Lebanese-Canadians
Here we go again, that hyphenated nomenclature. Dual citizenship. Well, where does loyalty reside? Which values are accepted, when at times they become antithetical to one another? Upon whom do you call for assistance? Allegiance to whom?It would seem that among western countries Canada has the distinction of embracing more Lebanese as Canadian citizens than any others, including France, that once-colonial power of whom Lebanon was a colony. It would further seem that you can take the Lebanese out of Lebanon but never, ever can you take Lebanon out of the Lebanese. A country seen as an oasis of great beauty, admired by all. With, unfortunately, a sadly long history of strife and occupation, an embattled, suffering people, just recently able to breathe the pure air of freedom and economic success.
So Canada has hundreds of thousands of Lebanese-Canadians adding cultural flavour, business enterprise, academic expertise, professional adeptness to our multivaried, storied and valued population. And, surprisingly, but not so surprisingly at all, it would seem, tens of thousands of Lebanese make the yearly trek back to their home country to touch again that beloved soil, to visit with friends and family, to see that treasured land. And tens of thousands of Lebanese also, while retaining their Canadian citizenship, return to Lebanon to live.
Suddenly a disaster strikes the Middle East. A militia seen by the West as terrorist in nature, but having its political place in the governance of Lebanon, decides to cease taunting its avowed enemy, Israel, and to declare a state of war by overt, not-to-be-overlooked-this-time aggression. And suddenly all those Canadian-Lebanese visitors and tourists become trapped. They do not call upon their country of origin to curtail the deadly activities of the jihadists among them. Instead they bless the now-retaliatory country fighting to retain its right-of-place in the region with curses and responsibility for the murder of Lebanese.
At home in Canada, family members of those now stranded in Lebanon, a country which has been transformed instanter from Paradise-on-Earth to the Bombardment of Hell, call upon their adopted country to act swiftly to denounce the State of Israel, to rescue by any means, their family members, instanter. And when conditions accelerate alarmingly, these Lebanese-Canadians hold Canada to account for withholding the truth as they see it, for carelessly, uncaringly leaving their relatives to their fate.
These frightened and defensive people are now declaring the Prime Minister of Canada to be wrong in his assessment of the cause of the conflict and his support of the country which was attacked, claiming in their great wisdom, that this is not at all what has occurred. Rather, brutal Israel, land-hungry and Arab-hating, has decided to destroy their country and its inhabitants. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, they claim bitterly, has abandoned his citizens.
Truly a wretched mindset that can overlook the truth available to anyone who seeks it out. What does it say about the moral fibre of a country that permits itself to be highjacked by a neighbouring gangster-country, and permits authority to be taken by a violent Islamist faction on its soil, claiming to be acting in the best interests of all Muslims and Arabs in the Middle East?
Yes, Lebanon is a small country, an unfortunate country, a country scrabbling to lift itselt out of a syndrom of civil war and occupation. Yet Israel too is an embattled country, struggling to exist in a sea of hostility. Israel saw the necessity to enact legislation to enable military conscription, a hard thing to do for any country, but by which means it has established a fighting force in protection of its own. Lebanon had a similar option, and it could also have called upon its former colonial master, France, for needed support in eradicating Hezbollah from its soil. It did neither.
Cause and effect. The case is clear. Responsibility must be taken.
Clouded vision isn't quite the same as rose-coloured glasses.
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, July 18, 2006
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