Human Rights Records
Finally, Canada is leaving diplomacy where it belongs, back in the portfolio that speaks of the efficacy of diplomatic relations when one is dealing with reasonable, intelligent and open regimes. Diplomacy utilized as a means of achieving understanding between separate entities becomes futile when one of the duo is unprepared to examine all sides of a question. Diplomacy used by a secular-humanist society as a means of persuading a society implacably ruled by a brutal dictatorship is appeasement, and nothing is to be gained by it. Other than the dictatorship flipping its distaste and annoyance at the unwanted attention of another society it gives no credence to in the first place.Canada has reworked its presence on the world stage. And where better to do so that in its presence at the United Nations, where the assemblage of nations gather to discuss matters of state, of international intrigue, of assistance where required, of assistance where spurned but still required and accepted without gratitude but with full expectation of more. While this is an imperfect agency whose mandate it is to work for the good of mankind universally, it is the sole international agency where the countries of the world are gathered to sit in diplomatic judgement on the state of the world and how the assembled can assist at times of crisis.
For some member countries crisis is the manner in which their populations live day by tedious day under threat of greater crisis should they question the authority of their dictatorial overseers. For some member countries order and good government remains the byword whereby their populations have the freedom to speak as they will, act in good conscience, worship at will, live comfortable lives without the strictures that weigh so heavily upon the formerly-described groups, and with the knowledge that they and their families are safe and secure.
There is an enormous divide between the have and the have-not countries of the world, the successfull achievers and the slowly emerging countries of the world seeking economic parity with the successes. On the one hand the socially-advanced, economically surging countries host populations living personally enabling lives, and on the other the socially-backward, economically deprived countries' populations live lives of want and despair. In too many of the deprived countries those who rule by divine (or martial) fiat enrich themselves handsomely, leaving the vast population in constant want.
The utter unfairness of the conditions in which the vast bulk of the world's citizens live is compelling enough to make any citizen of a Western, secular democratic society wince with guilt. We elect representatives, and appoint ambassadors to other countries of the world to represent our own particular interests country-to-country, but we send representative ambassadors to the United Nations to play an integral part in the affairs of the world at large.
Too long have too many Western countries danced around the issues of backwardness, social/cultural ineptness, economic deprivation, lawlessness, and lack of governmental responsibility of too many UN member countries toward their citizens. While Western countries continue to be prodded and urged to give over greater percentages of the GDP to foreign relief, those very same countries receiving huge sums of guilt money from the West use it in questionable ways, so very little of it actually reaches the targets they are meant to assist, while enriching the deep pockets of their rulers.
It is long past time that what is talked about constantly in the corridors of the UN, be brought clearly out into the open. As good a start as any is the issue of human rights, a bellwether in any nation of the manner in which people are permitted to live their lives in peace and security, obligating the state to take responsibility for the well-being of its own people. Now that Canada has stood up resolutely and publicly in the United Nations and named countries and admonished them for their appalling human rights records the first shoe has dropped.
That this public naming and shaming has hit its target and rankled the named countries can be interpreted as finally beginning to make some headway. Countries and their representatives would not be shamed to be named if there was nothing behind the allegations of human rights abuses. That this public naming has caused shame is a fairly good indication that the charges have hit home, and this is a good beginning.
That countries such as Iran and Sudan have complained about Canada's "undiplomatic" stance would be laughable, if it were not so piteous. Iran, that repressive theocratic regime that bullies its people, bullies and threatens its neighbours and the peace of the world at large, now counter-attacks, calling into question Canada's record on human rights, citing the state of Canada's aboriginal populations, and its large immigrant population is risible. As though there might be any reason for comparison between the freedom that Canada represents and the cautionary fear that Iran represents.
No country can present as utopia, for all countries are comprised of human beings, their elected representatives composed also of human beings. There is no perfection in the record of human civil achievement, but there is an ongoing striving to attain a condition of life as favourable to human comfort and freedom as possible, and this is what exemplifies the governance of most Western democratic institutions.
It is time that countries like Sudan which reserves for itself the right to mass murder of segments of its population take note that the rest of the world views its actions in a very dim light, and will cease to recognize its sovereign legitimacy should it continue. It is time that countries like Iran, representing chaos to the order of the world, and criminal repression to its own beleaguered society, realize that its juvenile displays of hubris will no longer be accepted.
It is time the United Nations undertakes to perform to the full extent of its mandate, to represent the best interests of the world at large, and to find meaningful ways to act to protect endangered citizens and the peace of the world. Scolding, cajoling, pleading accomplishes nothing.
Bravo, Canada.
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, November 02, 2006
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