Posts By Crommunist

3 Something important is still happening

February 22, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · free speech · news · politics

Back in the beginning of January, the people of Tunisia decided they’d had enough of systemic government corruption and a leadership that had repeatedly demonstrated its contempt for its people. They staged a large-scale protest, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets and calling for the resignation of then-president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. When Ben Ali fled the country and his government toppled, people in oppressed countries all over Africa and the Middle East took immediate notice.

That spirit of revolution and the power of ordinary people to affect widespread change was picked up almost immediately by the people of Egypt, who fought an even tougher battle against a firmly-entrenched and powerful leader. The people’s desire for wholesale change was barely dented by vicious violence directed by a corrupt government, its baton-wielding thugs and its unashamedly dishonest state media. It took weeks of mounting protest and the attention of the entire world, but the protests (largely peaceful although there was occasional retaliation by anti-government protesters) eventually achieved their stated goal: the removal of Hosini Mubarak after 30 years of corrupt rule.

As I stated previously, there’s really only one important thing happening in the world right now, and it’s spreading:

Hundreds of Libyans calling for the government’s ouster clashed with security forces early Wednesday in the country’s second-largest city as Egypt-inspired unrest spread to the country long ruled by Moammar Gadhafi. Ashur Shamis, a Libyan opposition activist in London, and witnesses said the protest began Tuesday and lasted until the early hours Wednesday in the port city of Benghazi.

What’s perhaps most interesting about these protests is that the governments don’t seem to learn much from each other’s missteps:

Protests have been banned in Bahrain and the military has been ordered to tighten its grip after the violent removal of anti-government demonstrators, state TV reports. The army would take every measure necessary to preserve security, the interior ministry said. Three people died and 231 were injured when police broke up the main protest camp, said Bahrain’s health minister.

The immediate reaction of these regimes seems to be the use of force to quell dissent. The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t seem to work all that well, and often only serves to bolster the resolve of the people who are in the streets. It seems as though people living in autocratic regimes where police and government officials are all corrupt and organize crime syndicates are often inextricably intertwined with the normal day-to-day business of living aren’t all that afraid of getting beat up if the chance of freedom exists. Sometimes, the consequences are more dire than that:

Bahraini security forces have opened fire on anti-government protesters, witnesses and opposition activists say. The protesters were fired on after they had streamed into the centre of the capital Manama from the funerals of protesters killed in a security crackdown earlier this week. Witnesses said the army fired live rounds and tear gas, and officials said at least 120 people had been hurt.

Two people have been killed and 40 wounded after police shot at a crowd of protesters in Kurdistan, northern Iraq. Hundreds of young men, chanting slogans against corruption and high unemployment, tried to storm the local government offices in Sulaimaniya. There have been a string of protests in cities across Iraq. On Wednesday, three people were killed in clashes with police in the southern city of Kut.

At least three people have been killed during widespread anti-government demonstrations in Yemen. Two people were killed in the southern port city of Aden from gunfire as police moved to disperse protesters, medical officials and witnesses said. In the city of Taiz, one person was killed when a grenade was thrown from a car into a crowd of protesters. And in the capital Sanaa, supporters and opponents of President Ali Abdullah Saleh clashed on the streets.

Iran’s opposition leaders should face trial and be put to death, the country’s hardline lawmakers said Tuesday, a day after clashes between opposition protesters and security forces left one person dead and dozens injured. At an open session of parliament Tuesday, pro-government legislators demanded that opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mahdi Karroubi and former reformist President Mohammad Khatami face be held responsible for the protests.

It’s tempting to cheer unabashedly for the forces of popular reform. After all, these are countries that are ruled by despotic leaders that regularly violate the human rights of their own people, hold corrupt “elections” where the outcome is decided a priori and fail to display anything that looks even slightly like common decency. However, just because those people are being thrown out, that doesn’t mean that the new batch is necessarily going to be any better. Imagine what it would look like, for instance, if the Tea Party in the United States successfully overthrew the government and installed Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann as the new leader – sometimes the people are idiots, and find even bigger idiots to lead them.

