Chicken Littleists triumph

[Guest guest]

Chicken Littleists triumph

 

The alleged terrorist story is a big club with which

to hit people with whom you disagree.

 

Dateline: Tuesday, June 13, 2006

 

by Charles Gordon

 

This was supposed to be a month in which we celebrated

our many cultures and nationalities as they paraded

before us in the soccer uniforms of the World Cup. Our

Czechs, our Italians, our Croats and Brazilians, our

South Koreans and Mexicans — we'd see them all,

cheering in neighbourhood bars, flying their flags on

cars.

 

What a great country this is, we'd say, as we found

out that we had Ghanaians and Ivory Coasters,

Tunisians and Ecuadorians in our midst, urging on

their underdog squads.

 

And it is a great country too. Unfortunately the

celebration is dimmed by a new round of attacks on the

multicultural nature of Canada. The attacks come,

first, from a group of young men charged with plotting

violence against Canadians. The attacks come, second,

from those who use the arrests as " proof " that we

should be a more closed, and perhaps less

multicultural society.

 

 

 

The arrests prove anything you want them to.

 

This thing shows our diversity in a lot of ways, for

example National Post columnist George Jonas's vicious

denunciation of Toronto Mayor David Miller. All Miller

did was ask: " Why are they so angry? We need to find

out why people get sucked into this type of activity. "

 

 

A legit question, in fact an urgent one. We need to

know what turns some young men in the Muslim community

to violence. That way we can stop them from doing it.

But the mere idea leads Jonas to ride a wave of

sarcasm: " After all, if we had disseminated the

multicultural ideal more effectively, published more

glossy pamphlets about the joys of diversity, with

merry ethnics smiling on the cover... " You get the

idea.

 

Meanwhile, the American cable networks find our

country rife with terrorists, conveniently overlooking

the fact we may actually have caught some of them.

 

Some call it good news: the intelligence system works.

Some call it bad: terrorists are among us. Either way,

the story is a big club with which to hit those with

whom you disagree.

 

Ever since 9/11, there has been a rise of what might

be called Chicken Littleists — those who believe the

sky is falling and gleefully present every tragic

episode as proof. At the moment, sparked by the

Toronto arrests, we are seeing an epidemic of Chicken

Littleist Triumphalism. The arrests prove anything you

want them to.

 

Which brings us to fellow Citizen columnist David

Warren, who returned last week after a well-earned

vacation for his readers, to announce that " now that

Parliament has affirmed that our troops will remain in

Afghanistan until 2009, anyone who demands a quicker

exit should be publicly labelled as the terrorists'

stooge. "

 

Huh? There are good arguments for staying in

Afghanistan, but good arguments against as well, which

Canadians have both a right and a duty to make. The

arrest of 17 men in Toronto doesn't prove the case one

way or the other.

 

What will prove the case about the 17 men is the case

itself, the court case. Those who condemn the " media

circus " are wrong. What we need is a bigger and better

media circus, one that brings the public access to all

the facts. Until then, we get stories based on leaks

and interviews with acquaintances, not to mention the

old reliable " ask the professor " story. That's the one

where you ask an expert how horrible it would be if a

certain situation occurred. It would be horrible, the

expert replies, leading to the headline: " Situation

horrible: expert. "

 

The only way we can get past this is if all the facts

come out in open court.

 

That hasn't always been the case in our recent past.

The obsessive security mentality, so beloved of our

Chicken Littleists, considers a lot of important facts

too important to be known be the people. But if our

system is under attack, it can only defend itself by

being itself — by being open, democratic and fair. In

other words, show the doubters that the system works —

for everybody. This is a great opportunity to do that.

 

 

Here it is necessary, as a democratic soul, to defend

David Warren's right to disagree: " Intrinsic to the

threat against the West is not terrorism alone, " he

writes, " but terrorism in combination with legal

efforts to use the more fatuous provisions of our

'human rights' codes to subvert our defences. "

 

Human rights are for stooges. Is that an unfair

characterization of that sentence? And wouldn't you

sooner be thinking about soccer? It appears to be a

game people from all cultures can play even when the

sky is falling.

 

Charles Gordon is a humor columnist, who occasionally

lapses into serious commentary on politics or music.

Gordon is married, with two grown children. He is the

author of six books. His latest is Still at the

Cottage, new in 2006 and available at the SG Boutique!

All his books are published by McClelland and Stewart.

Gordon has written for National Lampoon, Canadian

Forum, Cottage Life and Maclean's. He has won three

National Magazine Awards and been nominated three

times for the Stephen Leacock Medal. When not writing

his three-a-week column for the Ottawa Citizen, Gordon

still plays jazz and hangs out at Ottawa's Triple A

baseball stadium.

 

 

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