Alberta, July-julio 2006
17
ALTERNATIVA Latinoamericana
ENGLISH SECTION
Harper managed
during the election to
control that sneering
arrogance that had
become his trademark
persona, but given the
power of the Prime
Minister, his true nature
rises to the surface.
As I watch Stephen
Harper almost daily on
the television screen, I
am reminded of a nature
show I watched years
ago about the wolverine.
It is easy to attach
human characteristics to
an animal noted for its
ferocity and sheer
combativeness. The
wolverine is mean, nasty
and eager for a fight
even when it makes no practical sense. It's the
misanthrope of the animal world.
On that TV show, an adult wolverine
attacked a porcupine even though, according to
a biologist, it certainly knew the outcome. It killed
the porcupine, all right, but at the price, quite
likely, of its own life: its mouth full of scores of
quills, disabled, and facing almost certain
infection.
That's Stephen Harper. Like the wolverine,
he just can't help being who he is. It's in his
blood; it's his nature to be contemptuous of
other humans. He managed during the election
to control that sneering arrogance that had
become his trademark persona, but given the
power of the Prime Minister, his true nature
rises, inevitably, to the surface in almost
everything he does.
A huge range of people has been subjected
to Harper's scorn: journalists, senior
bureaucrats, his own cabinet ministers, other
political leaders, Canadians stupidly attached to
their precious social programs, and peace
activists. They are all lesser beings who have
earned his contempt just by having the gall to
disagree with him.
Harper is a control freak, but not because
he is insecure -- it is because he genuinely
believes that he is superior to virtually everyone.
All around him are fools in need of either his
guidance or his disdain. (He left the Reform
party because he was contemptuous of Preston
Manning, one of the smartest politicians in
recent memory.)
It is a mystery why Harper ever wanted to
be Prime Minister of Canada. He detests
everything that Canada became in the postwar
period, in his own words: "a second-tier
socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly
about its economy and social services to mask
its second-rate status." He is even disdainful of
our political system and once
ridiculed it before an American
audience.
Most people who feel this
way just end up as political
cranks -- like the Calgary
School Yankee wannabes. But
Harper's overweening
personality has convinced him
that it's his role to single-
handedly correct the mistakes
we and our forebears made.
Only someone who actually
believes he is smarter than
everyone else would think
himself capable not just of
rewriting history but of remaking
it.
There is in this project a
special irony. Right-wingers like
Harper have always rankled at
what they described as left-wing
"social engineering."
Their visceral rejection
of activist, egalitarian
government renders
them incapable of
accepting that people
could genuinely choose,
of their own free will, to
create institutions such
as unemployment
insurance, subsidized
university education,
medicare, "state-run"
child-care, and Crown
corporations.
Indeed, this is the
source of their and
Harper's resolve: they
really believe that all of
these things were the
result of a virtual
conspiracy of left-wing
bureaucrats (the mandarins of old), who, through
stealth and cunning, manipulated a distracted
citizenry and "engineered" a political culture alien
to human nature.
Harper's attitude is revealed in his contempt
for the media for their complicity in the liberal
project, his scorn for the judiciary (complicit too),
and for the "Liberal" federal bureaucracy. The
country as it evolved in the postwar period thus
has no legitimacy. This is a convenient construct
that opens the door to Harper's agenda: 50 years
of Liberal/NDP manipulation require correction
through a heroic social-(re)engineering project.
His agenda's parameters are clear: a
massive downsizing of the federal government's
role, an American approach to crime, a junior
role in America's new manifest destiny, the
cancellation of the Kelowna Accord, the child-
care agreements, and a score of programs
aimed at global climate change, and an
approach to government policy that glorifies the
individual and weakens the community.
And then there's Afghanistan. This
adventure will become Mr. Harper's porcupine.
The Asia Times reported recently that the
resistance in Afghanistan is about to become a
full-scale jihad, just like the one that drove out the
Soviets. The U.S. knows this, and the U.S. also
knows that its ally Pakistan is increasingly
unstable, with elements of President Gen.
Pervez Musharaff's government almost openly
supportive of the Taliban. That's why it is about to
cut and run, leaving Canada to get stuck in the
latest American quagmire.
Stephen Harper knew all of this. He did it
anyway. Like the wolverine, it's just his nature.
And like his totem animal, he will ultimately pay a
very high price.
Murray Dobbin
(Straight Goods)
Wolverine PM
eager to fight
Mexican elections 2006 are still not settled but
the smell of fraud is likely to keep people interested
and alert about future developments until September,
deadline for the official designation of a winner. Thus,
although the right wing National Action Party (PAN)
claimed winning the elections, this remains
unconfirmed by the Electoral Federal Tribunal (IFE).
Felipe Calderón, the candidate of PAN, has been
accused of running one of the dirtiest electoral
campaigns in Mexican history, using fear and calling
López Obrador a "danger to Mexico." According to
PAN´s supporters their swift campaign managed to
ensure victory, but, during the election it became clear
that PAN benefited from the support of those in power
who may have been tampering with electoral results
to favor the PAN´s candidate, Felipe Calderón.
More worrisome than the obvious support that
Calderon received from Vicente Fox, who was also
openly against López Obrador, were the accusations
of vote buying and of using federal, state and local
programs to press poor people to vote for Calderón.
Even worse yet, are the most recent concerns about
manipulation at the IFE, suspected of hiding at least
10 percent of Mexican votes to favor the extreme right
candidate.
Calderón, a lawyer with a degree from Harvard, is
a conservative who preaches free-market values and
financial stability and who has been busy reaching out
to other parties to build a "unity government" while
elections are yet in dispute. His father was a founder
of the pro-business, staunchly Roman Catholic
political party he runs today. Calderón, who favors a
similar neo-liberal agenda than Fox does, plans to rely
on free-trade accords to create jobs and on cracking
down on the rising crime, ironically connected to the
criminal neo-liberal policies imposed, to gain popular
support. His supporters believe Calderón will be better
equipped to build the ideological support than Fox
could not.
Calderón represents obviously rich Mexicans,
particularly the most addicted to neo-liberal policies,
and those favoring religious fundamentalism. His party
is rooted in early last century ideology, favouring
religious intolerance and increased religious
intervention in public life affairs. It is a right wing party
that fits well with current American and Canadian
governing right wing parties. It cannot be surprising in
view of this that on July 7, and despite irregularities in
electoral results meriting a recount, Fox, Bush and
Harper rushed to congratulate Felipe Calderón as the
elected Mexican President.
There were recommendations made by national
and international press to López Obrador and his
coalition to act with caution, the entire system
threatened that AMLO, as he is called, will call
Mexicans to the streets. There is recent history of
fraud in México, in 1988 fraud stopped the coming to
power of Cuahtémoc Cárdenas the leader of the left.
This past Saturday half a million people met in El
Zócalo to demand a full vote recount.
Latin America watches attentive to the turns and
twists of this Mexican election. Mexico a country with
rich political history, the home of famous Sub Marcos,
the Zapatistas and the indigenous movement -still
flourishing in Chiapas, is now again in the brink of
having to accept a right wing takeover limiting the
meaning of true democracy. Particularly angry are low
income Mexicans, feeling cheated by the electoral
results and suspicious of fraud. The smell of fraud is
too familiar to Mexicans; thus, it will not be easy to
disguise it. Of the hundreds of thousands of
participants in July 8th rally at El Zócalo, a Mexican
newspaper highlighted the presence of an old lady
carrying her handwritten sign to AMLO. It read: "We
are ready. Just order Sir!"
Mexican
Conundrum
By Lil Brown