Not too long ago, I tried to remember all the states of the United States of America. I missed Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. A well-informed and well-read friend of mine, a citizen of the United States of America, was impressed. He said that most Americans (of the United States) wouldn’t be able to name all 50.
In addition to these 50, the USA has five permanently inhabited territories: Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa. None of them have voting rights. Of these Puerto Rico, due to size and proximity perhaps, is mistaken to be a state of the USA. As such, the 51st, for some at least. One could be very technical about it and say ‘no, just fifty’ or stretch it a bit and say ‘fifty four.’
When Krisantha Sri Bhaggiyadatta titled a book of poems ‘The 52nd State of Amnesia,’ he counted in Puerto Rico. The 52nd was Canada. And this is about Canada. And amnesia.
Roy Sawh, quite a popular Hyde Park speaker, once observed, ‘Canada, so close to the USA, so far away from Britain, is part of Great Britain.’ He also said ‘Britain, so close to Europe, so far away from America, is another state of the United States of America.’ A for-all-intents-and-purposes argument can be made for the latter. Krisantha flips the Canadian case, essentially saying that Canada is just another state of the USA. For all intents and purposes. That country has consistently adopted a foreign policy framework which defers to US judgment — it’s a 'whatever you say, brother' kind of stand.
Canada. A beautiful country. Plenty of resources. The health care and education systems are streets ahead of the mother-country, yes, the USA. A putrid history and an atrocious present when it comes to human rights.
Around 10 years ago, after grudgingly giving three UN rapporteurs permission to probe its record on human rights, treatment of aboriginals and discrimination against women, Canada whined, ’Some countries, like Iran, reviewing Canada have abhorrent human rights records.’ The USA was not reviewing Canada of course, but if the principle of moral objection is to be valid, it has to be observed across the board; Canada around the same time called for the removal of Richard Falk, a UN human rights rapporteur who had some unsavoury things to say about the USA.
Canada is a leading cheerleader of US foreign policy which, as is well known, considers genocide, political interference, invasion and setting up military bases all over the world to be quite in order. Canada doesn’t question. Canada therefore need not be apologetic. Quite the 52nd state!
Canada has its own genocidal history. It has its own systems of discrimination. Around eight years ago part of Canada’s discriminatory Bill C-24 went into effect, officially creating a two-tire citizenship structure which meant that dual citizens and people who have immigrated to Canada can have their citizenship taken away while other Canadians are unaffected. This from legislators, the vast majority of whose ancestors were themselves immigrants who claimed governing authority by robbing land and slaughtering native peoples.
All this is background. Just the other day, the Daily MIrror reported that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau parroted the tired and deceitful narrative of the pro-terrorist sections of expatriate Sri Lankan Tamils that genocide had taken place in Sri Lanka. Canada’s Foreign Ministry however has stated, ‘The Government of Canada has not made a finding that there was genocide in Sri Lanka.’ This was in April 2021. If Trudeau now believes that the Foreign Ministry was in error it is incumbent on his to place relevant evidence to prove his point. He has not.
It is well known and rarely acknowledged that the genocide narrative is something cooked up by those who have funded, armed and in other ways supported terrorism and terrorists and inflated by groups and countries that have had an axe to grind with the then Sri Lankan government or rather the then leaders.
All kinds of people have been quoting the error-ridden document penned by the panel led by Marzuki Darusman set up by the then UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, where wild and unsubstantiated allegations made by unreliable ‘witnesses’ were touted as fact and conclusions drawn thereafter. Someone who is ignorant, illiterate and lacks basic intelligence can be forgiven for believing and echoing lies of any kind. Trudeau can’t be called ignorant, illiterate and moronic, though, can he?
So it is political. So it is all about what’s politically expedient. And it is also about hypocrisy. It is also about being disingenuous. Amnesia? Selective amnesia, then?
There’s a present (even if want to rubbish the past on account of it being owned by those who came before, never mind that you are a direct or indirect beneficiary of plunder, rape and genocide) that should trouble Canada but which clearly doesn’t keep Trudeau awake at night. That present, as far as it relates to Sri Lanka and the rest of the world, includes the deliberate and pernicious validation of outright lies. It includes the unabashed saluting of Big Brother’s thuggery all over the world. And of course the deliberate vilification of Sri Lanka and the simultaneous celebration of terrorism.
Krisantha was spot on when he referred to Canada as ‘The 52nd State of Amnesia.’ The history of Canada in a nutshell. Canadian political leadership in a nutshell, really.
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