How the mighty have fallen – and how fast. Not long aqo a visit by the US Secretary of State would have been a reason for any Asian country to pull out all the stops and to listen carefully. Now Ms Rice makes a quick tour of Asian capitals to rally support for some sort of initiative against loose cannon North Korea and finds only polite indifference. The fact is that the US has given away its poistion of power in Asia with hopelessly (un)planned attack on Iraq, its failure (with some allies who would not have dreamed of getting invoved in Iraq) to solve the endless problem of Afghanistan, where no invading power has ever come out looking well, and its hopelessly one-sided support of Israel. Every Asian diplomat listened politely and played the protocol game, but no one really cared a great deal what she said. Japanese diplomats immediately thereafter suggested it was time to discuss nucear weapons for Japan, China presses on with its own (somewhat confusing) policy on North Korea, Russia clearly acts in its own interests, and, worst of all North Korea makes it perfectly clear that even a dwarf can ignore the demands of the blustering former superpower. Can this be changed? Hard to say but whoever takes over from the present amateurs will have plenty of recuperative work to do in Asia.
Thanksgiving in the Great White North
It’s Thanksgiving weekend, and Canadian newspapers are full of stories about how grateful we should be to farmers and how the Nova Scotia giant pumpkin contest once again had a bumper crop. Such folksy stories must reemerge so that they can be resurrected again next year at this time. There’s also a lot of non-fluffy material about the miserable state of relations between Canada and the US. “U.S. gives up claim that Canadian lumber is subsidized”, “Canada to protest Arar, PM tells Bush”, “Thousands on terror watch lists by mistake”, “Passports could be required sooner: U.S.”, “Boundary commission can’t see border for the trees”, “Deserter who fled to Canada released from prison” (all from pp. 1-6 of the Saturday. Oct. 7 Vancouver Sun).
The question is whether such intense dislike of the attempt by the Bush administration to put up a seamless barrier around US territory will be forgotten quickly up here once a new government comes to power in Washington and presumably begins to remove the most flagrant attacks on its largest trading partner and neighbour. It comes at a time when Western and most Central European countries have virtually eliminated the last remnants of defended national boundaries. Canadians who cross the U.S. border now with non-North American friends and colleagues are shocked to see them being fingerprinted and photographed in a separate lineup. Canadian citizens won’t cross the border as often as they once did if they are to be fingerprinted, and many don’t even own passports, having found North America big enough for their travel.
In today’s Sunday paper there is another border story: “B.C. pair survives high-seas sinking”. A U.S.Coast Guard helicopter heard the distress call of a Canadian fishing boat sinking 200 kilometers off the Washington coast as it was answered by Canadian Coast Guard in Tofino on the central coast of Vancouver Island. It sent its own rescue helicopter, already airborne on a training mission, out from Astoria, Oregon. After returning to base to refuel and pick up a rescue swimmer, the crew was the first to reach the life raft of the fishermen, who came from Vancouver Island and Newfoundland, and plucked them out of the freezing water. A rescue plane from Sacramento and a cutter were also on their way. So there is evidence that there still exists in some quarters a code of conduct that transcends borders and is based on mutual respect, civility and, in this case, courage.
Sex, Hockey and the Global Crisis
The first round ballots are in and it’s beginning to look very much as if Michael Ignatieff will be chosen leader of the Liberal Party of Canada at their convention in December, and would then be a very good bet to be the next Prime Minister of Canada. Ignatieff would be a most interesting opponent in any bilateral discussions with the US at a time in which the two countries are drifting apart faster than the Greenland icebergs are racing away from their former home. The alienation of its neighbours could be one of the more long-lasting results of the increasingly incomprehensible actions of a government in Washington that seems intent on separating itself from the rules of behaviour adhered to by its (former?) allies. Ignatieff would surely be the most experienced and knowledgeable expert on global affairs – he ran the appropriate institute at Harvard before making a run at Canadian politics – to be in a position to do something about it. And his discussion with Bush and his extraordinarily lightweight advisors might be a painful revelation about why North America can no longer be understood – as Europeans tend to do – as one big place called Amerika.
In order for that to happen, some very Canadian obstacles will have to be overcome. Hockey has popped up, as it always seems to do, in the strangest places. The Toronto Globe and Mail, which had run a very flattering lengthy piece on Ignatieff, ran a much less effusive piece on his main rival and former roommate at the U. of Toronto, Rhodes scholar Bob Rae, who is certainly no dummy, but hardly looks like a jock. He came in a miserable third in the Ontario delegation voting, no doubt because he had once been the socialist premier of Ontario when it got into serious financial problems. The article was highlighted by a photo of a comic-looking Rae in full hockey regalia skating for the Ontario legiskater team. The hockey photos of candidate Ken Dryden, who is given only an outside chance of being prime minister but a very good chance of being Minister of Sports, do not look comical. In fact in the week before the vote, the Montreal Canadiens announced that Dryden’s jersey, along with Quebec icon Serge Savard’s, would be retired and raised to the rafters of the coliseum in Montreal. Guess who gets the Quebec hockey vote. Ignatieff’s announcement that he enjoyed nothing more than having a beer and watching Hockey Night in Canada was met with some skepticism. And to top it off, Belinda Stronach, a top candidate who decided not to run, was identified in a divorce suit by the wife of Maple Leaf tough guy Ti Domi as the other woman who led poor Ti astray. Since Belinda had been married to Norwegian gold-medal speed-skater Olof Johann Koss, she might have given Dryden a run for his money as most experienced candidate on the ice.
The Great White North confronts the invisible fence
US President George Bush has announced that Boeing has been awarded a multi billion dollar contract to build a 10,000 kilometer long “invisible fence†along the Mexican and Canadian borders, similar to the one that dog owners place around their backyards to keep fido from leaving the property. 18,000 towers, outfitted with motion detectors and cameras, will ensure that US citizens enjoy the kind of internal protection previously offered to populations behind the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall and the North Korean no-go zone.
Canadian authorities were taken by surprise by the announcement of the end of what used to be called “the world’s longest undefended borderâ€. Recalling that more than 37,000 Hungarians showed up in Canada when the Iron Curtain was briefly breached in 1956, Canadian aid societies have begun to make preparations for the expected flow of refugees moving north across the mountains before the watchtowers are in place. In Whitehorse the Yukon government has asked for a 2-year delay to make certain that the 200,000 strong porcupine caribou herd is on the right side of the border lest they get permanently lost amidst the oil drilling equipment dotting the wildlife refuge on the Alaska side of the border. Should the herd cross while under detection, it is feared that an energy crisis will be inevitable as the detectors and cameras become challenged beyond their capabiilties.