Can any approach to Radical terrorists stop their violence?

He (Fowler) has pushed for NATO and Western involvement in propping up African forces in their fight: “The humanitarian disaster Al Qaeda’s plan calls for is going to engage us anyway.”

But Robin Wright, a joint fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and Woodrow Wilson International Center, is among those who caution against using strong international force.

“We have yet another episode because of our intervention (whereby) extremists can exploit the hostility that has built up in the Islamic world,” she said. “The longer this goes on, the greater the danger.
“Any long-term strategy cannot be solely military but the problem is, it’s Africa and Africa’s the loneliest continent,” she added. “When it comes to basic development issues, we haven’t done enough. This is a much more complicated picture.”
(From Mali: Militant group at centre of conflict has troubling ambitions, by Michelle Shepperd, Toronto Star January 18, 2013, excerpted below)
Expanding military action or a much more complex and comprehensive approach to terrorists, radical Islamists anywhere, and more specifically in Africa... that might be a debate developing in many of the world's capitals, and the world's strategic think tanks, and the worlds's military and securities academies over the next several weeks, months and years.
For our part, a review of the last nearly half-century of the military impact of Russians, NATO, the United States and other efforts on the Islamic terrorist movement on the Taliban in Afghanistan, and AlQaeda in the Middle East, would suggest that dropping bombs and missiles, engaging them in armed combat in villages and towns and in the mountains of Afghanistan, has done very little to reduce either their will or their numbers of recruits. This amorphous and increasingly well-armed, multi-celled, apparently multi-headed monster appears in many guises, many huts, many recorded videos, many faces, and in many languages, all of them apparently dedicated to a Sunni global dominance.
And while there is a male-culture at the heart of all western responses, a response dedicated to the exclusive deployment of hard power, Robin Wright has a more tortuous approach, one that will be difficult to "sell" in many western military "situation rooms".
As in fighting fires in the roots of trees, the firefighters use very different approaches and equipment from pouring tonnes of water from huge hoses on burning suburban homes. The firefighters have to expose the fire first to see how deep and how hot it is, depending on the degree of root it has destroyed, the type of soil, the type of tree and the current and both past and future weather and climate conditions.
Similarly, the world, while determined to excise this cancer from all locations on the planet, will have to be much more creative, more resourceful, more measured and take a perspective that is much longer and more persistent than in any war of the last century or more.
We have failed in our development efforts in too much of the third world countries; we have permitted the huge corporations to get rich from the natural resources of too much of the third world, pillaging both those resources and the people who live in close proximity; we have permitted too many ruthless and greedy dictators to take power and to pilfer much of whatever "aid" we forwarded to many of those countries. Poverty, disease, blocked access to education, political repression, dictatorships and lawlessness even in some cases, anarchy, has provided a backdrop for our blind pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey approach of foreign aid.
As a consequence, as Ms. Wright's words suggest, the hostility that has built up in too many of these countries is now being exploited by those determined to wreak havoc on much of the developed world.
And who among those living in desperate living conditions would not feel deep and long-standing hostility to the rich countries in the world for our arrogance, our innocence, our patronizing attitudes and approaches to the complexity of both their needs and their legitimate aspirations. Now, even moderate imams are being targetted by the radical Islamic terrorists, for not supporting their radical agenda supported and executed through violent measures.
And this conflict is not about to disappear, in the next year, the next decade, or perhaps even in the balance of the century.
Our children and grandchildren will still be facing uprisings and surprise attacks in subways, on trains and planes, as energy refineries, in office towers, and in schools and universities long after we have departed.
The names and faces and perhaps even the types of weapons deployed by the terrorists may change; their commitment to the achievement of their deeply-held goals and aspirations is unlikely to change.
And, what is worse, we only ennoble them in their efforts through our falling into their deliberately-set entrapments.
We have to come to a place, led by people like Robin Wright, where the differences have to be settled through both negotiation and compromise, and not expect victory through our military might. Nevertheless, we also know that, in saying that, these people are the least amenable to negotiation and compromise....so we do face a real and unnerving conundrum...
Perpetual violence, killing, hostage-taking, suicide bombs and even plagues (should the terrorists get their hands on the coveted biological, chemical or nuclear weapons) is our prospective future, so long as these terrorists continue their unrelenting campaign to destroy the western civilization. And the more military engagements of our hard power and their meagre weaponry (attached to iron wills) we permit, the greater will be their commitment to their cause and the more successful will their recruitment efforts be.
We do, indeed, face a potential "bargain with the devil"....in that if we take the peaceful route, we will appease the enemy and if we continue down the military route, we will enhance the capacity and will of the enemy to continue their long march to eventual victory....or in our view, the potential of armeggedon.
Is the enemy the foreign terrorists, or is the enemy within our hearts and minds and spirits?


