I Support Our Troops

While I rarely make overtly political comments in this blog, I have to say that as a Canadian, one of the phrases that irks me to no end is, “I support our troops,” whether uttered by the individual or found on the bumper sticker of the still-ubiquitous SUV. The irony of that statement, as it pertains to democracy, is profound.

What does it mean to express support for the troops? In practice, it invariably means, and demands, an unquestioning acceptance of their presence, their mission, and, sadly, their deaths in Afghanistan. To support the troops by advocating an end to their Afghani operation has been seen as tantamount to some kind of betrayal of them. Certainly this is much evident in the way the Harper Government has used the phrase to stifle discussion about the mission, a warning to those who oppose it to keep their mouths shut at the risk of being labeled unpatriotic.

A couple of years ago, before the Liberal Opposition cravenly acquiesced in yet another extension of the Canadian operation to 2011, (on the specious grounds that they didn’t want to divide the nation), the ever-political, ever-manipulative and ever-morally- blunted Prime Minister Harper labeled those politicians who dared question the validity of our troops being in Afghanistan as ‘Taliban sympathizers,’ working a Macarthesque rhetoric into his usual practice of division and demoralization. Sadly, very little spirited defense was mounted for freedom of thought, opinion, and expression, foundational freedoms that are the putative reasons for trying to “bring democracy’ to the Afghanis. Somehow, the Harper concept of democracy applies only to those views in accord with his own.

And yet perhaps Harper is only a sad symptom of our own weaknesses as human beings. While we rarely consciously acknowledge the hypocrisy, our notions of informed and spirited discourse frequently seem to fall far short of anything approaching a meaningful exchange of ideas. One can’t help but feel that perhaps civilized and respectful discussion is only an ideal, never to be truly realized.

But then, of course, there is the possibility of a renewal of public discussion in the United States with the election of Barack Obama. One of the most encouraging signs emerging south of the border is the fact that unlike Prime Minister Harper, who has surrounded himself with sycophants and policy clones, Mr. Obama seems intent on having a diversity of views in his Cabinet, suggesting he wants the best policy options emerging from the cauldron of heated discussions that inevitably ensue when you place people of diverse perspectives together. Kind of like the classroom I remember so well when things were really working and the kids were really thinking.

Will this mark a turning point in what has become a sad parody of political process as evidenced under the disaster of the Bush presidency? If so, will it have any impact on the poisoned Canadian political process? Perhaps we will begin to get the answer to those questions in 2009.

Happy New Year.

The Dark Knight and Reflections on Human Nature

Yesterday I saw the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, and would like to offer a few observations. First, the film is as good as the critics say, but my surprise arose from its philosophical depth, something one doesn’t normally expect in a movie of this genre.

Very briefly, and without going into too much detail, Batman is confronted by the Joker, played so effectively by the late Heath Ledger in what is essentially a battle for competing views of human nature. The Joker, a demonic figure if there ever was one, seems intent (and this seems to be his only motivation in the film) to spread terror, despair and cynicism throughout the citizenry, as if to convince everyone that goodness is no more a reality than Santa Claus. His delight arises from exposing the weakness of people, tearing through what he sees as mere facades of rectitude. Confronting and challenging this view, (as well as being challenged by it) are both Batman and another character, the crusading district attorney Harvey Dent, played very well by Aaron Eckhart.

The role of the hero and his/her importance to society is explored in depth through the ensuing conflict with The Joker, and I will offer no detail as to the final resolution offered by the film. However, aside from the entertainment value of The Dark Knight, it made me think once more about what it is people expect, want and need from their leaders. The observation is made in the film, in relation to Harvey Dent, that people need a hero, someone they can look up to, the implication being that such people have the capability of bringing out in others the best aspects of human nature. As I have mentioned in previous posts, this is, I believe, where our elected leaders, for the most part, utterly fail.

The easiest and most obvious exemplification of this failure is to be found in the past eight years under the morally bereft Bush presidency. As he prepares to leave office, it is clear to me that Bush’s main ‘achievement’ will be a legacy of hatred, suspicion, cynicism and cronyism. The fact that Democratic presidential candidate Barrack Obama has thus far inspired a great deal of hope suggests that there is a hunger on the part of Americans to be raised out of the morass into which they have fallen.

