10th
Anniversary of 9/11
Harper Conjures Up Fictitious Extremists
to Justify Fascism at Home and
Wars of Aggression and Occupation Abroad
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is using the tenth
anniversary of 9/11
to repeat the theme that unnamed "dangerous extremists," both outside
and inside Canada, are a
threat to the people's well-being because they oppose "Canadian
values," i.e., the values put forward by Harper to uphold monopoly
right at home and abroad, including
Canada's annexation into U.S. security arrangements and its
participation in U.S. wars of aggression and occupation. In this vein,
Harper declared September 11 henceforth
a National Day of Service.
Meanwhile the government is also
strongly advocating for a "North
American Security Perimeter," supposedly to "address threats before
they reach our shores." In reality,
this is to bring Canada further under the annexationist dictate of U.S.
imperialism which is similarly attacking anyone who dissents and
opposes "American values." Thus,
to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11, it was announced that U.S.
and Canadian negotiators "have successfully concluded talks on a new
deal to integrate continental
security and erase obstacles to cross-border trade." Writing for the Globe and Mail,
John Ibbitson says that "[t]he most crucial phase then
lies ahead, as both the Canadian
and U.S. governments try to sell the proposals to their respective
publics. A new poll suggests that in Canada, at least, that could be
harder than it would have been a few
years ago, although with a majority government, the Conservatives can
pass any legislation that may be required, barring massive public
opposition."
The kind of threats the Prime Minister envisions were
made clear in
a September 6 interview with the CBC when he stated that the "hate
ideology" he calls "Islamicism"
remains the greatest threat to Canada's national security but that
authorities must also keep a close eye out for domestic extremists.
Once again obscured by all this posturing
and not considered a problem is the fact that U.S. imperialism is
without a doubt the greatest outside and inside threat to Canada's
security as well as to the security of the
people of the entire world.
Harper's 9/11 pronouncements and plans continue his
ongoing campaign
to criminalize anyone who dissents and to strip dissenters of their
civil rights, making lawful
the condition of civil death. This deprives the citizenry of its right
to conscience for opposing monopoly dictate, fascist laws, wars of
aggression and so on. Some recent examples of criminalization of
dissent include the June 2010 police attack on the 30,000 people who
opposed the G8/20 which resulted in over 1,105 arrests and a number of
youth still accused of conspiracy; the arrest of a group of Ottawa
Muslims in August 2010 under the guise that they were members of a
secret terrorist cell; and the October 2010 arrest of Tamil
asylum seekers under the hoax that they could be harbouring terrorists.
The Harper government also maintains dozens of formal and informal
blacklists of organizations and individuals such as the List of
Terrorist Entities created by the Anti-Terrorism
Act of 2001 and Transport Canada's No-Fly List, which in essence
amounts to imposing on people a sentence of civil death. The victims of
security certificates are also forced to continue opposing scandalous
violations of rudimentary due process and justice while Harper and his
ministers are naming people deemed by his government unsuitable for
refugee status as "war criminals" -- especially if their "values" are
considered
"unfit" -- without any due process whatsoever.
Harper is capitalizing on the anniversary of September
11, to push his campaign to present this criminalization of conscience
and dissent as a "Canadian demand" and his government is planning to
re-introduce two expired clauses of Canada's 5-year post-9/11 Anti-Terrorism
Act, introduced by the
Chrétien
government in 2001. One clause allows police to detain a so-called
terrorist suspect without charges
for three days whereas currently under Canadian law a charge must be
laid within 24 hours. The other clause gives judges the power to
interrogate a witness in secret and
to send the witness to jail for refusal to comply, which is an attack
on the internationally recognized right of any individual to remain
silent, as well as a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights
and Freedoms.
Harper would have us
conclude from all this misuse of 9/11 that
dangerous extremists are around us and among us but, have no fear, the
Harper government will be
our champion of freedom, democracy and rights, and can be entrusted
with our fate. And even though he rails against "Islamicism," Harper
assures us that Islam is not really
the enemy; extremists are the enemy. In the end, Harper aims to
pressure people to support a false dichotomy of "lawful Muslims" versus
"unlawful Muslims" and calls on
the "lawful Muslims" to oppose the "unlawful Muslims." Harper
perpetrates the Cold War ideology that the danger is presented by the
extremists but the state is the champion
of the "middle way." This in turn can be used to justify anything the
state does as necessary to defend national security, including waging
aggressive wars against "outside
extremists" and organizing internal repression against "domestic
threats." In other words, in the name of opposing extremism and
"hateful ideologies," Harper can justify
any or all of Canada's participation in attacks on Afghanistan and
Libya, violent police attacks on demonstrators, and passing a law in
Parliament to declare any criticism
of Zionism and Israel to be an anti-semitic "hate crime" and depriving
swaths of people their civil rights. Harper can also use the notion of
opposing extremism to justify
a shady project to erect a monument commemorating the so-called "crimes
of totalitarian communism," with communism being misleadingly labelled
as an "extreme" and
falsely equated with the other "extreme" -- Nazism -- all to hide his
own adherence to Nazism.
People must not allow Harper to use the emotions
surrounding 9/11 to
line them up in defence of "Canadian values" in the name of opposing
"Islamacists" or extremists,
protecting national security, or for any other such bogus reason.
Harper's aim is not the championing of freedom, democracy and rights in
the interests of the people but
the championing of aggressive war abroad and fascism at home and the
continuation of the Canadian state's slavish following and support of
U.S. imperialism in its goal
of world domination. This must not pass. Let us use the occasion of the
anniversary of 9/11 not to take up Harper's sinister agenda but to take
up the people's agenda by
redoubling our efforts to oppose all acts of individual and state
violence and to demand an end to all wars of aggression and the
withdrawal of all troops from foreign
lands.
September 10, 2011 Bulletin • Return to Index • Write to: editor@cpcml.ca
|