Mali: Militant group at centre of conflict has troubling ambitions

By Michelle Shepperd, Toronto Star, January 18, 2013
It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.

—Sun Tzu, The Art of War
James Fowler, former Ambassador to the UN, and former captive of AQIM in Mali quoted in Shepperd piece:
“They would tell me repeatedly, ‘We fight to die and you fight to go home to your wife and children. How can we lose?’ ” said Fowler, a former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations.

“We ought to assist our African friends in degrading Al Qaeda to the point that they no longer represent a menace the Africans cannot deal with,” he said. “I will never use the words ‘victory’ or ‘defeat’ because you don’t do that with insurgencies.”
He has pushed for NATO and Western involvement in propping up African forces in their fight: “The humanitarian disaster Al Qaeda’s plan calls for is going to engage us anyway.”
But Robin Wright, a joint fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and Woodrow Wilson International Center, is among those who caution against using strong international force.
“We have yet another episode because of our intervention (whereby) extremists can exploit the hostility that has built up in the Islamic world,” she said. “The longer this goes on, the greater the danger.
“Any long-term strategy cannot be solely military but the problem is, it’s Africa and Africa’s the loneliest continent,” she added. “When it comes to basic development issues, we haven’t done enough. This is a much more complicated picture.”

Kennedy's heroic management of Cuban missile crisis unmasked...

Those of us old enough to remember, cannot forget the Cuban missile crisis and the Kennedy administration. We learned about how close the world came to the brink of nuclear war, under the threat of missiles with nuclear warheads installed by Nikita Khrushchev in Cuba following by president Kennedy's heroic imposition of a blockade of Cuba and the Soviet withdrawal of the missile threat. Both Kennedy brothers were acclaimed as heroes in the public version of the story, supported and supplemented by historians like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. And for half a century, the world has clung to that moment, as both historic and heroic, given the various options faced by the world community.
Now there is a new book, researched and written by the former historian at the John F. Kennedy Library for 23 years, Sheldon M. Stern, that debunks the heroic myth especially.
Stern's book, The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory, published by Stanford, concludes that "John F. Kennedy and his administration, without question, bore a substantial share of the responsibility for the onset of the Cuban missile crisis," according to the review of the book by Benjamin Schwarz in the current edition of The Atlantic. Schwarz documents the comparative size and shape of the military arsenals of the Soviet Union and the United States at the time, giving the Americans a sizeable advantage, known to both Kennedy and Khrushchev.
Moreover, despite America's overwhelming nuclear preponderance, JFK, in keeping with his avowed aim to pursue a foreign policy characterized by 'vigor', had ordered the largest peacetime expansion of America's military power, and specifically the colossal growth of its strategic nuclear forces. This included deploying, beginning in 1961, intermediate-range 'Jupiter' nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey--adjacent to the Soviet Union. From there, the missiles could reach all of western U.S.S.R., including Moscow and Leningrad (and that doesn't count the nuclear-armed 'Thor' missiles that the U.S. already had aimed at the Soviet Union from bases in Britain)....
It's with little wonder, then, that, as Stern asserts--drawing on a plethora of scholarship including, most convincingly, the historian Philip Nash's elegant 1997 study, The Other Missiles of October--Kennedy's deployment of the Jupiter missiles "was a key reason for Khrushchev's decision to send nuclear missiles to Cuba." Khrushchev reportedly made that decision in May 1962, declaring to a confidant that the Americans 'have surrounded us with bases on all sides' and that missiles in Cuba would helpful to counter an 'intolerable provocation.' ...(In retirement, Khrushchev explained his reasoning to the American journalist trobe Talbott: Americans 'would learn just what it feels like to have enemy missiles pointing at you; we'd be doing nothing more than giving them a little of their own medicine.' ( p.74, The Atlantic, January/February, 2013)
Is it not more than a little ironic, that after more than a decade of denial that he ever participated in taking performance enhancing substances, including blood doping, in order to accomplish seven Tour de France victories, Lance Armstrong is being unmasked at the same time, on the same day for the same cover-up of the 'back' story of his heroic accomplishments, just as is the American president, for his?
And to think that the public face, to the Americans, has always been more important than  full disclosure with all of its problems, as it has to all those who prefer a perfect public image, including those in too many leadership positions still today, in government, in corporate executive suites, in bishop's mitres and in military and athletic leadership positions.
It is not rocket-science to anticipate that there are a lot more doctoral theses to emerge uncovering the many stories of heroism that will inevitably deflate many balloons still floating through the universe...and when will it become the norm for each of us to acknowledge that we all have feet of clay, as the phrase in the vernacular paints the picture?

