I am suddenly feeling my cherished Canadian sense of liberty being chipped away.
I can't lend money to a fellow Canadian, Abousfian Abdelrazik, who is accused of terrorism but is guilty of nothing. He has been made a non-person by a disgraceful UN witch-hunt that the United States initiated and Canada refuses to fight. As a result, Mr. Abdelrazik, who has already had his life ruined by the last two Canadian governments, is living in a prison without walls. He is not allowed work, open a bank account or receive money from anyone. How is he expected to live? Who cares? Well, lots of Canadians do, and we are determined to help him, even if it means we're breaking the law.
I can't criticize the government of Israel, even when it is extremist, chauvinistic, racist and brutal without being labelled a self-hating Jew, or –who knows? – maybe even an anti-Semite. An unholy alliance between the Jewish establishment, which does not represent the views of thousands of Canadian Jews, and the Harper government, which does not represent the views of a majority of Canadians, has created a new code of free speech for Canadians: We are not permitted apply the same standards of conduct to Israel as we do to all other countries in the world without being charged with anti-Semitism. I say those who use phony anti-Semitism for crass political purposes trivialize the threat of real anti-Semitism.
And I apparently can't write this column critical of the International Olympics Committee without the threat that mysterious police officials will question me, my family and friends about whether I'm a danger to – who knows what? That's exactly what's happened to other critics. This kind of harassment, persecution, arbitrariness, authoritarianism and suppression of ordinary Charter rights is only too accurate a reflection of what the Olympics – athletes aside – seems really all about.
Those who wonder why all the benefits invariably promised by every Olympic host city – new public housing, new public transit, useful sports facilities – couldn't be afforded before and without the Olympics, are barely heard. Those who predict that all cost estimates will prove to be bad joke and that the public will eventually have to pay – almost always proved right – are rudely dismissed. Media coverage of these concerned citizens often as not discusses their tactics without saying a single word about their objectives. The public rarely has a clue what they're protesting. Then a small destructive group will do something illegal and idiotic like breaking a store window, and the entire protest loses whatever chance it had of promoting their cause.
A runner, flanked by security, carries the Olympic torch through Vancouver's Downtown Eastside before the 2010 Winter Games on Feb. 12, 2010. The relay was rerouted twice by police after protesters blocked roads.
So many aspects of the Olympics seem to me questionable. So much seems to contradict the lofty notion of the Olympic spirit. As athlete and journalist Laura Robinson reported in a fine, angry article in the most recent Literary Review of Canada, “One World Trust, an independent British think tank, recently ranked the IOC as the least transparent of the 30 non-profit organizations it measured.” A cherished gold medal for the IOC, eh?
Looking at the entire Olympic spectacle beyond the media hoopla and beyond the athletes, one finds crassness, greed, monopoly, nepotism, unholy backgrounds, vicious competitiveness, secrecy, corruption, unaccountability, venality, arbitrariness, deep-rooted sexism, fraudulent bookkeeping, dishonest numbers, and remarkably little good sportsmanship.