Most interesting (to me personally) in all of this is the role that the media and especially the internet are playing. The uniform knee-jerk reaction from those in power has been to spread lies over state media about how violence is being started by the protesters, that they are sponsored by foreign interests, that police are being called in to protect the people… the list of falsehoods goes on. Despite attempts to silence reporters (and the particularly disgusting and shocking case of Lara Logan’s assault in Egypt), reports have been flowing out on a regular basis. In an age when anyone with a cell phone and an internet connection can become an instant amateur journalist, controlling the flow of information has become next to impossible. The United States is making noises like it understands that:

China has warned the US not to use calls for internet freedom as an excuse to meddle in other countries’ affairs. The foreign ministry comments came after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced an initiative to help dissidents around the world get past government internet controls. Since Mrs Clinton’s speech, comments about it have been removed from China’s popular Twitter-like microblog sites.

It seems like some autocrats never learn. Whatever the outcome of all of these uprisings, the inability of these despotic states to control the free speech of their citizens will ultimately ensure their downfall. No society that can communicate with the rest of the world can truly be controlled by its rulers.

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2 Black history in Canada moment: Ontario

February 21, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · conservativism · history · race · racism · religion

This year for Black History Month, I have decided to do a bit of research into black history in my home and native land, Canada. Since there are 4 Mondays in February, I am going to focus on 4 different regions of the country. Last week I looked at black history in the prairies. This week, I am focusing on the Ontario, Canada’s oldest and most populous province. This summary will intentionally exclude Toronto – black history in Toronto is so long and complex that any attempt to summarize it in ~1000 words would be doing it a grave disservice.

I was born in British Columbia, living in the interior until I was ten years old. My family moved to the Toronto area in 1994 so that my father could complete his graduate degree in social work at the University of Toronto. I lived in various parts of southern and eastern Ontario over 15 years, including two years in Kingston, Ontario (which was Canada’s first capital and where first Prime Minister John A. MacDonald resided) while I completed my own graduate degree. While I call British Columbia home, I am just as entitled to consider myself a native son of Ontario, having spent my formative years there.

Black history also has long and deep roots in the province of Ontario. After the United States passed the Fugitive Slave act of 1850 which, among other things, compelled people to return runaway slaves to their owners, the northern United States were no longer a safe haven where a slave could find her/his own life. As a result, emigration (flight, really) of black Slaves into Canada began in earnest. Because of where the borders were located, their proximity to major American urban centres, and the difficulty of moving people across the prairies in the United States, Ontario became a prime location to smuggle in freed slaves. As with most displaced peoples, blacks settled and tried to build lives for themselves as soon as they had the opportunity, which means that black settlement in Ontario dates back hundreds of years – prior, in fact, to much of any group settling in the prairies.

One of the earliest such settlements was the farming community of Buxton. Buxton is famous among buffs of the history of slavery, as it was considered the “last stop” on the Underground Railroad that brought escaped slaves from the United States to Canada. The land was purchased and made available to the fugitives by Reverend William King – a fact that should not be overlooked when considering the role of Christians and white abolitionists in the movement to aid slaves. Despite the availability of land and a means of cultivating it, things were obviously not all roses and smiles for freed men in the new “promised land”, as this quote from A NorthSide View of Slavery. The Refugee: or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada. Related by themselves, with an account of the history and condition of the colored population of Upper Canada will attest:

Among some people here, there is as much prejudice as in the States, but they cannot carry it out as they do in the States: the law makes the difference. I am acquainted with many of the colored families here, and they are doing well. We have good schools here.

Once again, this fact cannot be overlooked by those who would claim that Canada was a racism-free land of milk and honey, or those who would claim that passing laws against discrimination or other prejudice are ineffectual.

I’ve been to Buxton, Ontario. There are in fact several Buxtons with similar histories – one in Nova Scotia, and another in Grenada in the West Indies. The Buxton I went to has a graveyard, which is perhaps the oldest and best-kept black historical site in Canada. There are Cromwells buried in the cemetery at Buxton, Ontario, but these are likely no relation to me – our name is a bastardization of a Dutch surname. Near Buxton is the small town of Chatham, which has its own distinct historical significance. Perhaps chief among its contributions is the fact that it was used as the staging ground for the famous raid on Harper’s Ferry by the American abolitionist John Brown.

