial legacy continues today with Indigenous people disproportionately experiencing poverty, poor health, incarceration, youth suicides, unprecedented levels of violence against Indigenous women, child apprehension, and substandard levels of access to basic needs including water and homes.

Indigenous people from Akwesasne, Tyendinaga, Six Nations, Athabasca Chipewyan, Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug, and Secwepemc are forced to throw up blockades to halt environmentally devastating mineral exploration, logging practices, and resource extraction that continue to infringe on their lands. Clearly, Harper has not been blind to these public struggles that his government is complicit in criminalizing as Canada becomes notorious for its Indigenous political prisoners—prisoners of Canada’s colonial democracy.

What Harper meant to say was: “Canada has no history of colonialism, except for the ongoing internal colonization of Indigenous people and the external colonization and occupation of, amongst others, the people of Afghanistan. Not one to break with history, my government too has been making strides in asserting greater dominance over Indigenous peoples' lives, lands, and governance.”

At least we can take some comfort in the fact that Harper is just another hypocritical and self-serving politician and not a history teacher.

Harsha Walia is a South Asian organizer and writer based in Vancouver, on unceded Coast Salish territory.

A version of this article previously appeared in the Vancouver Sun online, and is reprinted here with permission of the author.

Komagata Maru and the Politics of Apologies

Moira Peters — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 09:33:40 +0000

In the past few weeks, much has been written about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's so-called Komagata Maru apology, delivered at the "Gadhri Babian Da Mela" (Martyrs Festival) in Surrey, B.C., on August 3, 2008. The debate has focused on whether the apology needed to be made in the House of Commons for it to be afforded the respect and dignity it deserves. Many South Asian Canadians have expressed that the racist discrimination inherent to the Komagata Maru incident in 1914 is mirrored today in the treatment of members of the South Asian Canadian community as second-class citizens who are not considered worthy of a full apology from the Conservative government.

Beyond the location of the apology, there are other reasons to believe that the apology was disingenuous. Consider this: Harper left the stage before hearing the response of the 8,000 people gathered; the prime minister’s office pre-screened and approved the thank-you speech to be given by festival organizers; and Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity Jason Kenney insisted that, “The apology has been given and it won't be repeated.”

History of Exclusion

In order to discourage South Asian migration, in 1908 the Canadian government amended the Immigration Act with the Continuous Journey Regulation, under which travel to Canada required continuous passage from the country of origin, and entry with at least $200 cash. In conjunction with policies such as the Chinese Head Tax, these restrictions were intended to reinforce a "White Canada" policy, restricting non-white migrants at a time when massive numbers of European immigrants-–over 400,000 in 1913 alone-–were entering Canada.

The Continuous Journey Regulation was emphatically challenged in May 1914, when 376 Indians aboard the Komagata Maru out of Hong Kong arrived in Vancouver harbour. The steam-liner was not permitted to dock and its passengers were deprived of food and water by Canadian authorities, subject to a legal challenge, intimidated, and finally coerced to depart by Royal Navy boats. The Komagata Maru was eventually forced back to India and the Continuous Journey Regulation remained in effect until 1947.

Symbolism and the politics of apologies

What is behind the string of recent Conservative government apologies, not only to Indo-Canadians, but also for the internment of Japanese-Canadians, the Chinese-Canadian Head Tax, and the survivors of the residential school system?

According to a May 16, 2008, Globe and Mail article, “The motivation and timing behind the announcements are the subject of much debate...What is clear is that many of those Canadians most affected by these acknowledgements live in some of the most competitive ridings in Canada--particularly in British Columbia and Central Canada.”

Government apologies have been politically expedient for the Conservatives. They are cognisant of the emotional appeal of apologising to a constituency that is otherwise cautious about voting for them. Savvy politicians are acutely aware that these apologies are not intended to further a substantial discourse about the state’s responsibility and complicity in perpetuating racist subjugation, or to bring about practical change in people's lives.

It is, in fact, just the opposite. Through the politics of symbolism, apologies are a painless way of achieving closure while reinforcing the superficial veneer of Canadian multiculturalism and benevolence.

