Discrimination kills

Editorial

Discrimination and prejudice harm in unintended and multitudinous ways. The intended objects of prejudice are rarely its only victims. The perpetrators are also victimized in complex and unique psychological manners and sometimes, completely unrelated people suffer, too.

Schoolkids, regardless of their sexual orientation, are routinely victims of homophobia, for example. A Surrey high school student, Hamed Nastoh, was driven to suicide in 2000 by incessant homophobic bullying. His parents insisted he wasn't gay – not that that should matter – but he was a victim of homophobia nonetheless. How many countless anonymous victims have suffered similarly – even if the outcome was less violent?

Prejudice, it is often noted, victimizes the perpetrator, too. The psychological impact of hate and discrimination is a complex affair, but carrying a burden of intolerance is not healthy.

On a global scale, discrimination manifests itself in perverse ways, such as in the aftermath of a massive earthquake in Bam, Iran, in 2003. More than 43,000 people were killed in the Richter 6.6 quake, an estimated 30,000 were injured and as many as 75,000 made homeless, according to official estimates. But when Israel, by necessity and experience a regional and world leader in the management of disaster and mass trauma, offered assistance, it was rejected. The fanatics who run Iran preferred to watch their own citizens die than accept assistance from the despised Zionist entity. Hate kills in unintended ways.

Now, in an allegation as disturbing as the Iranian rejection, Vancouver's Georgia Straight newspaper reports that the involvement of Canadian Jews in the movement to prevent a broader genocide in Darfur, Sudan, could be preventing more involvement in the issue by "progressive" and left-wing Canadians.

"Sadly, after two years, I don't see a lot of movement," Clement Apaak, head of Canadian Students for Darfur, told Straight writer Terry Glavin. "I consider myself centre-left and I have been very active and vocal on a lot of issues, but I have to admit I have been very disappointed about the blatant silence of the left on this issue."

Already, as many as 400,000 Darfurians have died and millions more live a precarious existence at the whim of the Sudanese government-backed Janjaweed militias.

It has not gone unnoticed that the regular suspects who appear at many or most rallies for social justice issues and other good causes around the Vancouver area have been largely absent from the various events in support of the people of Darfur. While a rally against Israel's "apartheid wall" or against the various "imperialist" wars and American foreign policy can instantly mobilize passionate crowds of young and old activists, the Darfur issue has failed to catch fire among many in this segment.

Why? There are several possibilities Glavin elucidates in last week's article. Mohamed Haroun, the president of the Darfur Association of Canada, has said that too many Muslims "do not consider us African Muslims as equals."

But there is another possibility, carefully alluded to by Apaak and Glavin: Jewish Canadians have been central to the Darfurian cause here in Canada.

While Glavin characterizes this as an "irrational suspicion," the fact is that Jewish leaders, beginning with Canadian Jewish Congress's Pacific Region chair, Mark Weintraub, and expanding out into a national mobilization, have been motivated by the lessons of Jewish history to refuse to stand silent while a people is threatened with genocidal aggression. In fact, the tiny Darfurian community in Canada has been aided greatly in their efforts to bring attention to the crisis by Canadian Jews, including Holocaust survivors like Vancouver's Robbie Waisman and by members of the second and third generation.

In large part because of this Jewish activism, Darfur became a Canadian issue and, in turn, Canada became a leading voice in a world still far too unconcerned about the fate of Darfurians. Little thanks to the "social justice" activists who set the agenda of the Canadian left.

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