U.W.O. student paper under seige from student government...SHAME!

By Tristin Hopper, National Post, January 17, 2013
First, copies of The Gazette started disappearing from newsstands, then the student government reportedly demanded to sit in on editorial meetings, and now in what Canada’s only daily student paper is calling the latest crackdown on “campus press freedom,” Gazette staff are being turfed out of their offices to make way for a prayer room.
Given some of the issues that we’ve been undergoing in the last nine months, it leads me to strongly suspect that [this eviction] is about something else,” said Gloria Dickie, editor in chief of the University of Western Ontario-based student paper, The Gazette.
In a Wednesday editorial entitled “Campus press freedom weakening under USC,” Ms. Dickie laid out her case against the University Students’ Council, alleging that student representatives have proposed dramatic funding cuts to the paper’s budget, sitting in on editorial board meetings and even briefly considered a full blackout on in-person media interviews.
She also hinted that the USC may have been behind the mass disappearance of an April 2012 edition in which The Gazette’s masthead gave the student government a grade of B-.
Then, a week into the winter semester, USC representatives met with The Gazette staff to inform them that their second-floor office, which they have occupied since 1973, was being considered as the site for a new multi-faith space.
The newspaper’s office is almost exactly the same size as an existing multi-faith room nearby, but USC noted that The Gazette’s offices were equipped with a window and access to water.
As a "Western Alum," I am both shocked and appalled by the content and the implications of this story.
Although I did not work in the offices of the Gazette, I have relied on its coverage of campus events, including swipes at the various decisions by student government at both the USC and UCC levels.
If this is an attempt to limit or prevent "government" criticism by the members of the USC, and the editor seems to have opinions that would suggest it is, then all Western alumni will be outraged if and when they learn about the attempt at press repression, censorship or even elimination.
Not only is. or at least was, the Gazette a vital and vibrant organ of student life under such august editors as Geoffrey Stevens and Wilf Jenkins, it has also been the ground of literally hundreds of journalistic apprenticeships, many of whom have gone on to serve with distinction in other media outlets across the country.
Furthermore, a strong, vibrant and even cheeky Gazette is important to the maintenance of a vibrant and courageous public media in the wider publics, at a time when many media organizations are cutting their reporting contingents as they face increasingly pressure of declining revenues.
And, to suggest a multi-faith "prayer-room" as an adequate and reasonable replacement use for the offices of the Gazette is to muzzle the secular and the universal and the global and the democratic potential, within the 'Western' community.
Shame on those, apparently including the USC, for their cowardice and their myopia!
Is this a legitimate sign of the kind of spine that exists in the current crop of undergraduates?

Obama's 23 executive actions on gun control

From the National Post, January 17, 2013
Here are the 23 executive actions Obama plans to make, according to Business Insider:


1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.

2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.

3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.

4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.

5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.

6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.

7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.

8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).

9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.

10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.

11. Nominate an ATF director.

12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.

13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.

14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.

15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.

16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.

17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.

18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.

19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.

20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.

21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.

22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.

23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.



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Jihadists pursuing entrapment of outside military in Africa