However, Bush's spectacular failure as a leader should not overshadow the fact that a lack of vision and purpose on the part of our politicians is widespread. As I mentioned in my last post, Lawrence Martin nicely captured the malaise of the governing Conservative Party in Canada. Today finds a newspaper revelation that this same Government is preparing to bury a 500-page report by Health Canada about the relationship between global warming and ill-health. Because their stance on climate change is so regressive, apparently the report will be hidden on an obscure part of Health Canada’s website, once more demonstrating that the preservation of power over principle is the ruling political ethos.

I suspect that we can all be much better people than we are. However, as long as politics remains only concerned about the acquisition and retention of power, there is little chance of that happening

Hamlet Part 5 – The Illusory Nature of the World (3)

In recent posts I have been looking at the disparity between appearances and realities as an important theme in Hamlet and, increasingly, in the world we live in. I suppose one could argue that governments have always used propaganda and various media to convey a perspective that they want their citizens to share, but I can’t help but think there is something much different about what is going on today. It seems to me that all kinds of policies are being enacted and promoted that have little concern with the common good, so that the lies currently being propagated have, in many instances, become vehicles for promoting hatred, evil, suspicion and paranoia. Certainly these are not results that strengthen society. People deserve, and are entitled to, much better.

The most obvious illustrations of this revolve around the American-initiated ‘war on terror,’ a war which, as in the one depicted in Orwell’s 1984, will seemingly have no end. Ever since that horrifying attack on the Twin Towers, George Bush and Dick Cheney have used the politics of fear and manipulation to further their goals. For example, although Iraq had nothing to do with the attack, the administration carefully, in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, suggested there was one.
The effect of this manipulation was such that as of January 2003, 44% of Americans believed that some or all of the Sept.11 highjackers were Iraq. Of course, the truth is that none of them were. One can see the motive behind this manipulation was to make the invasion of Iraq much more palatable to the American people.

Yet the truth is never obvious. Fortunately, with the formidable access to information afforded by the Internet, there is at least the potential for citizens to be able to sift through what they are told and come up with reasonable conclusions about their leaders, who often, when the data is analyzed, seem to be sneering at the electorate. For example,such is the contempt the U.S, government has for its own people, it even indulges in www.huffingtonpost.com/taylor-marsh/stephens-hayes-hearts-dic_b_60861.html revisionist history. If you have the time, the link in the previous sentence will take you to an entry from the Huffington Post which then offers a link to NORAD tapes which clearly show Dick Cheny caught in an egregious misrepresentation of his role during the 9/11 crisis.

But the lies and malfeasance continue, costing so many lives, both American and foreign, in remote parts of the world. And to what end? In the play Hamlet, only after the waste of many lives is there a sense of restored order and the beginning of healing; in our world today, I suspect that the latter is still a long way off.

Hamlet Part 4 – The Illusory Nature of the World - Manipulative Political Practices

Last day I discussed how the Canadian political establishment, like Claudius in Hamlet, shows little respect for the citizens. I’d like to continue with this idea in today’s post before going on to examine some American examples tomorrow.

The current Conservative government, led by Stephen Harper, promised in the last election to establish a regime that stresses transparency and accountability. That promise has proven to be just the usual political rhetoric one expects from today’s caliber of politician, in other words, just another illusion of respect for the people. The most recent and egregious example of this is the fact that Harper and his cronies tried, on the claim of national security, to keep secret blacked out parts of the O’Connor commission of inquiry into the Maher Arar false imprisonment
and torture debacle. It turns out that the reason given, national security, was a lie; the actual reason was the report was embarrassing to Canadian and American security officials, as they knew from the outset that the alleged evidence used to send him to Syria was obtained from another man through Syrian torture. Fortunately, the courts have now forced most of this material to be made public.

The Freedom of Information and Privacy Association had this to say:

The decision to cite national-security grounds to censor about 1,500 words of Judge O'Connor's report was made by Conservative cabinet ministers, and it was they who ordered federal government lawyers to fight their release in court.

"This failure to inform Canadians truthfully about key mistakes of government serves to highlight Tory hypocrisy over our right of access to information," said FIPA executive director Darrell Evans. "We were deeply disappointed in the Conservative government's failure to deliver on their election promises to increase federal government transparency."

For the full story, click here.

In Hamlet, Claudius’ smooth façade conceals some terrible realities. I think this one Canadian example suggests the potential of the same truth in my country.