In my pokings around doing research for this article, I was struck with a bit of history I had never even heard hinted at before. Reading books by Lawrence Hill (a great Canadian author who you should definitely look into if you get a chance), I learned that Oakville, Ontario has a long black history. This is a particularly outrageous suggestion, given the nearly monochromatic makeup of Oakville currently. I was looking for some information to corroborate this, when I discovered that the Niagara Movement has a Canadian origin.

The Niagara Movement was a political group devoted to antisegregation and the improvement of the plight of black people in the United States, founded by black intellectuals under the supervisory auspices of W.E.B. Du Bois – himself a prominent and influential black intellectual whose life history is an amazing story that is chronicled in the book Up From Slavery (n.b. – Up From Slavery was written by Booker T. Washington, not Du Bois. Du Bois has written several autobiographies, the most recent of which was published in 1968, and which I apparently need to read post-haste). The Niagara Movement laid down the foundation of what would become the prevailing attitude towards the improvement of black people’s lives, and eventually lead to the foundation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) which is, of course, still in existence. The inaugural meeting took place in Fort Erie, Ontario near Niagara Falls. Interestingly, the advancement of women was part of the foundation of this movement, working in concert with and anticipating the suffrage movement that was to define the next few decades.

It was at their meeting in Fort Erie that they (mostly Du Bois) built the basis of their foundational document that called for, among many other things, equal and desegregated schools, the protection of trade unions, anti-discrimination statues, and a number of other things that would make any decent conservative wake up in a cold sweat. They also criticized the institution of the Christian churches, particularly their complicity in racial prejudice. Once again, these facts speak against the attempt to re-brand the abolition movement as being in line with conservativism or Christianity, as is often attempted.

As I stated in the header, there is far more to black history in Ontario than I can comfortably address here, and more conscientious scholars than your humble narrator have done much more thorough jobs of chronicling it. The “take home message” of this piece (indeed, all of these pieces) is that black history is closely tied to Canadian history. The prosperity and stability of the territory of Upper Canada (the early name for Ontario) owes a good portion of its existence to the contributions made by black people – freed slaves and their descendants alike. To fail to recognize this is to rewrite history and neglect an important and interesting narrative.

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3 Movie Friday: Stewart Lee – Political Correctness

February 18, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · conservativism · funny · history · movie · racism

A friend put me on to a new standup comedian:

There is a general misunderstanding that pervades the society we live in, and it comes from a grating lack of historical awareness. I’ve made somewhat oblique reference to it before, but the problem arises when we look at conditions today and assume that they were ever thus. For example, the words “political correctness” have taken on an almost pejorative connotation, implying an over-sensitive “culture of victims” where every word you say must be scrutinized and agonized over. What this view necessarily neglects is the reasons why those practices came to be in the first place. Whatever your feelings on welfare are, for example, there was once a time when there was no state welfare and poverty was a death sentence. Abolishing welfare isn’t an answer to anything, and suggesting otherwise is being criminally ignorant of history.

Stewart Lee points this out in a very dry way:

“…if political correctness has achieved one thing, it’s to make the Conservative party cloak its inherent racism behind more creative language.”

Racism, in a de facto sense, is inherent in conservative ideology and cannot simply be whitewashed over. When we forget our history and the struggles that it took for us to get here (however your feelings might be of “here”), we expose ourselves to the possibility of looking at the world today and crying “injustice” over issues where the alternative is far worse.

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0 Can we get some of that here?

February 17, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · forces of stupid · funny · medicine · skepticism

Romania has the right idea for all the wrong reasons:

Romanian witches and fortune tellers are cursing a new bill that threatens fines or even prison time if their predictions don’t come true. Superstition is a serious matter in the land of Dracula, and officials have turned to witches to help the recession-hit country collect more money and crack down on tax evasion.