While formal acknowledgements from governments-–particularly in light of their resistance to doing so-– are one part of a reconciliation process, movements pushing for government apologies rarely further the demands for restitution, reparations, transformation of power, abolition of a repressive system, or solidarity with other communities. Instead, such movements often reinforce the status quo by seeking equality with, and financial compensation from, an oppressive and colonial state that continues to maintain the power to grant or withhold citizenship.

Putting racism behind us

Such apologies are also a form of political opportunism that seeks our blind loyalty and gratitude for a government that hypocritically continues to perpetuate the very realities for which it is apologising. There is a strong temptation when hearing an apology, particularly for an incident that happened almost 100 years ago, to think that amends have been made and that racism is in the past.

In response to the Harper Government’s recent apology to Indigenous residential school survivors, the Quebec Native Women’s Association issued a statement, declaring, “In order for this apology to be considered genuine, more efforts must be undertaken to correct current oppressive measures under the Indian Act that prevent Indigenous peoples from prospering socially, culturally, politically and economically... And while we may recognize the Government’s admission of guilt, the fact remains that many obstacles must be removed in order to give meaning to the spirit and intent of their apology.”

Sid Tan, president of the Chinese Canadian National Council and the B.C. Coalition of Headtax Payers, has cautioned, “The historical injustices of the Chinese Head Tax are being replicated today through Canada’s exploitative guest-worker programs and restrictive immigration policies. The descendants of these policies will be demanding apologies in future decades. We should deal with this present reality and not just dwell on the past, especially if a history that we are supposed to have learnt from is repeating itself.”

Similarly, the story of the Komagata Maru is not one of a century ago; it is a story about today. News about immigration visa delays and restrictions; daily reports on racial profiling and no-fly lists; escalating workplace raids and deportations; and the Safe Third Country Agreement are happening right now.

Ali Kazmi’s award-winning film “Continuous Journey” highlights the clear links, often suppressed, between the Continuous Journey Regulation of 1908 and the present day Safe Third Country Agreement. This 2004 agreement does not allow (with minor exceptions) asylum seekers into Canada if they first arrive in the US, forcing most asylum seekers to make a non-interrupted journey through North America, resulting in at least a 40 per cent decrease in refugee applications in Canada.

When, where, and how the government apologises for the Komagata Maru will not change today’s devastating reality; it will only change through our determination and dedication to actively struggle against current immigration controls. It was a Conservative government that forced the Komagata Maru to turn back from the shores of Vancouver and it is a Conservative government today that is legislating policies such as Bill C-50, a recent amendment to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act already negatively impacting immigrants, primarily from South Asia.

On the eve of the anniversary of the South Asian subcontinent's formal independence from British colonial rule, the sacrifices of the 376 migrants aboard the Komagata Maru must be honoured. These heroes challenged not only the nature of Canada's exclusionary immigration laws, but as leaders or sympathizers of the revolutionary pro-Indian independence Ghadr party, they also understood how their treatment in Canada was related to their status as subjects of the British Empire. It is a little-known fact that upon returning to Calcutta, India, in September 1914, the Komagata Maru was stopped by a British gunboat and the passengers were placed under guard. A riot ensued and the British-Indian police opened fire, killing 20 passengers.

The realities of political and economic migration today are similarly embedded in a system of global apartheid and neo-liberal rule that demarcates the asymmetrical relations between rich and poor, North and South, citizen and subject.

As we remember both the legacy of the Komagata Maru and the formal Independence Day anniversaries that are upon us, we can draw some lessons from seemingly disparate histories that span the oceans. We must not be easily blinded by the false expectations-–and in this case false apologies-–rendered by governments to placate us. We must always be vigilant and never be silent or desensitized in the face of injustice, especially as injustice carries forth into the future. And we must always remember that the legacy of the Komagata Maru teaches us that no human being-–whether our ancestors or our future generations-– deserves less than a full measure of justice and our solidarity.

Harsha Walia is a Vancouver-based activist and writer. A version of this article originally appeared in the Indo-Canadian Voice.