Is the United States poised to enter another Afghanistan?
Of course, you say, the question is ridiculous, given both the US budget contraints and the political atmosphere that has generated. Yet, never underestimate the Republican elected representatives in both the House and Senate to seek and to find another theatre for "putting troops on the ground" regardless of the fiscal crisis. And there is also little doubt that the terrorists now holding American hostages at a gas refinery in Algeria, while they are claiming they are retaliating against the French for bringing troops and tanks into Mali against their movement, they are also widening the conflict to bring as many troops from as many countries outside of Africa into their trap, thereby generating as much chaos across a band of Africa to establish a terrorist base from which to attack the west.
There will have to be some very "outside-the-battlefield" thinkers in all of the military academies in the western world pouring over what to do next about this entrapment. Pouring more military hard power will satisfy the terrorists more than it will solve the problem; yet that is what they want...total chaos, people and guns and planes with missiles killing people of different counrties, tribes and cultures, so that they can wage jihad against the west.
And to take over a gas field must be like winning the Super Bowl for the terrorists, a shining example of the pulsing energy heart of the western industrial/economic/trading/military establishment.
While the World Health Organization fights the dengue fever, spread by mosquitoes around the world, the political/diplomatic/military component of the west fights a mosquito war against the Islamic terrorists who are bent on world domination through their continual and perpetual and indefatigable commitment to bring their beliefs and their sharia law to every corner of the planet.
And just as with dengue fever, there is no known 'cure' for jihad....and all of the best brains in all of the best schools and all of the best writers with all of the best books have not been able to find a response that is both effective and efficient in countering the multiple methods of the tyranny of terror.
Mali conflict spills into Algeria as foreigners taken hostage
By Michelle Shepperd, Toronto Star, January 17, 2013
Mali’s conflict spilled across its borders Wednesday, as Islamist militants stormed a gas facility in Algeria, reportedly taking as many as 41 foreign hostages, killing two people and wounding others.

Details of the attack remain uncertain but it is believed the hostages include French, American, British, Japanese, Irish and Norwegian citizens.
A group calling itself Katibat Moulathamine, or the “Masked Brigade,” claimed responsibility and said the hostage-taking was in retaliation for France’s intervention in Mali, the Associated Press reported. Algeria allowed France to use its airspace to send warplanes to neighbouring Mali.
The organization — which claims it abducted 41 hostages, although other estimates put the number at about 20 or 30 — is a faction connected to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), now in control of Mali’s north alongside other rebel factions.
Moktar Belmoktar, the group’s one-eyed Algerian leader, has a long history in northern Mali and extensive local alliances, said analyst Andrew Lebovich in a phone interview from Senegal.
Like AQIM itself, Belmoktar emerged from the war in the 1990s against Algeria’s government, setting up a new base in Mali.
By Wednesday night, Algerian troops had surrounded the Ain Amenas gas field, located close to Libya’s border, according to the Associated Press. The gas field is jointly owned by BP, Norwegian oil firm Statoil and Algerian state company Sonatrach.
An Algerian government official told the New York Times that the 20 attackers were heavily armed and had arrived in three unmarked vehicles.
Fearing backlash to France’s offensive in Mali — which came months ahead of a planned attack by African forces, in response to AQIM’s advance on the capital and strategic military towns in the centre of the country — France has boosted security at its airports and train stations in the past week and cautioned French citizens and institutions abroad to be on high alert.
“They want to get back at the French desperately and they have a history of carrying out a tit-for-tat response when it comes to French intervention,” said Bruce Whitehouse, an anthropology professor at Lehigh University, and a Fulbright scholar who has lived in Mali.
“They clearly want to portray what they’re doing as a direct and balanced response to what’s being directed against them,” he said.
There could also be wider political implications of the attack, forcing a reluctant Algeria into the conflict.
“It will bring a lot more pressure from the United States and European governments to get involved,” said Whitehouse. “(It) might be a good thing from Mali’s point of view. Algeria has what’s reckoned to be the most capable military there and they have experience and they know the terrain.”
U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta hinted at a possible U.S. military response as well during a trip to Italy Wednesday.
“By all indications, this is a terrorist act . . . It is a very serious matter when Americans are taken hostage along with others,” Panetta told reporters in Rome, according to a transcript of the news conference. “(I) want to assure the American people that the United States will take all the necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation.”
But when pressed further about an “end game,” Panetta said he supports a model where African forces support Mali’s effort to battle AQIM and other rebel groups.
An AQIM spokesperson told Voice of America that if the U.S. helps France in Mali, it will “face the consequences.”
AQIM is skilled in kidnappings and ransoms for Western hostages, reportedly in the tens of millions of dollars, has kept the organization well-funded. Seven French nationals were already being held hostage before Friday’s offensive.

WHO: Dengue fever pandemic already here?

