John Chuckman
EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO CBC NEWS
“Saudi teen [claiming refugee status] on the run from her family arrives in Canada”
I am glad for the girl if she is what she claims to be.
But, first, that truly is not at all clear.
Look at that beautiful smile of hers in the photos, full of perfectly manicured teeth, unmistakably the teeth of a child from a well-off family who took care of her.
Second, we do have kids run away from home, daily, in Canada. They don't have the knowledge or the resources, most of them, to do what this girl has done in moving through several countries. They certainly receive no special attention or help.
Third, and most important to my mind, there are so many hundreds of thousands of others in terrible plights, and Freeland is silent about all of them.
We have families literally being blown apart in Yemen. Blown apart not just by the Saudi princes but by the Americans through their direct assistance, armament sales, and behind-the-scenes moral and diplomatic support, Americans with whom Ms. Freeland appears to be on the best of terms.
We have three million refugees living in tents in Turkey, all pretty much thanks to America's bombing and wars in the Mideast, but I never hear a word of objection from Freeland.
We have the piteous people of Gaza whose situation is as outrageous as that of the Rohingya of Burma. Do we hear a word of objection from this government? Do we see any serious effort to help? How can you watch people struggle miserably in the world’s largest concentration camp without a word? How can you watch gangs of Israeli army snipers behind a fence shoot thousands of unarmed people, including women and children, only demonstrating for their rights, and say nothing?
There are the people of Eastern Ukraine, the Donbas region, who are shelled regularly by the Poroshenko government in Ukraine. Thousands have died, and the entire population lives under threat, but Ukraine’s president, Poroshenko, is well-received by Freeland. After all, he represents American policy in action.
And there is Freeland regularly echoing American attacks on Maduro, a man twice democratically elected as President of Venezuela. Canada goes beyond just echoing America, it has been active in the unofficial outfit called the Lima Group whose aim it is to support American interference in Venezuela. The Lima Group represents far less than half the members of the Organization of American States, the long-standing official organization which has avoided supporting American claims about Venezuela.
So, Freeland effectively supports the misery America has inflicted on Venezuela through threats (including the threat of invasion), dirty tricks, severe sanctions, an assassination attempt, and constant interference in its internal affairs.
Freeland’s Russophobia, made clear in many statements, undoubtedly reflects American influence, although there may well be an element of her own native prejudice, coming as she does from a Ukrainian-Canadian family, many such families being virulently anti-Russian as a heritage of the Soviet era. But her Russophobia represents an unwelcome voice speaking for Canada.
This one small, small act in a dubious case – accepting as a refugee one affluent-looking teenage runaway who claims to be afraid of her family - resembles a publicity stunt to me, especially with all the photos of the girl with Freeland, complete with silly props like the girl’s brand-new Canada hat and shirt. It might prove otherwise, but that is what it strongly resembles.
The girl is a poster child for this government's tenuous claims to humanity and traditional Canadian human rights values, a rather costless claim supported by taking in and being photographed with one well cared-for, middle-class kid, while ignoring the numberless screams out there.
