Canadian External Affairs: the GPC, Myanmar, Afghanistan

GPC, Myanmar, Afghanistan

As a peace strategist and the GPC Peace Building Advocate many years ago, I took my same usual position on Myanmar (Burma). The same I still hold today on Myanmar, China, Russia, you name it, which comes to this:  you've got to listen to both sides of the story, of the conflict, equally, to make a fair judgment and take a peace-loving position.

On those days, everyone was in love with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, notably US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and GPC Leader Elizabeth May. Infatuated! A pro-democracy young lady (a woman!) speaking perfect English, fighting against the stupid military “nationalist” government of her own country, all of them English illiterate! A dream coming true! She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize!

When I was to express my opinion, I noted the fact that I couldn't reach in any media for any article to help me getting informed on the bad guy, the Myanmar military government's position. I needed to hear from both sides in order to understand the conflict and to take a position. In order, eventually, to search and propose a solution to the conflict. To which Elizabeth immediately responded (I vividly remember, of course, the chocking response): "there is only one side here!" The next day, I got a call from then-Deputy-Leader Adriane Carr, asking me to resign from my position in the Shadow Cabinet.

This Myanmar issue, I must say, was following a long thread discussion about our military presence in Afghanistan. I had been proposing for the GPC to take the position of our withdrawal with NATO from that country and instead encouraging its immediate border-sharing neighbors (Iran, Pakistan, India, Tajikistan, China) to form a coalition in helping the government of Afghanistan to put an end to the anti-women, anti-freedom atmosphere of “terror” created by the Taliban and Al Qaeda. 

Such a policy I have been proposing would create and strengthen a regional peace building cooperation between countries that have historical disagreement amongst each other. Perhaps most importantly it would foster secularism by having Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists working together. 

My proposal was permanently countered by another member of the Shadow Cabinet. Anti-Iranian for sure he was, but also preposterous. I forgot his name! 

How naïve I was! Assuming everyone was searching for peace! The other guy was a white pro-English colonialist, a species I thought were extinct. Now I know how wrong I was. He actually was openly in favour of making Afghanistan to become “our” drug provider! 

Carr told me  they wanted me to resign because they've decided to make that stupid guy in charge of GPC's external policies. My policy wasn't appreciated. I respectfully did offer my resignation to Elizabeth May the same day and she accepted it immediately, without much any note of appreciation for my services.

Today, Aung San Suu Kyi has joined the Myanmar government and is accused of "genocide" against the Muslim-Bengali inhabitants of Burma whom "we" – and the “Five Eyes”- and the rest of the world following “us” call "Rohingyas".

One thing is certain. The Myanmar-Burma problem, not surprisingly, is a legacy of greedy colonialism. Anyone making a simple church on the Internet to find the truth will realize. Consider the following extract :

    "Colonial policies encouraged migrant labor in order to increase rice cultivation and profits.             Many Rohingya (sic) entered Myanmar as part of these policies in the 17th century. According to     census records, between 1871 to 1911, the Muslim population tripled. (I am not sure if the term     Rohingya was existent in the 17th century. It must be of more recent creation).

    "The British also promised the Rohingya separate land – a “Muslim National Area” – in exchange for support. During the Second World War, for example, the Rohingya sided with the British while Myanmar’s nationalists supported the Japanese. Following the war, the British rewarded the Rohingya with prestigious government posts. However, they were not given an autonomous state."

So, greedy merchants, supported by their mercantilist colonialist State, ruled the region for over a century or two until the first half of the 20th century. Countries known today as Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Singapour, Iraq, the Arab Emirates of the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and for a while China,were all ruled by the British. 

Most “interesting” is Pakistan. An Islamic State and "pure" creation of the British as recent as in 1947, at first formally attached to the British Crown and created from the amalgamation of lands detached from India and lands detached from Iran. The British Foreign Office draw the map and the borders. No such country by that name has ever existed before, and Pakistan, means “Clean-land” (from pak=clean and istan=land), separated from supposedly “dirty” non-Muslim Hindus! It is a shame that humanity has accepted this ignominy.

Shodja Eddin Ziaian, June 29, 2020, edited June 22, 2021 

I was stopped. But there are other ways to continue.

I was stopped. But there are other ways to continue.

I decided to run for the next Federal Election in Canada (2015), in the riding of Richmond Hill (North of Toronto), where there are already two other Canadian-Iranians, nominated by the Liberals and the Conservatives, running.  I knew it would mean sacrificing an enjoyable time for retirement. But it would be for the sake of making it possible for our children, grandchildren, and great-grand-children to continue living a healthy or just possible life on this planet.

My goal was to bring change and to help stop the present mercantile system of conflict, competition, and greed, which is destroying life on Earth, and it does it at an accelerating pace.

My plan was to run simultaneously for both the NDP and the Green Party, something that has never been done before and seemingly impossible. But I wanted to be such candidate for change, for solidarity over division, for cooperation over competition, for love over hatred. Rules that push us against each other need to be broken. New traditions of cooperation need to be created, and I wanted to personify this change, right from the beginning.

I, therefore, filled up my papers for both the NDP and the Green Party to be a prospective nominee, having contributed to both parties for years. I wrote to the leaders of the two parties, Elizabeth May and Thomas Mulcair, to invite them to work with each other. I also asked them to make a constitutional exception for my case of being a member of both parties - without specifying.

Yesterday, my project was stopped. In a phone call from Ottawa, I was told my candidacy was rejected. Not because of my double sympathies. No, they weren't probably aware of it. It was because of political positions expressed on Facebook considered as controversial. Not that the Party was necessarily against.

In 1997, I had run for the same party, holding the same opinions and positions, and there was no controversy at all, ever. But there was no Facebook, neither. Also, in 1997, decisions were made, democratically, in the riding. My nomination was contested, but members of the riding voted for me over my rival. Now, despite the riding being favorable to my candidacy and no one contesting it, the National Director of the NDP sitting in Ottawa, Anne McGrath, decided to be the authority rejecting my prospective nomination.

What controversial issues? They were five, I was told: (1) Last summer, I had expressed a favorable opinion on the issue, debated in England, of banning the 'burqa' (this hideous and obvious symbol of women as sub-human); (2) I used wordings in favor of a UN reform; (3) I wrote ''alleged war criminals'' in reference to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney (unfortunate, of course, but factual); (4) I had favored Assad’s regime over ISIS-ISIL-DAESH; (5) I had expressed sympathy for the French  Front National, for their standing for France’s culture of freedom and secularism versus Islamism. (In fact, I was criticizing the TV journalists who were constantly interrupting her, and attacking her instead of being neutral.)

*****

To the young lady in charge of announcing me the ‘’bad news’’ I responded: ‘’bad news for the NDP, not for me’’.  Presently, I am listening to some beautiful music played in CBC 90.3 FM in French, English, and Spanish; Oldies, not yet banned by the Islamists[1] who will expand their killings globally and take over, if we aren’t vigilant (as they did in my motherland, Iran) if we don’t find a better way to stop the present trend of overpopulation, of over-exploitation and the pillage of our global resources, of killing all life on Earth.  

(Please indulge English weaknesses and mistakes) Shodja, February 14, 2015

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[1] Note: Islamist or Islamic and Muslim are two different categories. I, personally, am a Muslim but not an Islamic /Islamist.