KM1

KM Group

Canadian Aid or Corporate Raid?

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 12:52:41 +0000

Canada's development agency in South Asia

Police officers beat up demonstrators on February 1 2006, the first anniversary of King Gyanendra's coup on Nepal after suspending democarcay in the country. King Gyanendra's government programs benefit from CIDA funding. photo: shshrestha

Though not largely discussed, South Asia is a major hub of global economic interests with a massive concentration of Canadian finance capital, foreign aid and development agencies.

"The most significant Canadian interests in South Asia are financial capital through investment, banking, and development aid," says Dr. Hari Sharma, professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University's department of sociology and anthropology, and author of the seminal book "Imperialism and Revolution in South Asia."

"Development aid through CIDA has been known to be a form of economic raid, particularly because it operates through a politically ideological framework," continues Sharma. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is Canada's lead development agency.

Much of Canadian foreign development aid has been termed "phantom aid"-- aid that does not improve the lives it is intended to-- and includes spending on overpriced technical assistance and tied aid. Canadian corporate lobbies advocate tied aid because it is foreign aid that must be spent in the donor country, therefore providing an indirect subsidy to domestic corporations. According to Action Aid, phantom aid accounts for over 50 per cent of Canada's aid spending and 47 per cent of Canadian phantom aid is tied to spending in Canada. Critics argue that tied aid is part of the larger objective of neoliberalization and private sector development. In fact, one of CIDA's top five priorities states that, "Poverty reduction requires strong efforts to address the needs of the private sector in developing countries."

Bangladesh has been one of Canada's largest aid recipients over the last three decades. According to CIDA's Country Development Programming Framework 2003-2008 for Bangladesh, private sector development is a major program objective. As part of a multilateral global effort, Canada pushed for Bangladesh to set up Export Processing Zones in 1978, which are regulated by the Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority. This allows sweatshops to operate outside the realm of national labour laws. A CIDA-funded Local Enterprise Investment Centre facilitates local private enterprise by partnerships with foreign business, giving corporations from other countries access to the growing garment industry, exporting $5 billion worth of goods annually.

According to a New Age report in June 2006, Bangladesh's apparel sector employs 2.5 million, 80 per cent of whom are women, in more than 5,000 factories. Amirul Haq Amir, co-ordinator of the Bangladesh Garment Workers Unity Council, says that garment workers are paid "between US$14 to US$16 per month, the lowest salary in the world."

From May-July 2006, around 4,000 garment factories in Dhaka, Bangladesh, went on strike, resulting in major unrest and the death of at least one person by police gunfire. Since 2003, the Maquila Solidarity Network has been pressuring the Retail Council of Canada to ensure that the factories they use in Bangladesh are safe and healthy workplaces.

In others parts of the world, CIDA has come under fire for supporting governments who align with Western government and business interests. For example a July 2006 MacClean's Business report outlines CIDA's involvement in creating Colombian mining laws beneficial to Canadian companies, while in Haiti, CIDA has been criticized for political destabilization by funding agencies opposed to Aristide.

A similar situation has evolved in Nepal. Since 1964, Canada has contributed more than $213 million in development assistance to Nepal, including $10.4 million in 2004-05. Although the CIDA website boasts of "neutrality" in the civil war, it lays blame for poverty and underdevelopment on the "Maoist insurgency." CIDA's 2004 Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment acknowledges, "CIDA will need to monitor whether its projects become Maoist targets because of linkages with government programs." The "government" of Nepal is King Gyanendra who first dismissed the elected government in 2002 and then proceeded to seize complete control after a royal coup in 2005.

Afghanistan has been the single largest recipient of Canadian bilateral aid, with almost $1 billion allocated from 2001-2011. At the same time, one of the most visible manifestations of the Canadian presence in South Asia is Canada's increased military involvement in Afghanistan. There are those who see this as a contradiction and others as a convenient coincidence. As written by J.W. Smith in The World's Wasted Wealth, "Politics is the control of the economy… It is the military power of the more developed countries that permits them to dictate the terms of trade and maintain unequal relationships." Former US President Woodrow Wilson recognized this: "Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down."

