Saving The Unwary

Is it possible to save people from the repercussions of their unthinking passions? People do have a habit of resisting when onlookers, well-wishers, friends, family members - and perhaps others who have themselves fallen into the trap of burning their bridges - infuriatingly advise them when they really don't want any advice.

The simple fact is when it comes to the emotions, and to what the romantics call 'true love', everyone makes their own mistakes and then lives with them. Or not.

What keeps us coming back for more is that sometimes we luck in, and all things considered, love is reciprocated, and balance of character and personality and aspirations and values achieved to make for a happy ending. And sometimes not.

It's a crap shoot, for the most part. You think you know the person to whom you offer yourself. And if he's somehow different than you, with a different background and culture and traditions, well isn't that romantic?

Not necessarily, as discovered by any number of young women who, heedless to well intentioned advice with respect to the possibility of fiction on the road ahead, proceed regardless. The heart is such a fragile instrument; it brooks no advice.

Time and again young women travel to countries where the culture and the prevailing laws, and the social mores are not quite reflective of those they're familiar with.
Where authority rests with the male figure in a family, and the woman has little to say in the disposition of their children's welfare.

So here's the Bloc Quebecois happily and heartily as is their wont, denouncing the federal government in Canada for abandoning a young Canadian woman in need. Ah, but it was she who married a fellow university student, and in a free country this was her right.

Now there are two children, one born in Canada, the other in Saudi Arabia where Nathalie Morin followed her husband to his home country. Unfortunately, her relationship with Samir Said Abdallah Ramthi Al-Bishi has unaccountably - or predictably - soured. And it is her expressed desire to return to Canada - with her children.

However, they are also his children. And in Saudi Arabia she must pass through legal channels to obtain her desire. Canadian diplomats in Saudi Arabia have advised Ms. Morin that her children's father must approve of her having sole custody of their children, approve of her removing them from his country, to return to Canada.

"Under Saudi law, the father must approve the departure of his children from the country. In the absence of this approval, consular officials cannot facilitate the departure of children without contravening Saudi law." Thus has she been apprised of the legality of her situation by her Canadian representatives abroad.

How could it be otherwise? Were the couple to be residing in Canada, it would be Canadian legal jurisdiction that comes into play. Ms. Morin is carrying another child. She will soon have three children whose welfare will be uppermost in her mind, along with her own.

Her worried father struggles to persuade Prime Minister Harper to intervene. How, reasonably, diplomatically, legally?