I would love to see a law like this passed here, but applied equally to psychics, reflexologists, homeopaths, and any other profession that is in the business of making predictions based on tools that “can’t be measured by science”. Even if they can’t be measured, certainly we can test to see whether they work or not, right? Just like doctors have to keep scrupulous records of the prognosis and outcome of every patient they treat, and are subject to litigation if they make unreasonable predictions and promises, so too should be tarot card readers and other charlatans.

But of course Romania is doing this to separate the “real” witches from the “impostors”. Here’s a hint: they’re all impostors.

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3 The ongoing battle for cultural accommodation loses two skirmishes

February 17, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · cultural tolerance · culture · law · politics · racism · secularism

Regular readers may recall last month’s discussion over the kirpan, a piece of Sikh religious iconography that has been the subject of recent debate in the Quebec legislature:

While it would be a complete failure on our part to refuse to recognize the impact on the Sikh community (as a manifestation of privilege) of such a ban, we also must respect the fact that Canada is a secular nation, meaning that religious symbols are not to be given any kind of legal standing.

Finding equally compelling arguments on both sides of the issue, I was forced to swallow the bitter pill of compromise and suggest that a reasonable accommodation would be to allow kirpans that could not be used as weapons – either because they were locked or because they were too small (some are worn like lockets around the neck and are less than an inch long). I dislike advocating compromise, because it is usually a sign that both sides have given up trying to convince the other and are trying to get out of the room in time for lunch. In this case, I found myself stuck between two secular principles and unable to arbitrarily pick a side.

It seems that the Quebec legislature suffers from no such quandary:

Quebec’s governing Liberals voted in favour of an opposition motion to ban ceremonial daggers from the provincial legislature. The Parti Québécois tabled its motion Wednesday — requesting the government prevent Sikhs from carrying their ceremonial daggers into the national assembly building — and the legislature voted unanimously in favour.

The Opposition PQ was more strident and applauded the building’s security details, while stressing the party’s view that multiculturalism is a Canadian but not a Quebec value. PQ MNA Louise Beaudoin urged Sikhs to make a “little bit of an effort” and demanded the Liberal government clarify its position on religious objects in the legislature.

It’s nice to see that despite our differences, lawmakers can all agree that there is no room for accommodation of any of those weird foreign practices. Certainly no middle ground to be found between respecting individual freedoms and the secular nature of the state – that would be ridiculous.

Sikhs, predictably, are unhappy with the ruling:

The World Sikh Organization of Canada is disappointed with the Quebec national assembly’s decision to ban Sikhs from wearing a kirpan in the legislature. Arguing that multiculturalism is under threat, Canadian Sikhs pointed out that the Supreme Court of Canada decided in 2006 that the ceremonial dagger, traditionally worn underneath the clothing, is an article of faith — not a weapon.

While I sympathize with their feelings on this issue, I can’t help but roll my eyes whenever someone tries to claim that the kirpan isn’t a weapon. It is true that the religious dictates requiring Sikhs to wear kirpans do not require them to be viable as weapons, but to say that the kirpan isn’t designed with that purpose in mind is willful ignorance masquerading as tolerance. The question is whether or not the religious belief surrounding the weapon allows it to be exempted, under the assumption that nobody will ever use it for violence. That would be a stupid decision made for a stupid reason.

There have been accusations of racism/xenophobia that accompany this decision, and for the most part I tend to agree. There have been exactly zero incidents of someone being attacked in the Quebec legislature by a kirpan, so passing a law that bans them isn’t motivated by self-preservation so much as the wish to make a statement that people who look and behave different must fall in line. Again, I think a reasonable accommodation could have been made here, and failing to pursue that (with a unanimous decision it’s hard to argue otherwise) is strongly suggestive to me of a pervasive attitude that precludes the idea of accommodation.

This issue of religious behaviour functioning in secular society may become the defining issue of our discourse in the next little while. With the Supreme Court wrangling over the constitutionality of bans on polygamy, the Ontario provincial court grappling with veils on testifying witnesses, and now the kirpan issue, can we throw one more log on the fire?

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says a private members bill that would force people to show their faces when they vote is “reasonable.” A Quebec Conservative backbencher, Steven Blaney, rekindled the debate over veiled voters on Friday with the tabling of a bill that critics decry as an attempt to divide the electorate.