Dengue fever racing around the world: WHO
By Jennifer Yang, Toronto Star, January 16, 2013
Dengue fever is now the fastest spreading insect-borne virus in the world and has reached “epidemic potential,” the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

Indeed, Dr. Scott Halstead, a leading dengue expert who has studied the virus for more than 50 years, goes even further: he believes the pandemic has already arrived.
“We’re in it. We’re in the pandemic,” said Halstead, a senior scientific adviser to the Dengue Vaccine Initiative. “We have more dengue in more countries, and in more places and involving more people, than any other time in history. It’s reached a huge geographic expanse and now we’re stuck with it.”
While Halstead and the WHO may differ on the precise definition of what constitutes a “pandemic,” they both agree dengue has reached alarming levels since “breakbone fever” began to spread just after the Second World War.
In 1955, only three countries reported dengue cases, according to the WHO, which released its second report on neglected tropical diseases Wednesday. Today, dengue fever is found in over 125 countries and nearly half the world’s population is now at risk of infection.
Currently, there are several dengue outbreaks. One on Portugal’s Madeira Island marks Europe’s first sustained transmission of the virus in nine decades. Paraguay is in the midst of a nationwide epidemic. There have been more than 6,000 confirmed cases and 70 deaths in the past three months, according to Reuters.
“In 2012, dengue ranked as the fastest spreading vector-borne viral disease … registering a 30-fold increase in disease incidence over the past 50 years,” the UN health agency said in a news release. “The world needs to change its reactive approach and implement sustainable preventive measures.”
Dengue is transmitted by mosquitos — primarily the female Aedes aegypti, which also spreads yellow fever — and typically causes flu-like symptoms, headache and skin rash. The disease is incredibly painful and debilitating.
“I’ve met many, many adults who have had dengue, mostly in Asia, and what they say is almost the same words: ‘That is the worst disease I’ve ever had,’ ” he said.
The disease can develop in a severe form known as dengue hemorrhagic fever or dengue shock syndrome, which can be fatal. About 2.5 per cent of people affected die, according to the WHO.
There is no treatment for severe dengue other than hospitalization and fluid management, which can make dengue an expensive disease to treat, Halstead said.
What makes finding a dengue vaccine particularly challenging is that there are four strains of the virus. An infected person will develop lifelong immunity to one particular strain, but he or she is at increased risk of getting severe dengue if infected later with one of the three other strains.
According to Dr. Raman Velayudhan, a WHO scientist specializing in neglected tropical diseases, two main factors have contributed to dengue’s rapid rise: urbanization and the spread of mosquitoes, aided by spreading transportation networks.
“The mosquitoes are spreading all over silently,” Velayudhan said. “They are there in many places and just waiting for an infected human to come by.”
Both he and Halstead agree it is unlikely that the tropical disease will ever become established in Canada — but that doesn’t mean Canadians shouldn’t worry about it.
According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, about 200 to 300 Canadian tourists get dengue every year. A nasty bout of breakbone fever is just a plane ride away.
“I don’t think there’s any tropical country you can visit that doesn’t have dengue,” Halstead said. “These are all global problems that have an enormous impact on the health and the financial stability and prosperity of countries in the world. Dengue is a drain.”

People, land, water ahead of accounting, bureaucracy and rules for First Nations

The survey found that 64 per cent of respondents think native Canadians get too much support from taxpayers. A similar percentage, 62 per cent, believes that aboriginal peoples are treated well by the federal government.

Despite the poll’s findings, however, 63 per cent of respondents believe that the federal government must act now to help raise natives’ quality of life. The same number supported resolving land claims to provide aboriginal peoples with the land and resources needed to become self-sufficient. (quotes from Jill Mahoney's piece entitled "Canadians' attitudes harden on aboriginal issues: new poll" in Globe and Mail, January 16, 2013) included below)

