Thanks! But no thanks, Canada

My write up on Tuesday about the Canadian Prime Minister's stand against Sri Lanka hosting the Commonwealth games for 'alleged human rights violations', evoked a measured response, mainly from the Sri Lankans domiciled in Canada. It is common knowledge that Canada was a country of Inuits, invaded by Scandinavians and then by the Europeans on a commercial scale.

We also know that Canada presently is a sister Commonwealth state that contributed handsomely for Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) by gifting an International Airport and an approach road to the airport christened as 'Canada Road'. They also gifted Sri Lanka electric railway engines with metal plaques calling them, ONTARIO, QUEBEC, MANITOBA, NEWFOUNDLAND to link Sri Lanka from city to city. The average Sri Lankan, no doubt, is grateful to Canada for all that and would look up to Canada for the continuation of such benevolence.

International issues

In a way, Canada too has been helped by this common heritage, of being subjects of the British Empire, with Sri Lanka. There are more than 500,000 Sri Lankan expatriates serving in Canada in various capacities and almost all of them, as we know, are skilled professionals.

The post independent Sri Lankan government has paid for the primary education of all of them and even for the university education of a majority of those professionals.

Therefore, give and take a few riches, the crux of the issue is that Sri Lanka as an independent emerging member of the world community is entitled to be treated with perfect equality instead of being brow beaten in to submission on vital domestic and international issues. Friendship; yes, but equality; a bigger YES!

It is noticed however that the most vociferous 'human rights' advocates since of late in international parlance have been countries like Canada and Australia who have now established 'civilizations' by exterminating the natives from their own lands. Asoka Weerasinghe is a Sri Lankan professional domiciled in Canada for the last 30 years.

He is a popular writer on Sri Lankan and Canadian matters and this is what he has to say about Canada's documented human rights record in the recent past.

1) Canada interned 23,000 Japanese-Canadians, of whom 80 percent were Canadian nationals after Pearl Harbour was bombed on December 7, 1941, by the Japanese, and placed them in stables and barnyards like in Hastings Park, British Columbia, where they lived without privacy in an unsanitary environment.

2) On February 24, 1942, the Canadian government enacted legislation under the War Measures Act to intern 'all persons of Japanese origin' and the Japanese are still bitter about it to this day. The Canadian Federal Government gave the interment order based on speculation of sabotage and espionage, and the Defense Department lacked proof.

3) Canada treated Ukrainian-Canadians as enemy aliens during World War I. When they were forced to do heavy labour for the profit of their jailers, interned in 24 Canadian concentration camps, and lost whatever wealth they may have had, and were subjected to restrictions of their freedom of association, movement and speech.

4) Canada violated the human rights of the Lubicon Native Indians. In 1990, after six years of study and deliberation, an 18 country United Nation Human Rights Committee ruled that Canada was in violation of Lubicon rights saying that "Historical inequities and certain more recent developments threatened the way of life and culture of the Lubicons, and constituted a violation of article 27 (of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) so long as they continue."

5) Canada imposed the Chinese Head Tax, a fixed fee charged for each Chinese person entering Canada. The head tax was first levied after the Canadian government passed the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885. This was meant to discriminate Chinese from entering Canada after the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

6) Canada gave moral and logistical support to Britain and the US when they invaded Iraq based on unfounded allegations and killed millions and displaced 7.8 million Iraqis.

7) Canada is on the record calling 'collateral damage' the killing of 1,500 civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan by NATO forces during 2010/2011.

Human rights

This list could go on to include Canada's reticence to condemn the Bark-Livni bombing of Gaza that killed 1,400 including hundreds of children in 2010.

Therefore the larger picture is, if politics on the alleged violations of human rights is the basis of international relations, Sri Lanka may not be able to entertain many leading Commonwealth Heads of nations in Colombo for the CHOGM or the games due in 2013.

Thus double standards and prejudices have always been associated when the rich countries evaluate the not so rich for their good and bad deeds. Mark Twain, that great American realist was 'spot on' when he observed that, "In many countries we have taken the savages land from him, and made him our slave; lashed him every day; broke his pride; overworked him till he dropped dead on his tracks and thereby made death his only friend. There are many humorous things in this world and among them is the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages".

Therefore it is time Stephen Harper came out of that edifice of political prejudice and looked at the Sri Lankan situation more objectively.

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