Hamlet – Part 3 – The Illusory Nature of the World (1)

In my last post I talked about Hamlet as a story of the transition from childhood to adulthood. Today I’d like to discuss how a related theme, the disparity between appearance and reality, is relevant to our lives today.

Almost from the play’s outset, Hamlet discovers that the world he thought he knew was more of an illusion than a reality. First comes the discovery of his mother’s seeming fecklessness in hastily marrying her brother-in-law Claudius, a union considered incestuous at the time. As things progress, Hamlet learns about other types of betrayal. The woman he loves, Ophelia, rejects him at her father’s behest, and two childhood friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, essentially spy on him to curry favor with Claudius, who wants to know why Hamlet has been acting so strangely. Ultimately, the Prince is able to ascertain that Claudius did commit fratricide, as claimed by the ghost early in the play, and therefore is a usurper. All of these discoveries send the young prince into a depression and a despair of paralyzing proportions.

So how is any of this relevant to 21st century life? Today, isn’t it becoming increasingly difficult to discern truth from lie, illusion from reality? Most people, of course, on some level understand the nature of advertising, with its beguiling yet completely illusionary promise of happiness and fulfillment through a better dust collector, brighter teeth, or, ‘six-pack abs,’ so I think I’ll skip that discussion. The more serious and insidious gulf between appearances and reality, in my opinion, lies in how the government, aided by much of the media, shapes our view of the world, both domestically and internationally.

If we go back to the play for a moment, Claudius is the consummate politician – adept at reading and manipulating people, and skilled in the discharge of foreign policy. He uses these skills to hide his corruption. In his very first speech in Hamlet, he addresses his court, acknowledging national sadness over the passing of King Hamlet, making reference to the possible impending war with Norway, and implicitly justifying his incestuous marriage to Gertrude (“Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state”) as a way of ensuring continuity in these difficult times. Indeed, this speech and an analysis of it should be required reading for all those who aspire to power! (Actually no, since I have no interest in electing more such politicians.)

When contemporary politicians fail to find public support for policy initiatives, their most common explanation is, “We haven’t communicated our message effectively enough.” Never is there a consideration that the policy might be flawed or should be reconsidered, the subtext being that they just have to find a more effective way of manipulating the people, of spinning an illusion or half-truth to get the people ‘onside.’

One example from my own country illustrates this succinctly: since Canada’s participation as part of the NATO contingent in Afghanistan has become increasingly unpopular here, there has been a shift from the earlier, bellicose rhetoric of the chief of the Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier, about killing “scumbags and murderers,” to greater emphasis on aspects reminiscent of more traditional Canadian military operations, such as helping a school open and handing out food to displaced Afghans. This public shift does not mark a change in the mission, which is to hunt down terrorists; the loss of Canadian soldiers’ lives continues, but such is the contempt in which the public’s intelligence is held that the government hopes the voters will be fooled by a few treats handed out to Afghan children as being in the Canadian humanitarian tradition, and we’ll forget the realities of the war.

In my next post I would like to continue examining this facet of Hamlet’s relevance to our lives.

Waking People Up! - The Mantle of Leadership – Part 2

In an earlier posting I discussed how the mantle of leadership is a heavy responsibility, much of it discharged in an irresponsible and self-aggrandizing manner. I suggested that when power is abused, the people can suffer in many ways: physically, economically, and, perhaps most significantly, spiritually. I also suggested that the world is hungry for direction from those who are selfless and morally centered. Today I’d like begin discussing how to achieve such leadership.

The beginnings of change, I believe, lie in cultivating a more aware citizenry through improvements in education. Such a citizenry would then have the means to resist a phenomenon all too apparent in recent years, the drift toward simplistic thinking, the kind of thinking that allows politicians to go unchallenged in their abuse of rhetoric and logic. Consider such statements as “You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists,” (George Bush); “We aren’t the government; we’re the people who have come to fix government,” (Mike Harris, former Premier of Ontario); “People who criticize the Afghan mission aren’t supporting the troops,” (Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada).

What changes should be made? Ask a Canadian student the historical significance of a man named Macdonald and they might say he constructed the golden arches as readily as they might identify him as Canada’s first Prime Minister, the man responsible for building the Canadian Pacific Railway. I don’t know how it is in other jurisdictions, but in Ontario, only one course in History is mandatory; I would make it required throughout the four years of high school, so that upon graduation, each student would have had some exposure to Canadian, British, Ancient and World History, thereby possessing a tool invaluable to informed democratic participation: context.

