Iran lectures Canada

Editorial

This has to be one of the more uproarious examples of the world-turned-upside-down we are living in. Just before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to North America on an undiplomatic mission, Iran issued a report on Canada's human rights record.

Akin to Canada criticizing Iran for not being religious enough, Iran has taken a critical eye to Canada's record of treatment of women and First Nations and the handling of detainees by police. Coming from a country that had been liberalizing earlier in this decade but which has now hired extra hands to arbitrarily and without any sort of oversight whip immodestly dressed women and men who are not at prayer, the report should gather only guffaws on the world stage.

Not to say Canada does not have human rights issues that deserve our serious attention. Women are discriminated against and victimized by rape, First Nations do live in squalor, poverty is a factor for too many citizens in this rich country. But the last finger to be wagging at Canada should be Iran's.

Consider the nature of world opinion today. If Israel can be painted as one of the world's greatest threats to peace and human rights – and this is, opinion polls show, a view accepted not only across the Arab and Muslim world, but to insane degrees in Europe and North America – then so could Canada. Read the third paragraph again and see how assertions by even the most atrocious dictators of the world can force a comparatively pristine country onto the defensive. By casting the most farcical allegations at their enemies, Muslim and Arab states have been able to turn global attention away from the state-sanctioned brutality and the inhumanity taking place daily in every one of their jurisdictions and focus world opprobrium instead upon the comparatively inconsequential "abuses" by Israel.

If other Muslim leaders were to follow Ahmadinejad's lead, Canada could be the next straw dog held up as a human rights abuser by the perpetrators of the world's greatest human rights atrocities. Truth is irrelevant. If the leaders of 1.3 billion people say it's a problem, it's a problem. This is essentially the position taken by the European and North American left which, counter to every sinew of reason, has taken sides with the world's theological fanatics and human rights criminals against the one country in the Middle East that has even the pretense of striving for human equality and due process.

The reason Iran's j'accuse against Canada is unlikely to be taken seriously is not because Canada is innocent of the allegations, but because the fissures in the Muslim world make Iran's positions appealing only to Syria (although Iran's position is shared by most of the radical elements in the region which, thankfully perhaps, are themselves oppressed, if in some cases, like Pakistan's, just barely). Though pragmatism caused by the Shiite-Sunni schism is softening the attitude toward Israel on some fronts, it has now been 60 years that every split in the Muslim world has been papered over very effectively with anti-Zionism.
But while we may laugh at Iran's criticisms – the ultimate example of the pot calling the kettle black – we should not laugh too loudly. As we have seen with Israel, when the leaders of nations representing 1.3 billion people decide to make you a pariah of the world, they can be very effective, whether or not the accusations bear any legitimacy, common sense or authenticity.

In 2005, Ahmadinejad presided over the "World Without Zionism" conference which, as one can imagine, set a new watermark in academic distinction. The same man has publicly stated that Israel should be wiped from the map, though a hair-splitting discourse has emerged contending that this is not an exactly appropriate translation of what Ahmadinejad actually said. But if something was lost in the translation, the spirit, if not the letter, came across clearly. On the flip side, the world's outrage at Ahmadinejad's call for Israel's destruction is a bit specious, given that most Arab states have been saying the same thing explicitly or implicitly since 1948. Remember, among Israel's nearest neighbors, only Jordan and Egypt recognize its existence. The rest pretend Israel already has been wiped from the map. The vexation with which Western powers greeted Ahmadinejad's genocidal statement comes off as insincere, given that hardly a whisper has been raised at the fact that, for several decades, the United Nations General Assembly has been controlled by a coalition with essentially the same agenda.

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