Canadians’ petty election squabbles pale in comparison to other countries’ struggles
As the long federal campaign unfolds, it might well become Canada’s political winter of discontent.
But at some point during this period it will be worthwhile if Canadians reflect on the price people have paid for democracy—and how it is not to be taken for granted.
This is the story the world is witnessing in Iraq: The story of a people liberated from tyranny by the sacrifices of another people—the Americans and their allies—yet compelled to defend their newly won freedom from the evil forces of a bloody-minded insurgency.
In mid-December, Iraqis will vote again and elect representatives to a new parliament devised by the constitution they approved in a referendum held this past October.
The transition of Iraq from a brutal dictatorship to a fledgling democracy is the most riveting story of the Arab-Muslim world in the past hundred years. It would not have happened without an American president forced by events to commit his nation’s blood and treasure to secure the freedom of another nation.
U.S. President George Bush’s decision to help bring regime change in Iraq as a consequence of 9/11 will be debated endlessly by historians and others, but it was not unprecedented.
Securing freedom and imposing democracies on Germany and Japan after World War II also required a coalition of willing allies united by their commitment to democracy, and Canadians of that generation carried their responsibility with pride and devotion of a free people.
In his speech last week at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, Bush once again made it clear to the world America’s mission in Iraq. He said: “Despite the costs, the pain, and the danger, Iraqis are showing courage and are moving forward to build a free society and a lasting democracy in the heart of the Middle East—and the United States of America will help them succeed.”
Sadly, there are many among the post-WWII generation who have readily forgotten what dues must be paid to keep freedom secure.
It is most ironic when this comfortable generation speaks keenly about the world being a global village, or about the increasing cultural interdependence of communities in an eco-fragile planet, and yet remains unwilling to acknowledge how intimately connected is the struggle for freedom among all people.
On returning from a recent tour of Iraq, U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “It is a war between 27 million and 10,000; 27 million Iraqis who want to live lives of freedom, opportunity and prosperity and roughly 10,000 terrorists who are either Saddam revanchists, Iraqi Islamic extremists or al-Qaida foreign fighters who know their wretched causes will be set back if Iraq becomes free and modern.”
Lieberman broke rank with those of his fellow Democrats who are ready to appease the enemy, rather than bear the burden or pay the cost of protecting liberty that former president John Kennedy once preached.
But Canadians, in their winter of discontent, will likely remain preoccupied with domestic quarrels and wishes, however insignificant these are in the larger context of a world where evil is perpetrated by men—as in Darfur—and peril looms as Iran seeks to acquire nuclear capability.
The story of Iraq is a reminder that some people somewhere paid the price for those in democracy to enjoy freedom to choose how they will live and who will govern them.
He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Islamic Pluralism based in Washington, D.C., a Senior Fellow with the Canadian Coalition for Democracies, and an academic-consultant with the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. He has been a consultant with CIDA on development issues and has published widely in academic journals on foreign policy matters and area studies of the Middle East and South Asia.
Mansur is featured on the documentary Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West produced by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He also unsuccessfully ran for the Canadian Alliance party in 2000.
Mansur has been accused by Canadian Islamic Congress of using "provocative, self-serving rhetoric", and for "promoting an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim agenda".
He is an Ismaili Muslim.
At a press conference on October 2, 2008, Mansur stated that "Islam is my private life, my conscience...[but] my faith does not take precedence over my duties...to Canada and its constitution, which I embrace freely;" "I am first and most importantly a Canadian;" "only in a free society will you find Islam as a faith and not a political religion." Mansur also criticized New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton, whom Mansur said "has gone to bed with Islamists", because he is running candidates in Ontario and Quebec who are closely identified with the push for Sharia law.
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