It is tempting to try and weigh the merits of this kind of issue and try to figure out if it is indeed reasonable. I would argue that asking someone to identify themselves in order to vote is very reasonable, and if that cannot be done by means of facial identification and there is no other alternative, requiring someone to show their face is perfectly fine. However, such a view of this issue ignores the real purpose – this is simply an attempt to find wedge issues in anticipation of an upcoming election. Unless there is a suspicion that voter fraud is happening at such a level that national-level legislation needs to be enacted, then this is simply an argument for argument’s sake. It’s a typical tactic of the Harper government that is about as transparent as it is utterly meaningless.

However, there is a larger point to be gleaned in all of this. Canada has to decide how it wants to define itself – as a rigidly secular nation where immigrants have to learn to adopt our customs, or as a place where accommodations are made as often as possible to ensure that everyone feels welcome. Both of these approaches have their merits, but I’m more optimistic about the second one working out as a long-term strategy.

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2 The religious right

February 16, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · civil rights · funny · law · religion · secularism

Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (also sometimes called the Constitution of Canada) guarantees all Canadians the following:

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

While there is a great deal of haggling over what this actually means (more on that in a second), at the very minimum it says that any Canadian person is entitled to hold their own private beliefs (whether religious or otherwise), and is allowed to express those beliefs openly without fear of official government infringement. This is the part of the Charter that gives me warm fuzzy feelings, incidentally. Pretty much everything else is good also, but this particular part makes my nature rise.

Personally, I favour this minimum definition – you’re allowed to believe and say anything you like, just so long as you don’t a) break the law in doing so, and/or b) try to forcibly compel others to adopt your beliefs. Other interpretations of the “freedom of religion” clause seem to think that you’re allowed to do pretty much whatever you want as long as you can find a religious justification for doing so. Both interpretations are, strictly speaking, in line with the wording of the Charter; however, the second one is both dangerous and stupid. Dangerous, because pretty much anything can be justified by claiming religious origin, and stupid because it leads to things like this:

A judge has thrown out a legal challenge that claimed Canada’s marijuana laws violate the freedom of religion provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The challenge was brought by two Toronto men — Peter Styrsky and Shahrooz Kharaghani — who are reverends in a group called the Church of the Universe… The church uses the drug as a sacrament and argues the law infringes on their freedom of religion rights under the charter.

Trying to claim that the right to religious freedom grants religious adherents freedoms that transcend those of the general populace is absurd. This particular church is obviously a bunch of crazies who think that marijuana is God’s “tree of life” (I am not making that up), but that’s really not that far a step above Rastafari who believe in ganja’s powers to cleanse and refocus the mind. Rastafari isn’t too many steps beyond Orthodox Judaism or anyone who keeps kosher, believing that the milk of a animal cannot be consumed with its meat through some kind of totemic magical properties that make it “unclean” to do so. Orthodox Judaism lies well within the mainstream view of religion, and its dietary restrictions are surely no more absurd than the requirement for Muslim women to cover up, or the Catholic admonishment to abstain from meat on certain days of the week.

Happily, the judge appears to agree with my assessment of where “religious freedom” begins and ends, which is that even the most pious and sincere religious conviction does not trump the law:

“I do not accept that providing cannabis to people in the basement … was a religious act,” she wrote. “They may well believe that providing [marijuana] to others is a good thing to do. That does not, however, transform its distribution into a religious belief or practice.”

This applies in equal measure to all attempts to circumvent the laws and statutes of society in the name of “religious expression”. Christians like to claim persecution when they have to treat LGBT people as though they are full human beings, entitled to the same level of jobs, services and treatment that anyone else is. This ruling speaks to that issue as well – your beliefs are fine so long as you keep them in the comfort of your own head. The second you bring them out into the open and begin contravening the laws of the land, you’re no longer entitled and must obey the same rules as everyone else. The irony is of course lost on the religious that the same rules that prevent them from discriminating against others also protect them from the selfsame discrimination they worry that we secularists are going to inflict upon them.

