National Post (National Edition)
Saudi spat not about Canada: Glavin,
Full marks must go to Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland in her insistence that Canada will not back down in the face of the diplomatic temper tantrum that erupted last weekend within the Saud family oligarchy in Riyadh. There are some critical points that have been overlooked in the drama, however, the main point being that the hullabaloo has absolutely nothing to do with the “Canadian values” we keep hearing about.
Firstly, it wasn’t so much anything Freeland said about the regime’s disgusting human-rights abuses that caused the thuggish billionaire Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman to lose his marbles last weekend. The tipping point was when the brief statement the Canadian embassy released last Friday, expressing concern about the obstreperous kingdom’s recent wave of arrests of civil society and women’s rights activists, was circulated in Saudi Arabia’s social media, in Arabic. The statement included this: “We urge the Saudi authorities to immediately release them and all other peaceful #humanrights activists.”
That’s what caused the Saudi foreign ministry to go ballistic: “The Canadian position is an overt and blatant interference in the internal affairs of the Kingdom of #Saudi Arabia and is in contravention of the most basic international norms and all the charters governing relations between States … Any other attempt to interfere with our internal affairs from #Canada means that we are allowed to interfere in #Canada’s internal affairs.”
Well, that’s pretty rich. For one thing, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been interfering in Canada’s internal affairs for years, not least by its lavish funding of several Muslim institutions for the purpose of suppressing resistance to the absurdly austere Salafist branch of Islam enforced by the Saud family and its roughly 12,000 “princes.” That iteration of Islam is what’s at the root of the mass executions, the mass incarcerations, the preposterous misogyny and all the other filthy policestate habits that continue to crush attempts at human progress in the Arabian peninsula.
For another thing, as for the “charters governing relations between states,” what has gone almost wholly unnoticed is that the Canadian embassy statement was merely a recapitulation of this bland declaration, issued last Tuesday by the UN’S Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: “We urge the Government of Saudi Arabia to unconditionally release all humanrights defenders and activists who have been detained for their peaceful human-rights work, including their decades-long campaigns for the lifting of the driving ban for women. Any investigations must be held in a transparent manner, with full respect for due process rights. All human-rights defenders should be able to carry out their crucial human-rights work without fear of reprisals or prosecution.”
It’s unambiguously plain what’s going on here, and it has nothing to do with anything Canada has said or done. The kingdom’s recently elevated Mohammad bin Salman, a chubby 32-year-old war criminal with a taste for fine art, French mansions and luxury yachts, is pushing his ample weight around. He wants to make an example of Canada.
In his previous post as defence minister, Bin Salman launched a barbaric bombing campaign in Yemen that has resulted in the deaths of at least 15,000 people and has left half the population of that desperately poor country at the brink of famine. The war is ongoing. The Saudis have sent troops into Bahrain, sponsored proxy jihadists in Syria, and bullied Qatar into almost total regional isolation. Bin Salman has lately engaged in an elaborately managed public-relations campaign for himself, swanning around with European and American celebrity one-percenters and taking credit for what few recent crumbs Saudi Arabia’s courageous women’s rights champions have managed to procure from the Saudi “royal family” table — like the right to drive cars.
Canada is getting in the way of all that effort, and Freeland is quite right to assert that Canada will not be intimidated by the Saud family’s fuse-blowing: the eviction of Ambassador Dennis Horak, the freezing all new bilateral trade and investment, ordering the 15,000-or-so Saudi students in Canada to enrol in schools elsewhere, suspending flights to and from Toronto, and so on. “We are always going to speak up for human rights. We’re always going to speak up for women’s rights. And that is not going to change,” Freeland said. This is all to the good. This, however, is totally self-defeating: “Canadians expect our foreign policy to be driven by and to embody Canadian values, and that is how we intend to continue our foreign policy.”
If it’s all just about some exceptionally Canadian virtues, the Americans, the British and the Europeans are not going to be roused from the sleazy ambivalence they’ve exhibited in response to the Saudis’ hysterical reaction to an otherwise run-of-the-mill statement that happened to be contained in a Canadian embassy tweet. Here’s Finance Minister Bill Morneau chiming in with the same self-flattering piety: “It’s important that we bring Canadian values around the world, and we are going to continue to enunciate what we believe are the appropriate ways of dealing with citizens.”
The Conservatives’ Michelle Rempel isn’t helping, either: “The Liberals have shown a pattern of failure on diplomatic efforts which stems from using social media and photo ops instead of effective diplomatic engagements to advance Canadian values and interests.”
Rempel has a point, that the Liberals have been far too wishywashy about the Khomeinist regime in Iran, where women’s rights leaders and workers are engaged in something approaching a mass uprising at the moment. The Khomeinists are the Saudis’ nemesis in a violent geopolitical contest for hegemony in the Middle East, and it’s no secret in Riyadh that Canada has been hiding behind the European Union’s coattails as the continent’s business elites continue their efforts to end-run the Trump administration’s revived sanctions on trade with Iran.
But our fellow democracies in the NATO capitals aren’t going to be mobilized in our defence if it’s just a matter of Justin Trudeau’s Canada being adorably Canadian again. The 30 Arab feminists and humanrights leaders who bravely put their names to an open letter to the UN on July 13, calling for the release of the courageous activists the Saudis have lately imprisoned, would surely be astonished to learn that it’s “Canadian values” they’re fighting for.
This struggle is not just about us. This struggle is bigger than us. Until Canadians start noticing that — whether it’s China’s subversions, or Russia’s malevolent interferences, or the Saudis’ bullying — we’re going to be standing alone.
SAUDI ARABIA HAS BEEN INTERFERING IN CANADA’S INTERNAL AFFAIRS FOR YEARS.