Without context, citizens can become pawns in the hands of powerful interests. Take, for example, the commonly accepted assertion of business that continuous downsizing, rationalizing of resources and the pursuit and achievement of ever-increasing profits at the expense of workers is a necessity in today’s global marketplace. If we lack historical context, what choice do we have but to accept as unavoidable the consequent disruption in people’s lives through layoffs, endless pressure to increase productivity, and less and less participation in the profits that their work makes possible?

We must accept it unless we know something of the history of the Industrial Revolution. During the early 19th century, men, women, and children were ruthlessly exploited for their labour and then callously discarded when they had no more to contribute. 14-16hour work days were the norm, and children as young as five entered the factories and coals mines, only to emerge years later, crippled, deformed, incapacitated by lung disease, awaiting early death at about age 25.

It was a time, of course, when there were no benefits, no workplace protections from hazardous conditions, no compensation for injuries, and it was not uncommon for women and children to be beaten if they were late for work or found to be in any other way impeding the production process. Only through the brave and moral leadership of activists, thinkers and politicians were these horrible conditions ultimately ameliorated.

Without this kind of historical context, how can a citizen counter or even disagree with the ever-increasing notion that government is a bad thing and should have very little role in our lives, and that only an entirely unfettered marketplace will somehow ultimately redress all imbalances and problems. For example, one doesn’t have to look hard to find some commentators suggesting that, even though corporations are making record profits, workers need to temper their wage demands and even give wage and benefit concessions. Or that trade with China will promote human rights; if this is so, why has the United States had a trade embargo of Cuba almost 50 years? Aren’t both countries Communist? What is the difference in the suppression of human rights that one country should be traded with and another embargoed? Who can ask these questions if they don’t know basic history?

I will be continuing this thread in my next post.

People Responding Selflessly

As reported in the local paper today, people in Ontario have been responding to the Premier’s call to conserve energy. Despite the extremely hot and humid conditions of the past several days, we have managed to keep our energy usage below record levels. According to the item, Ontario's all-time record for electricity demand was set last year on Aug. 1, when users powered through 27,005 megawatts. That record hasn't been cracked so far. Even in this week's heat wave, usage peaked at 25,584 megawatts. This is directly attributed to both individuals and businesses reducing their power usage.

I post this information only to demonstrate how people will respond positively to aid the common good, reinforcing the need I have been discussing for strong, morally-centreed leadership, a theme I will be returning to next week.

The Mantle of Leadership

As Peter Parker, aka Spiderman, learned long ago, with great power comes great responsibility. For the past two posts I have been discussing what happens when that power is abused. Today, I’d like to begin looking at the powerful effect strong and morally-centered leadership can have on all of us.

Perhaps the best immediate demonstration of this effect can be seen in the recent announcement of the formation of a group called “The Elders.” Consisting of such moral luminaries as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Jimmy Carter, and Kofi Annan, their envisaged role is to try to solve problems in the world through a combination of diplomacy and moral suasion. I submit to you that the world is hungry for such selfless leadership. As cynical as I am, I couldn’t help but feel a thrill upon hearing of the involvement of my personal hero, Mandela, a man who shows all of us the best that is possible in humanity. Enduring many years of imprisonment to maintain his integrity, when freedom was promised if only he would renounce the goals of the African National Congress, allowing himself to grow old in prison, here is a man who had every right to be bitter and ultimately seek revenge on a government that had oppressed him and his people. Instead, rising to become the President of South Africa, he embraced, not retaliation, but rather forgiveness and reconciliation. Here is a man who was able to put ego aside for the greater good.

In earlier articles I talked about administrators who earned both my respect and my admiration. Their secret was that same ability to put aside ego in order to serve the greater good, education. They were, through their examples, able to motivate the staff in like manner. While the schools were never utopias, they were, for the most part, harmonious, with administration, staff, and students working toward common goals.

I believe that the existence of these two models demonstrates the potential for application in the world of government leadership. But the transition to such a world will not be easy. How do we get there? I’d like to discuss that in upcoming posts.

What’s Shakespeare Got To Do With Anything? – Part 2

I was thinking a little bit more about the infectious nature of bad leadership, and, while I may be stating the obvious here, probably the best validation of the concept can be found in an organization I know rather intimately – public education.