Canadian exports to Afghanistan have increased over 100-fold in the past five years, growing from $167,000 to over $19,000,000, according to Industry Canada statistics. Canadian corporations such as Bell Helicopters and CAE (one of Canada's largest defence contractors) have profited immensely: Bell won a $1 billion contract with the US military to supply helicopters, while CAE won a $20 million contract to supply combat simulation technology.

In May 2006, CIDA launched the "Confidence in Government" initiative in the Shah Wali Kot district of Afghanistan. In a May 22 Globe and Mail article, Lieutenant-Colonel Tom Doucette, commander of Canada's provincial reconstruction team, stated that this initiative "is a useful counterinsurgency tool."

Much of the rhetoric surrounding Canada's military presence in Afghanistan has been focused on the need to 'liberate' Afghan women. However, Sonali Kolhatkar, co-director of the Afghan Women's Mission, recently wrote that "despite the best efforts of the Bush and Blair administrations to convince the world that the 2001 war 'liberated' women in Afghanistan and that they continue to work in the interests of Afghan women, grassroots women activists reveal a very different picture. With the Taliban regime ousted, Afghan women have not experienced better times."

The CIDA-funded Women's Rights in Afghanistan Fund, established by Rights and Democracy (created by the Canadian Parliament in 1988) provides grants to grassroots women's organizations in Afghanistan. A "non-partisan" Afghanistan backgrounder on the website of the Fund highlights only the historic abuse of women by the Taliban and characterizes the current period as one of "ongoing conflict" without any mention of foreign forces in the country.

Gender governance programs are also funded by CIDA in Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Leila Ahmed's "Women and Gender in Islam" documents the co-optation of feminism by imperial and colonizing forces, revealing the contradictions of humanitarian interventions. "Whether in the hands of patriarchal men or feminists," she writes, "the ideas of western feminism essentially functioned to morally justify the attack on native societies and to support the notion of comprehensive superiority of Europe."

Vijay Prashad, an associate professor at Trinity College, has characterized one of the dominant manifestations of imperialism as the manufacturing of strategically placed NGOs. "The NGO", he writes, "becomes an arm of the international bureaucracy that ends up, consciously or unconsciously, doing the work of imperialism." Other CIDA funded NGOs in South Asia include South Asia Partnership, Sri Lanka Canada Development Fund, Aga Khan Foundation, World Vision, Oxfam and Shastri Institute.

"Canadians need to realize what Canadian companies and Canadian development agencies and NGOs are doing in South Asia," says Sharma. "CIDA-funded agencies and NGOs, as a whole, uphold corporate interests and serve the overall objective of pacification within an institutionalized neoliberal framework. This is an issue that all Canadians should be gravely concerned with and deal with."

Harsha Walia examines the work of Canada's development agency in South Asia.

A Picture Says 1000 Words

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 22:13:27 +0000

"Harmless" cartoons are more than meets the eye

Journalists crowd around Peter March, a professor at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, who posted one of the offending cartoons on his office door citing 'academic freedom.' photo: IMC Maritimes

From the burning of its flag to a boycott of its brands of butter and cookies, Denmark is feeling global outrage over newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The Danish paper Jyllands-Posten first published the cartoons on Sept. 30, 2005. The drawings included a caricature of Prophet Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a lit fuse. Another portrayed him with a bushy grey beard and holding a sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle. A third depicted a middle-aged prophet standing in the desert with a walking stick, in front of a donkey and a sunset. The purpose of the cartoons, the paper's editor-in-chief said, was "to examine whether people would succumb to self-censorship, as we have seen in other cases when it comes to Muslim issues." The paper insisted that it meant no offence.

In the past week alone, crowds of angry people in several Arab countries burned the Danish flag. In Palestine, the European Union offices in Gaza were surrounded; Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador from Denmark; Libya closed its embassy; and Iraq, Iran, Jordan and Sudan lodged official protests. Danish products were taken off the shelves in Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Kuwait, Bahrain and other countries, forcing one Danish dairy firm to lay off 800 workers.

