![\"photo](\"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/jun-26-cov.26.David-Matas-pic-for-cover.jpg\")
<\/a>Matas was moved to pursue a career in refugee, immigration and international human rights law for a number of reasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started doing it because different people asked me to do it, including people at the law firm,\u201d he explained in an interview. \u201cIt\u2019s also something I\u2019m interested in, because I\u2019m interested in politics and human rights. So, I\u2019d say, it was a coincidence of an opportunity to do the work and an interest in it that got me into it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matas had refugees from around the world coming through his doors every day, seeking help. \u201cMy immediate effort was to try to get them protection, but the ultimate solution to their problems was the ending of the human rights violations that caused them to flee,\u201d he said. \u201cI felt trying to help them in some sort of systemic way, that I should be directed to that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Around this time, Matas also ran as a candidate in the federal election for the Liberal party (in 1979, 1980 and 1984) and B\u2019nai Brith Canada approached him, requesting that he chair the local BBC League for Human Rights, largely because of the profile he had developed through his candidacies.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, again,\u201d said Matas, \u201cit\u2019s something that, once I got into it, struck a chord of response in me. I got interested in it, involved much more, given the opportunity, because of the resonance it had with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also around that time, Kenneth Narvey \u2013 someone Matas knew from university \u2013 was scheduled for a speaking engagement in Manitoba on war-crime issues. Unsure if he would be able to make it, Narvey asked Matas if he would be willing to substitute for him, which Matas agreed to do. As it happened, Narvey ended up being able to attend the lecture, which gave him the opportunity to hear Matas speak and, Matas said, \u201cHe [Narvey] really liked it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this time, Irwin Cotler had just become president of the Canadian Jewish Congress [CJC]. Irwin had appointed a chair for a war-crimes committee, as he wanted to do something about the issue himself, and the chair had resigned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Narvey lobbied Cotler to have Matas appointed as chair, and Cotler did just that. \u201cSo, I got involved in that issue, too, again sort of by coincidence or circumstance,\u201d said Matas.<\/p>\n
Another chance encounter was with Harry Schachter, a friend of Matas\u2019 who was involved with Amnesty International, which had been holding meetings throughout the country. Through Schachter, Matas became involved with Amnesty International, which fit well with everything else he was doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe combination of these events, more or less all at the same time, is what really got me into human rights in a very systemic and wholehearted way,\u201d said Matas.<\/p>\n
The Holocaust also influenced Matas\u2019 life path. \u201cI, personally, wasn\u2019t affected by the Holocaust, my family wasn\u2019t,\u201d he said. \u201cBut, it just struck me. I thought, from an early age, that if the Axis rather than the Allied powers had won World War Two, I nor any other Jewish person would be alive today.\u201d<\/p>\n
He explained, \u201cGenerally, what I\u2019ve been trying to do is learn the lessons of the Holocaust and act on them, which I saw as protecting refugees, bringing war criminals to justice, combating hate speech and protesting human rights violations around the world wherever one may find them. So, I\u2019ve been trying to act on those four fronts simultaneously throughout my career.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI go through the various issues I\u2019ve been involved in and explain why I\u2019ve been involved with them, issue by issue,\u201d said Matas about Why Did You Do That?<\/em> \u201cThere\u2019s a chapter on refugees, so I explain what I did in terms of trying to help refugees. And then the rest is why people should help refugees, why everybody should do it. That\u2019s the way it\u2019s structured, chapter by chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n For Matas, this book is a way for him to answer the most frequent question he is asked, \u201cWhy are you doing this?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI would say the 20th century was a century of genocide,\u201d said Matas. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just the Holocaust. There was one genocide after another. My hope is we will be better, but I don\u2019t think that it comes from hope. It comes from action. So, I\u2019m trying to mobilize people to make things better, so we don\u2019t repeat in the 21st century the vast array of tragedies we saw.\u201d<\/p>\n In Matas\u2019 view, people tend to focus on the problems immediately in front of them.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople will get really worked up if their neighbor doesn\u2019t mow their lawn, but they get less worked up if people in China are getting killed for their organs,\u201d he explained. \u201cI think there\u2019s a real problem with distance, culture, language and geography, which really makes it difficult to mobilize concern for human rights violations \u2013 which is what the Jewish community faced with the Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n Why Did You Do That? The Autobiography of a Human Rights Advocate<\/em> can be purchased online from Seraphim Editions<\/a>, Amazon<\/a> and various other booksellers online and in bookstores.<\/p>\n Rebeca Kuropatwa<\/strong> is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One would be hard-pressed to find anyone involved in human rights around the world who has not heard of David Matas. A Winnipeg-based lawyer, Matas has helped countless victims of human rights violations, and written or co-written numerous books on various atrocities in an endeavor to shed light on them and educate the general public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[1121,1122,356,2708],"class_list":["post-13414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-david-matas","tag-human-rights","tag-immigration","tag-refugees"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>In his previous books, Matas has focused on specific atrocities or topics related to human rights \u2013 from hate speech, to trying to bring Nazi war criminals to justice, to humans rights violations, to refugees, to organ harvesting, and other topics. His autobiography was launched on June 9 at McNally Robinson Booksellers in Winnipeg.<\/p>\n