I think they should relax – the Charter already prohibits the things they’re worried about. Can’t relax? Ask the guys at the Church of the Universe – they might be able to help you out…

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4 iGuilt

February 15, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Catholic church · crapitalism · religion

I loved the first Austin Powers movie. The world was abundantly ready for a spy parody, and Powers hit the mark perfectly. Since its rapid decline (along with the equally rapid decline of my respect for Mike Myers, I’m sad to say), I don’t think about the franchise much. However, a recent news item reminded me of one particularly outrageously funny scene from the first movie.

The story? This:

An iPhone and iPad app that helps Roman Catholics seek forgiveness for their sins has been sanctioned by the Catholic Church. Confession: A Roman Catholic App, developed by Little iApps in South Bend, Ind., received an “imprimatur” — an official publication licence from the church — from Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of the Indiana Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, the company said in a news release.

The scene? This:

It’s a little too on the nose, actually. The decrepit old man chasing around a younger one in a vain attempt to convey both paternal authority and familial affection. The Church has been chasing its own youth for years now, to no avail (and no, that is not an abuse joke – those aren’t funny; people were really hurt by that shit). The ultra-conservative attitude of the church toward pretty much every topic under the sun continues to alienate their younger members, to the point where some of their formerly-revered institutions are starting to resort to means of recruitment that are… less than dignified.

I remember my last confession. It was just over 10 years ago at a Holy Thursday mass that I attended with my parents. For those of you who don’t know, Holy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper before Jesus’ arrest, torture and execution at the hands of the Romans. It was a custom at our church to engage in feet washing, to emulate the portion of the last supper when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. Basically, the act is supposed to be a form of humility before your fellow man – a recognition that we are fundamentally no better than each other and a reminder to do service to one another. The religious overtones aside, it is actually a really nice gesture that is at least 2 degrees of separation from worshiping God.

At any rate, after the foot washing, we were all encouraged to complete the sacrament of Confession in preparation for Good Friday. Traditionally, confession is done behind a screen to protect the anonymity of the confessing parishioner, but given the sheer number of people, the priest decided to relax that rule and offer confession in the open. If you didn’t feel comfortable, there was no coercion, and priests were brought in from other parishes if you didn’t feel comfortable talking to someone who knows you personally. Being 16 and having pretty much nothing of real substance to confess, I went to Father Peter (his line was shortest – I guess not everyone had consciences as clean as mine). Halfway through confessing my “sins” (jealousy, the occasional porno), I realized I felt a lot better about the whole thing. Before the penance and the absolution that followed, I realized that confessing my inner turmoil to another person and having him listen and sympathize (although I hated Fr. Peter’s guts, he was remarkably tolerant and understanding toward me) was a great help.

Any actual value that can be drawn from confession of “sins” (a concept I don’t personally believe in anymore) comes from having a sympathetic ear. As useless as having God forgive your sins is, confessing to a phone strips away the only part of the act that has any merit whatsoever. The Vatican apparently thinks so too:

The Vatican put its foot down Wednesday over the idea of “confessing” by iPhone, after news that U.S. users can now download an application for the Apple gadget that helps the faithful gain absolution. “It is essential to understand that the rites of penance require a personal dialogue between penitents and their confessor . . . It cannot be replaced by a computer application,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told journalists.

Of course Fr. Lombardi and I likely agree for strikingly different reasons. I think that talking to someone about your problems helps put them in perspective and helps you to put words to your feelings. Both of these things are wonderful and important steps to resolving problems. The mumbo-jumbo about God forgiving you and the token penance of a few muttered prayers is just dross plastered over the process to reinforce the Church’s superiority complex. If you’re going to replace the one part of the process that makes it at all worthwhile, you might as well save $1.99 and just forgive yourself.

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2 Black history in Canada moment: the prairies

February 14, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · history · race

Anyone who has been to the prairie provinces knows that they are a place unlike any other in the world. Canada’s early history is inextricable from the frontier and mass settlement across its middle territory. Canada’s present, certainly, relies heavily on its ability to produce abundant agriculture including grains, vegetables, soy products, corn, and cattle. Worn almost completely flat by glacial retreat, the prairie provinces are rich in soil, but sparsely populated. Even casual students of Canadian history know that none of this development would have been possible without the federal government’s policy of actively courting immigrants to settle on nearly free land.

