We must not allow terror to turn us into beasts
There is an easily missed photograph at Canada’s museum to our immigration history, Pier 21 in Halifax. It highlights a Polish immigrant family from the 1950s. The picture was clearly taken before they received the appalling news that they were being put on a boat back to Poland for having failed to adequately disprove “suspicions of communist sympathy.” One’s reaction is first shock and then anger at the official who summarily consigned this family, who must have escaped from Poland illegally, to a life in prison if not a more summary reception on their return.
But as you stare at this modest display in mounting anger, a second thought occurs. How courageous was the curator who found this story, and probably had to fight for it to be displayed. How proud one should be of the determination of the museum’s creators to tell all sides of Canada’s decidedly mixed immigration history. They smack you in the head at the exit with Daniel Libeskind’s understated but powerful memorial sculpture marking the cowardly decision of the MacKenzie King government to turn back a boatload of desperate Jewish refugees a few years earlier.
Canada’s priceless contribution to the world’s understanding of the essential role of tolerance or mutual accommodation in every successful community is the philosopher Charles Taylor. Taylor puts his case starkly. None of us, he cautions, is capable of resisting the seduction of prejudice, exclusion or even collective punishment if we are sufficiently terrified by propaganda about “the other.”
Equally, each of us is willing to walk the path of inclusion, tolerance and openness to religious, ethnic and racial diversity with sufficient reassurance about its wisdom and safety. He cites France’s painful passage from being one of the world’s most inclusive societies post-revolution, to its more shameful treatment of its Muslim citizens since they landed on its shores post-Algerian war.
The optimistic conclusion we should draw from the French case is twofold, he points out. First, any society dragged to the dark side can be redeemed, even if the reverse is equally true.
Second, it is all about leadership in the end. It is the inescapable task of genuine democratic leaders to build confidence in openness and tolerance. Leaders who breed fear and division for partisan gain shame themselves irredeemably, and doom their citizens to societies of paranoia and social discord.
So Canada and the world stand once again at this crossroad — do we build walls or bridges? Do we cede victory to these subhumans who revel in their ability to shed massive amounts of human blood purely to instill terror — and refuse sanctuary to their fleeing victims? Or do we teach our children well, about the dead end that such cowardice necessarily delivers? Do we again commit the sin of rejecting refugee ships such as the St. Louis in Halifax or the Komagata Maru in Vancouver. Will a future Pier 21 curator mount a photo of a dead Syrian family, next to the courageous but rejected Polish family?
Because there is another lesson from Paris, and all the horrors like it, that we will no doubt yet have to endure. Terrorism works. My confidence in a serenely safe Japan was shattered the day I missed by 25 minutes the Tokyo subway hit by the bloody sarin attack. My rage at the IRA was deep and murderous when my wife left Harrods half an hour before they killed London’s Christmas shoppers. I was an enthusiastic consumer of angry rhetoric and demands for excessive measures. It was some time before Charles Taylor’s wisdom slowly overwhelmed my determination to support lashing out in rage. Terrorists always have only one goal: to stab us into becoming the beasts their propaganda requires. To provoke the kind of sectarian intolerance and violent overreaction that offers visible proof to their audiences that we are indeed bloodthirsty racists and simply liars about the values of tolerance and inclusion we claim.
So, in the days ahead, when we have had the time to reflect on the egregious horror of Paris on Friday night, when the images of so many corpses on bloodsoaked streets begin to fade, let us also recall the photo of the tiny shattered body of Alan Kurdi on a Turkish beach.
Yes, we must all use our military, security and intelligence capabilities to crush ISIS — and Canada’s contribution in both military and humanitarian assistance must be greater.
But as hard as it may be to feel confident in doing so today, we must not repeat the mistakes of the last century. We must welcome into our neighbourhoods the victims fleeing this 21st century terror as future Canadians.
Leaders who exploit terrorist events for political gain shame themselves