With growing political and economic pressure, the editors of Jyllands-Posten apologised, while defending their right to publish the cartoons. A French newspaper, France Soir, reprinted the Danish cartoons along with drawings of Buddha and Christian and Jewish gods. Its editor declared "no religious dogma can impose its view on a democratic and secular society…we will never apologise for being free to speak, to think and to believe."

In the media, this incident is being framed as a struggle in Western democracies to reconcile the right to free expression with respect for religious belief. Many Muslims believe that the cartoons are offensive because pictorial depictions are prohibited in the religion. Others, however, have offered an alternative explanation. For example, Mr. Akkari, a spokesperson for the Danish Muslim delegates, denies that Muslims were unable to accept any portrayals of the Prophet Muhammad without reacting in outrage. In an interview with the Telegraph on February 3, he stated that there were reference books in libraries in Denmark carrying ancient Persian images of the Prophet that caused no offence, but the stereotyping effect of the newspaper cartoons was deeply offensive.

I come from a region of the world where religious dogma has been manipulated to stir up fanatic frenzies. Hindutva, a right-wing religious fundamentalist ideology, has formulated a political experiment based on communal hatred and the slogan "India for Hindus" has an immensely popular appeal with a formidable blend of religion and ideology. Usually, any explanation for an uprising that utilizes religion sets off alarms bells in my head.

But I agree that the cartoons are offensive. Not primarily because they violate religious tenets, but because they are offensive in the way that they depict and stereotype the entire Arab community and those perceived to be Muslim.

For example, the dominant media representation surrounding the Danish cartoon controversy is, unsurprisingly, of the stereotypical irrational, uncivilized, frothing Muslim mobster. Even the terminology used such as "rioters" invokes images of senseless people gone wild, much like the media response to the Paris riots. The controversy over these cartoons is also dominating discourse on many weblogs, with emphatic calls to "Free the West!", slanderous rhetoric such as "Welcome to the multicultural society. We let in the bigots, anti-Semites, homophobes and religious lunatics," and images of veiled women with the caption "What is more obscene? Depicting the Prophet in cartoons or forcing girls and women to live like this in the name of the Prophet?"

The media is increasingly becoming an agent for the communication of societal values. Those who control media are powerful because they are able to control the construction of representations and hence, of what is real. In a world of media spin doctors, our awkward embrace of an ideal of objectivity can make us passive recipients of the news rather than active analyzers of the inherent biases within it. Let us be clear that the Western media have not used the explanation of religious doctrine- that the Prophet is not supposed to be pictorially depicted- in an effort to offer a respectful and educational explanation to non-believers. Instead, the effect of this explanation is to invoke the rigidity and intolerance of the Muslim community in what has been dubbed a "clash of values":"freedom of religion versus freedom of expression."

In Disturbing Remains: Memory, History, and Crisis in the Twentieth Century (edited by Michael S. Roth and Charles G. Salas, Getty Research Institute, 2001), a collection of essays that explores the transformation of traumatic events into social memory, Roth and Salas explain that, "it is through the extreme that the normal is revealed." Media accounts of the protests in reaction to the Danish cartoons represent such an extreme through which the "normal" attitude towards Muslim communities within Denmark and beyond is revealed. A mixture of Arabs, Turks, and Kurds, Muslims make up about 3 per cent of Denmark's population of 5.3 million. As in much of Europe, the Muslim minority remains marginalized and largely alienated from Denmark's dominant culture. After a series of trips across the country in 2005, a delegation of Muslim and Arab community members assembled a 43-page dossier on racism and Islamophobia in Denmark, which is most evident in the success of far-right, anti-immigrant political parties. The Danish People's Party, riding anti-Muslim resentment, emerged as the third-largest party in the past two parliamentary elections in 2001 and 2005.

It is easy for non-Muslims to comment on the harmless nature of cartoons. It is equally simplistic for media commentators to talk about how "open-minded" Western societies are in accepting caricatures of Jesus Christ or other Christian-based satirical representations. The crucial difference in the Danish cartoons is that the depictions in the Danish cartoons perpetuate the stereotypes of an entire community. Although the cartoons only depicted Prophet Muhammad, his image nonetheless signified and personified all Arabs as savages, terrorists, and desert-dwellers in the Western imagination.