Once again, our casual history of the prairie provinces overlooks the contribution and longevity of the black population.

Perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly, black history in the prairie provinces seems to be sparked by events in the United States. When the state of Oklahoma was created in 1907, strong segregation laws were passed that marginalized black Oklahomans. This act, coupled with the Canadian government’s policy of trying to attract immigrants from the United States to the fertile and largely uncultivated prairies, inspired black Oklahomans to migrate north and settle in Canada. Between 1907 and 1911, more than 1000 African-American settlers moved into Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Of course, no good thing goes unpunished. Frank Oliver, federal minister of the interior, passed the Immigration Act in 1911, granting the government powers to restrict immigration to certain ethnicities. This policy goes a long way to explain the ethnic makeup of Canada – ethnicities can be traced like tree-rings to “date” when families probably arrived in Canada. As was the case everywhere, black immigrants were not welcomed with open arms, many forced to pay something akin to the Chinese “head tax”. The Immigration Act would essentially choke off black settlement in the prairie provinces for the next 60 years until Caribbean countries were declared “desirable”, and a large wave of Trinidadian, Guyanese, Jamaican, and other West Indian immigrants entered Canada.

It is interesting to note that black families who settled in Alberta were able to maintain their homesteads at a rate significantly higher than average. One potential explanation for this phenomenon is that families that were prepared to endure the hardships involved in getting there in the first place were both more resilient and more stubborn than people whose passage was easier. However, the small number of black settlers meant that the black presence in the prairies was then, and continues to be, small. Calgary is a notable exception, with a black population of 2.2% (slightly below the national average, but much higher than in most other Canadian cities).

A friend of mine pointed me toward a black pioneer of a different stripe – Dr. Alfred Shadd. Born in Raleigh, Ontario in 1870, Shadd was one of those multi-talented and dedicated individuals that kind of makes you feel bad every time you spend a Friday on the couch eating Cheetos. Doctor, teacher, farmer, editor, and politician, all in one amazing black package. It is important to remember that after the outset of Confederation, the prairies were much like the Wild West – a largely untamed area that was far removed from a centralized government and many steps behind in the level of technology that was enjoyed by the major cities in the east. As a result, it was possible for men like Shadd to achieve a greater level of success out of sheer necessity.

This same friend knew about Shadd because an ancestor of hers ran against him in Kinitsino in Saskatchewan’s first federal election. A strong supporter of decentralized government and greater chez nous provincial control, Shadd ran as a conservative. He lost the election by fewer than 60 votes (a result my friend attributes at least in part to a campaign by racists to ensure that a black man didn’t hold office), but still led a remarkable life. It is interesting to note that Shadd and the man who defeated him (one Thomas Sanderson) were actually great friends and remained so after the election.

Anyone in the area of Edmonton who cares to do so should visit the Shiloh Baptist Church Cemetery, one of the few established historical burial places for black settlers in early Canada. There is a similar cemetery in Chatham, Ontario that I have visited myself (more about that next week), although the Shiloh site is not as rigorously maintained. Sadly, because black history was not (and still is not by many) considered worthy of preservation, it has declined greatly and is more totemic than informative. However, it remains an indelible link to the real contributions that black Canadians made to the foundation of Canada.

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0 Mubarak steps down

February 11, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Uncategorized

Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle…

Hosni Mubarak has stepped down as president of Egypt, after weeks of protest in Cairo and other cities. The news was greeted with a huge outburst of joy and celebration by thousands in Cairo’s Tahrir Square – the heart of the demonstrations.

It’s not over yet. There still remains to be seen what kind of government forms in the absence of a dictator, but compared to revolutions like France and the United States, this one is pretty bloodless. I’m going to keep watching.

0 Holy shit…

February 11, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog

Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle…

Hosni Mubarak has stepped down as president of Egypt, after weeks of protest in Cairo and other cities. The news was greeted with a huge outburst of joy and celebration by thousands in Cairo’s Tahrir Square – the heart of the demonstrations.

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