Canada, its colonial history and the Middle East

Spain, then governed by José María Aznar, leader of the Popular Party, decided to participate in the war and the occupation of Iraq alongside George Bush and Tony Blair. Millions of people demonstrated throughout the world against the war and against the occupation of a country which, located thousands of kilometers from our daily reality, had become overnight in the eyes of the communications media a production base. weapons of mass destruction which would endanger the entire world population.

This war led to attacks in Madrid, London, Paris and other European cities. And those of us who understood that this war was not our war but that of those who wanted to steal Iraqi oil, suffered the wrath of those who sought revenge. At those times, we were against the war. We stood in solidarity with the Iraqi people and with our victims.

In the following days, general elections were held and the People’s Party government lost its elections to the socialist government which, upon coming to power, withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq.

We have just celebrated the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. This day is an opportunity to pay tribute to the children who were never able to return home and to the survivors of residential schools as well as their families and communities. A day which ultimately recognizes a period of conquest, pillage, cultural domination and genocide.

Faced with this recognition of past crimes, another imposes itself on us, at least its absence. We are currently experiencing another genocide in Palestine which is being broadcast live on our screens. The bias, the incomprehensible justification and support for Israel’s actions, the disinformation served to citizens about international legality and the various conventions that the State of Israel has violated in its offensive against the Palestinians of Gaza and now in Lebanon, have left orphaned those who would have hoped to see themselves reflected in the news. Canadians of diverse origins suffer for their families and friends in this part of the world.

It is difficult to live in this contradictory country which, on the one hand, recognizes its past bad actions and which, on the other, allows and tolerates, when it does not encourage with this fallacious pretext that Israel has the right to to defend themselves, crimes similar to those that the French and Anglo-Saxons perpetrated against the first nations of this country.

It is painful to see how friends continue to live for decades in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, hoping to one day return to their homeland. Good people, dedicated to others and who carry out enormous humanitarian work with minimal resources to ensure coverage for those who have nothing. It is intolerable from a human point of view to note the passivity fueled by the media and the political class, which lives off the citizen delegation, in the face of what is happening in the Middle East.

The dehumanization of Arab societies is inconceivable if we truly seek a world of peace based on global norms and just relations. To swallow the stories of those who justify Israel’s right to defend itself amounts to legitimizing the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of thousands of Palestinian and now Lebanese civilians. Accepting it means that any of us, mere mortals in turbulent times, can be sacrificed, at any time and for geopolitical interests, as the first nations of Canada were in their time when the settlers decided their future on land they never ceded.

If we in Canada know that what was done to the First Nations is a very dark chapter in our history, why do the Canadian government and the government of Quebec unconditionally support the colonization of Palestine and the extermination of its First Nations? Nations?

Ethics and political humanity, when lost, generate monsters. Those of our time, driven by different motives, have names and first names, but they do not exist alone. They could not crack down without the complacency of those who offer them political, economic and media coverage.

Today, war in the Middle East is more imminent than ever. Each person will now have to examine their conscience: what did we do, which side were we on, what was done in our name to unknown families and who, like ours , are made up of fathers, mothers, daughters and brothers.

Kicking the anthill under the pretext of making the world safer is an illusion that no one can believe. Governments have tools to guarantee peace. Not using them means letting impunity pass and thus opening a space for those who live in despair and from whom everything has been taken away, including their right to see themselves reflected in a fair and human way in the media, find other ways to make us understand that they too have the right to life and recognition.

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