Having already written extensively about my own experiences with poor administration, I’ll try not to repeat myself here, but if we consider institutions as microcosms of society, there can be little doubt about the ripple effect when “there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.” Whether at the board level or within the individual school, when teachers perceive inequity, corruption, or malfeasance (and believe me, those unsavory elements can be pervasive) but feel powerless to remedy the problems, the pernicious effect on morale is difficult to ignore. Some teachers will simply shrug their shoulders, close the door to their classroom and try to carry on doing the best job they can. Others will try to bring the wrongdoing to the union which, unless it is a contractual violation, will say it is beyond their purview. Still others, noble but naïve souls, may try to take the issue to a higher level, only to find that upper management really wants to ignore unpleasantness if it can, and more often than naught will try to threaten or punish the whistleblower. As you can see, none of the responses I’ve outlined here are satisfactory, largely because the problem continues to fester, gnawing away at teachers of good heart.

I realize that what I have written here is quite vague and theoretical sounding, but it is based on things I know but cannot be more specific about for a number of reasons. My point, however, is that just as a kind of moral malaise can beset those working within an organization, so too can the citizens of a country suffer in a similar way under poor political leadership.

Next time around I’d like to look at some possible antidotes to this illness.

What’s Shakespeare Got To Do With Anything?

Mentioning Shakespeare to a classroom of students is somewhat akin to telling them they are about to receive a massive dose of cod liver oil – something to be avoided at all costs. Maybe it’s true, as someone once said, that education is wasted on the young, because the older I get, the more I understand what the Bard has to offer to our fractured and troubled world. Today I would like to discuss only one small element of his relevance.

Being something of a ‘political junkie’ may be one of the many reasons that I took such pleasure in teaching two of Shakespeare’s greatest works: Macbeth and Hamlet. But literary merits aside, the plays’ compelling qualities are in part informed by the Elizabethan view of the universe, one that we have long since abandoned, but which, at its core, perhaps helps to explain much of the political and moral malaise of our times. Known as “The Great Chain of Being,” this view, very concisely, stipulated that there was a natural order in the universe, with everything emanating from God. Each realm, be it divine, human, animal, or mineral, had a hierarchy; remnants of that notion remain today. For example, we talk of the lion as the ‘king of the jungle; reason has priority over emotion, the eagle is deemed the head of things avian, etc. In the realm of human affairs, the country’s leader, the King, was believed to be God’s representative in the secular world, and thus was responsible for the well-being of the people. If the King was good, the nation prospered; if bad, as in the case of a usurper, the country suffered.

Both Macbeth and Hamlet deal with usurpers, people who have stolen the crown from God’s rightful representative. In both cases, the people suffer tremendously. Under the bloody dictator Macbeth, Scotland suffers a reign of terror; in Hamlet, the usurper Claudius, who has killed his brother in order to ascend to the kingship, is responsible for a moral corruption that grips Denmark.

So what’s Shakespeare got to do with anything? Well, even though power is no longer seen as coming from above, i.e., from God, but rather from below, i.e., the people, (at least in a democracy,) I have never really subscribed to the notion that government is merely a reflection of the people, that people get the government they deserve through the electoral process. After all, very few purposely vote for ineptitude, corruption, and cronyism; yet these elements seem to define so many democracies today.

The part of the Great Chain of Being so pertinent today is the infectious nature of bad leadership. Here I don’t mean the obvious consequences of being led by someone not fit to govern: abuses of basic freedoms, manipulation of truth, the abrogation of due process, catering to special interests, etc. More insidious, and something Shakespeare clearly demonstrates in Hamlet, is the toll exacted upon the nation’s spiritual health. The central metaphor of Hamlet is that of an unseen yet highly contagious disease. If we consider the widespread cynicism and disengagement gripping people today, we are witnessing the effects of bad leadership.. When people refuse to vote because they don’t feel it will make any difference, when they ascribe corruption and greed as the main motivations for people seeking elected office, when they evince little or no surprise at the flouting of constitutional laws by their elected representatives, they not only have fallen victim to a spiritual or moral malaise, they are in fact facilitating its spread, something I suspect our elected representatives are not in the least bit concerned about; after all, the more disengagement and disaffection there is amongst the voters, the easier it is for politicians to continue on their self-aggrandizing paths.

So what is the solution, the cure for this disease? How does a nation recover its soul?
Those are questions I would like to consider in a future article.