A short section in Edward Said's book Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1979.) on popular images and social science representations of Arabs is worth mentioning at length here:

"From a faintly outlined stereotype as a camel-riding nomad to an accepted caricature as the embodiment of incompetence and easy defeat: that was all the scope given to an Arab.... In the films and television the Arab is associated either with lechery or bloodthirsty dishonesty. He appears as an oversexed degenerate, capable, it is true, of cleverly devious intrigues, but essentially sadistic, treacherous, low. Slave trader, camel driver, moneychanger, colorful scoundrel: these are some of the traditional Arab roles in the cinema." (pp. 285-287)

Former president Bill Clinton, whose stock as statesman seems to be on the rise, commented on the cartoons, warning of rising anti-Arab and anti-Islamic prejudice, comparing it to historic anti-Semitism. "So now what are we going to do? ... Replace the anti-Semitic prejudice with anti-Islamic prejudice?" he asked at an economic conference in the Qatari capital of Doha. Edward Said also discusses the relationship between anti-Semitism and anti-Arabism of the sort expressed by the cartoons:

"The transference of a popular anti-Semitic animus from a Jewish to an Arab target [is] made smoothly, since the figure was essentially the same.... Thus the Arab is conceived of now as a shadow that dogs the Jew. In that shadow--because Arabs and Jews are Oriental Semites--can be placed whatever traditional, latent mistrust a Westerner feels toward the Orient. For the Jew of pre-Nazi Europe has bifurcated: what we now have is a Jewish hero, constructed out of a reconstructed cult of the adventurer-pioneer-Orientalist....and his creeping, mysteriously fearsome shadow, the Arab Oriental." (p286).

Many cartoons depicting Ariel Sharon or other representatives of the Israeli government have prompted immediate protests. Such blatant hypocrisy is not lost on the Arab world; Jews can protest anti-Jewish stereotypes (even when often times allegations of anti-Semitism are attempts to invalidate criticism of Israeli government policies), but Arabs and Muslims cannot protest anti-Arab or Muslim stereotypes. "In (the West) it is considered freedom of speech if they insult Islam and Muslims," Mohammed al-Shaibani, a columnist, wrote in Kuwait's Al-Qabas daily Monday. "But such freedom becomes racism and a breach of human rights and anti-Semitism if Arabs and Muslims criticize their religion and religious laws."

Freedom of expression in some cases is legally limited when it becomes hateful speech. The rationale for this is that certain forms of hateful speech actually hinder the freedom of those who have been targeted for humiliation and derision, and they are effectively silenced. In Canada, for example, it is a criminal offence to advocate genocide, publicly incite hatred, and wilfully promote hatred against an "identifiable group," and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms states that the exercise of the freedom of expression, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to conditions and restrictions. Some libertarian commentators, however, argue that the best response to hate speech is not criminalization but more speech. Regardless of whether one agrees that such restrictions on free speech are justifiable or not, it is clear that if such standards are to exist, they should apply equally to protect all communities. Therefore it is not a Western over-tolerance of multiculturalism that has fuelled this indignation; it because of a shallow and hypocritical multiculturalism.

The huge outcry against these cartoons has less to do with the doctrinal limitations of Islam itself than with the social context in the post 9/11 climate and the never-ending "War on Terrorism" within which Muslim and Arab communities operate today. The construction of the Arab terrorist in a Danish cartoon is not harmless or a simple experiment in free speech. It is deeply hateful and affects the inherent dignity of all Arab and Muslim people. The Bush administration and sensationalist media outlets depend on both the cartoons and the subsequent images of violent Arabs to justify their racism and to sell their illegal war. In response, what such communities are demanding and deserve is an end to the demonization of their communities and the right to full dignity, a genuine and egalitarian multiculturalism, and self-determination within Western borders and beyond Western borders in Iraq, Palestine, and Afghanistan.

"Harmless cartoons" are more than they seem when one explores the social and political context in which they appear says Harsha Walia