Clearly the headline writer did not wish, or was instructed so, to pay as much attention to the 63% of Canadian respondents who believe that the federal government must act now to help raise natives' quality of life, when compared with the other underlying poll results.
Nevertheless, the poll, like most polls that claim validity and reliability, generate complex, even sometimes confusing results. We do think and perceive that aboriginal communities are not precise in their accounting principles or execution. Neither is the federal government, so too much evidence suggests.
We also believe that there is a considerable flow of cash into the First Nations communities, without actually knowing how and where it is spent, and whether long-term planning and decision-making of indigenous bands warrants such a flow to continue, and under what kinds of monitoring.
So let's sort this mess out, just a little, even if only for our own attempt at comprehension and clarity.
First, something must be done to help aboriginal peoples because self-sufficient, economically, physically, fiscally, intellectually and professionally. And the only way to accomplish such a goal is for the federal government to listen to former Prime Minister Martin, in his interview this morning with CBC, when he said, "The first thing the federal government needs to do is to extend its hand and tell First Nations peoples it is willing to work together as a partner to come to workable solutions with them, for their people!"
Partnerships demand trust; in fact, without trust there can be no partnership. If the federal government, as the survey sample in the poll tends to do, puts First Nations accounting "responsibility" ahead of the need for change, there will be no partnership possible. If the federal government holds fast to the over-riding importance of accounting and  spending, to the denial of the deeper and profoundly dispiriting underlying issues, there will be no partnership. In short, if First Nations people are placed down the "totempole" below all the white man's priorities, (to borrow a metaphor), there will be no totempole to celebrate the new relationship for which the First Nations are protesting.
People and land and rivers ahead of accounting, rules and bureaucracy....that comes closer to "listening" to the legitimate demands of the indigenous people. And if too many of both elected and career bureaucrats are deaf to that differentiation, there will be no partnership forged.
Under people, First Nations people want what every other Canadian takes for granted: good houses, good schools, good food, clean water, access to quality health care and the opportunity to work in dignity. Of course, they also want to see a drop in the number of cases of drug addiction, suicide and desperate poverty among their people.
As for the lands and waters, First Nations people have become the voice of the planet (including the air we all breathe) and, if we are to take both them and ourselves seriously for the long-term, we need to listen to their perspective.
All Canadians, both those of aboriginal descent and those from the non-aboriginal community have a shared, mutual and inter-dependent interest in seeing that these legitimate needs are met without rancour, without contempt, certainly without the kind of sophisticated racism that is implicit in placing "the white man's priorities" ahead of the priorities of First Nations....and to do that we will all have to let go of our tight, sometimes anal grip on the pursestrings, so that justice, fairness and long-term equality can result.
The First Nations peoples have already taken the first step, and while we may not appreciate delays in our travel, or in the flow of our commerce, (provided no violence ensues from the protests) we have to resist our "control" or our perceived dominance for more than a century and let that give way to a kind of openness to authentic listening, truly hearing the plaintiff voices that are part of the culture, an intimate component of the culture of something called Canada.
John Ralston Saul, in his work, "Fair Country" poses a three-legged stool as the metaphor for the Canadian culture and society...one leg each for English, French and First Nations peoples. He also paints a highly supportive picture of the emergence of indigenous leaders in growing numbers of graduates from Canadian universities ready to take their rightful place as leaders in the Canadian community.
Are we ready to fully enact the title of Saul's book, and is the government courageous enough to invite Saul to take a leadership role in the ensuing conversations ahead?


Canadians' attitudes hardening on aboriginal issues: new poll
By Jill Mahoney, Globe and Mail, January 16, 2013
Protests by native Canadians appear to have done little to gain public support as a new poll suggests attitudes are hardening on aboriginal issues.

The opinion survey by Ipsos Reid for Postmedia News and Global Television found that a strong majority of Canadians believe that most of the problems of indigenous peoples are brought upon by themselves and that reserves should not get any more federal funds until independent auditors can review their books.
The poll comes as frustrated native leaders threaten to shut down major transportation corridors throughout Ontario Wednesday as part of a day of action. Last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with some aboriginal leaders but did not sit down with all the chiefs who wanted to discuss treaty rights and other concerns.

Such blockades risk further alienating the broader population. Only 31 per cent of poll respondents believe shutting down road and railways is a form of legitimate protest.
The survey found that 64 per cent of respondents think native Canadians get too much support from taxpayers. A similar percentage, 62 per cent, believes that aboriginal peoples are treated well by the federal government.
Conversely, only 27 per cent of Canadians believe that federal money spent on reserves is managed well by native leaders and communities.
Ipsos Reid also surveyed attitudes on some of the key players involved in recent events. National aboriginal leaders, including the Assembly of First Nations, got the highest support, at 51 per cent of respondents. Mr. Harper was a few notches lower, at 46 per cent support. The Idle No More movement received the approval of 38 per cent of those who took the poll while Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence trailed at just 29 per cent.
Despite the poll’s findings, however, 63 per cent of respondents believe that the federal government must act now to help raise natives’ quality of life. The same number supported resolving land claims to provide aboriginal peoples with the land and resources needed to become self-sufficient.