ARGUING ABOUT GENOCIDE
… AND DOING NOTHING TO STOP IT
An i nteresting discussion broke out on Twitter in recent days: Why might nearly every Liberal MP vote against labelling the Islamic State of Iraq & the Levant’s ( ISIL) self- admitted aggression against religious groups as a “genocide”? Perhaps the Conservative motion on the table was too vaguely worded: in addition to “Christians, Yazidis and Shia Muslims,” it identified “other religious and ethnic minorities in Syria and Iraq.” Perhaps they’re worried the word would trigger legal obligations to intervene, resettle refugees and pursue redress under cumbersome international law. Perhaps the name really doesn’t matter, given that the facts are not in dispute.
Leading Liberals don’t actually seem to have mounted those arguments, however, so I’m inclined to judge them on the ones they have. In Question Period on Wednesday, for example, Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion noted that the Swedish Parliament had also declined to call ISIL’s actions genocide. And … that seemed to be it. For the record, things Canada has done that Sweden has not include contesting the Second World War.
Well, this is a bit better: “We do not feel that politicians should be weighing in on this,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in Question period on Tuesday. “Determinations of genocide need to be made in an objective, responsible way.” Thus, he said, his government had asked the UN Security Council “to make a determination on this.” Said council’s members include Russia and China, but hey, at least it’s a position.
Making the same argument in Question Period last week, Pam Goldsmith- Jones, Dion’s parliamentary secretary, quoted U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry at a March 17 press conference: “I am neither judge, nor prosecutor, nor jury with respect to the allegations of genocide.”
She did not, however, quote Kerry’s stated reason for assembling the press: “My purpose in appearing before you today is to assert that, in my judgment, Daesh is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims.”
When Kerry faced near- identical demands to call ISIL’s atrocities genocide, his explanation was relatively clear: he wanted his ducks in a row. “We are currently doing what I have to do, which is review very carefully the legal standards and precedents,” he said in February. He did not suggest it was actually no business of his to make a call.
Furthermore, the principle that politicians mustn’t weigh in on genocide seemed not to trouble Trudeau as recently as April, when he noted the anniversary of the Armenian genocide. “We mark the 101st commemoration of the tragic loss of life … during the waning days of the Ottoman Empire in 1915,” his office wrote in a statement to the Armenian National Committee of Canada. “Both the Senate of Canada and the House of Commons have adopted resolutions referring to these events as genocide.”
Bodies that have not recognized the Armenian genocide as such include … the United Nations. But a UN report released Thursday calling ISIL’s attacks on the Yazidis genocide was good enough for the Liberals finally to concede the point with respect to that group. The Conservatives, naturally, then immediately began demanding they concede the point with respect to the other groups.
Kerry and his country have skin in the game. It actually matters what the United States calls it, given that it’s leading the military effort against ISIL. It does not matter what Canada calls it, because we haven’t been doing much about it — or indeed, about the slaughter of many times more Syrians by President Bashar Assad — and there is no sign of that changing.
I’m neither strongly opposed, nor strongly in favour, of an aggressive intervention. I don’t trust the people who plan these forays not to leave the place worse off, but I don’t think I could argue against a concerted Canadian attempt, however belated, to put an end to the bloodshed. Absent any such attempt, however, it is utterly mortifying to watch Canadian politicians asserting moral superiority based on their vocabulary.
On the ISIL file, Conservatives talked big, but only sent six CF-18s to help; now they try to shame the Liberals, whose efforts are probably more substantial — albeit minus the jets, for no reason they have ever managed to articulate — simply because they won’t use a noun. And the Liberals couldn’t muster a half- plausible explanation for not using it.
My colleague David Akin recently noted Dion’s use of the toe-curling Liberal catchphrase “Canada’s back” at the UN Security Council. He suggested international observers would be confused, on account of Canada never having left. And it’s absolutely true: we’re still here, fighting pointless little battles. The party that claims to see the world as it is did little about the latest disaster in the Middle East, and the party that wallows in third-way peacekeeping honest- brokering mythopoeia seems happier than ever to splash about in an even more incoherent form of it.
To borrow another Liberal catchphrase, the world does not need more of this.
IT IS UTTERLY MORTIFYING TO WATCH CANADIAN POLITICIANS ASSERTING MORAL SUPERIORITY BASED ON THEIR VOCABULARY. I DON’T THINK I COULD ARGUE AGAINST A CONCERTED CANADIAN ATTEMPT, HOWEVER BELATED, TO PUT AN END TO THE BLOODSHED. — CHRIS SELLEY