Protesting Austerity

European countries suffering downturns in their economies, and struggling to surmount those difficulties have seen loud and violent protests launched against parliamentarians who have attempted to introduce austerity measures geared to meet those fiscal challenges. Such measures raise the ire of their constituents. No one wants to see their entitlements cut back. Certainly not the unions, on behalf of their members, who have fought long and hard for their entitlements.

The European Trade Union months ago when the protests first began to get serious estimated that 100,000 trade unionists across Europe came out in force. We've seen the kind of violence that erupted in Greece. Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Lithuania, Latvia, Germany and Ireland all experienced their large-scale union protests, with people marching to demonstrate their unwillingness to share the pain for the eventual gain.



And then, staid old Britain had its week-end of protests that turned into an anarchical rampage through the streets of central London, with hundreds of thousands of people marching to protest government cuts. Once people have been advantaged by union-bargained entitlements they are understandably loathe to see them fractionated, to become once again disadvantaged. They are not interested in hearing that their sacrifice is for the greater public good.

That want to retain what is rightfully theirs through the precedent of honest union bargaining and societal acceptance of their due. A peaceful, orderly march. That swiftly descended into an anti-capitalist show of force. Among the peaceful union marchers appeared black-clad figures intent on demonstrating their contempt for order and good government. Their own demonstration was inclusive of setting fires, smashing into banks, hotels and high-end shops.

They tossed whatever was handy at police. And what was handy began to include light bulbs filled with ammonia. Over 4,500 police were tasked to maintain order for the march. It was well enough known that anarchists would be present since they made no effort to shield their planned activities from public knowledge, preparing their action on Facebook and Twitter, making no bones about their violent intentions.

But the government promised retailers in London's main thoroughfare that their enterprises would be well protected; more than sufficient police would be on hand to ensure adequate control of the crowd. The police, often enough accused of a heavy-handed response to peaceful protests had their work cut out for them, attempting to control the hundreds of anarchist goons.

It took five hours of battling before things simmered down. Before which, banks were broken into, shop windows were smashed in New Bond Street, battles took place on Pickadilly; the Ritz hotel was attacked with paint; a "Trojan horse" set afire in Oxford Circus; Fortnum and Mason was "occupied" by protesters who smashed windows and looted merchandise. A fine time was had by all.


-- by paulµ43, on Flickr

Just Too Precious

What a coalition this is! Western powers and a few Arab countries united in opposition to Moammar Gadhafi's determination to remain in power and to punish those of his people with the temerity to oppose his continued rule. The united front is anything but united. It is fractious and querulous.

While France and Britain took the initiative with huge umbrage at the prospect of Gadhafi targeting his own people with wild brutality, insisting that the United Nations pass a resolution for a no-fly zone as a humanitarian necessity, they rely on the fire-power of the United States.

The United States, willing enough to be involved - but unwilling this time around to be the presumptive leader where it remains a target of Arab loathing for interfering in the affairs of Middle Eastern countries in its zeal to protect its oil interests - awaits leadership from elsewhere.

Standing ready and eager to hand that leadership over to France, to Britain, to NATO. But NATO's participation requires all 28 of its members to agree. And Turkey, the sole Muslim member of NATO, is abrasively resistant to NATO's involvement in the battering and bombing of Libya.

Along with China and Russia, both of whom have their own internal dissents to cope with. Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has described the Allied bombing of Libya's military as "indiscriminate force", as "a medieval call for a crusade". No one has mentioned Russia's brutal incursion into Georgia and its support of South Ossetia.

China for its part, describes the air strikes on Libya as comparable to "the blood-soaked tempests that Iraq has undergone for eight years and the unspeakable suffering of its people". No one has made any mention of the blood-soaked tempests in Tibet and the unspeakable suffering of the Tibetans with the loss of their culture, their heritage, their lives. And perhaps that is just as well.

The Arab League has now back-tracked on its complaints that in calling for the United Nations to authorize a no-fly zone, it had no intention of seeing civilians killed - as they contend was occurring under the coalition attacks. It has now re-affirmed its commitment to ensuring that mad-dog Gadhafi no longer wages war on his own.

Although that sentiment has not yet been communicated to Moammar Gadhafi and his forces are busily engaged doing just that.

Italy now threatens to take back control of its air bases. Italy doesn't mind being militarily subservient and at the service of the United States' forces, but it takes umbrage at being used and taken-for-granted by France and by Great Britain. Italy foresees the feasibility of NATO taking charge in the absence of American leadership.

Germany, along with Turkey, has no wish to see NATO involved. That would force Berlin to backtrack on its refusal to become involved in the entire inconvenient mess.

And so, what's the agenda? Protection of the rebels? The long shilly-shallying until the Arab League decided to back a no-fly option gave the Gadhafi regime ample opportunity to strengthen and consolidate its resources, and weaken the initial successful advance of the rebels.

What happens if there is a stand-off between the government forces and the rebels? And a division of the country ensues? Leaving Gadhafi in control of the north, the rebels the south. That would result in a waiting game. The coalition will not be around forever. And the battle will re-commence.

And here's a funny thing; the coalition heads of state all favour the elimination of Moammar Gadhafi. That he flee with his family, which he is not inclined to do, or that he be 'eliminated', which is to say dispatched, or rather assassinated, or killed by bombing. The bombing of his compound did not succeed in dispatching him.

And while the heads of state anticipate his removal by means fair and foul, it is their military chiefs who want no part of anything like that, considering it to be an 'unwise' move, and not within their mandate.

Isn't that just too precious?

Standing Up to Islamism

The messages keep coming. Is anyone listening? Seems not. The free democratic countries of the world have so deeply delved their consciousness in their obligation as privileged world leaders to be understanding and patient and non-judgemental of those whose religious practices have festered into ideological totalitarianism that they've dug a deep hole for themselves and still have difficulty peering down into that hole to distinguish their future.

This is not a very palatable future. But it is one that the open-hearted, fuzzy-headed left-liberals have fashioned by welcoming wholeheartedly into their midst an immigrant population whose need to live better lives their hosts could not conceivably ignore. That these immigrants brought with them wholesale, an entire baggage of religion, culture, heritage and tribal politics whose grip on them could never be loosed is the reason that Europe today looks far different than it did before the migration onslaught.

Now, with the host countries' venerable institutions, their courts, their parliaments, their universities having generously opened their doors to the imperatives of the immigrant bloc that practices radical Islam - a new, vigorous, arrogant and vituperative, belligerent and entitled Islam reflecting the tenor of their times - the values and priorities, the social mores and cultural and historical civilizing progress made by the welcoming countries have suffered a mortal set-back.

Islamists who cleave to violence to obtain the upper hand may not represent the majority of Muslims who consider themselves to be law-abiding and equable individuals, but a large proportion of those moderate Muslims also feel that the superiority of Islam is undeniable and any means by which Islam can successfully rise to full majority status globally makes it acceptable to support the Islamist view that attacking Western values will produce an Islamic victory, routing all opponents of Sharia and the eventuality of a global Caliphate.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron have brought attention to the issue by rejecting multiculturalism as a failed experiment. Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and other European countries which have long generously opened their doors to Muslim immigrants now realize that they have bred a potential sixth column of violent terror recruits. Spain and Britain, India and Indonesia have, along with the United States, experienced just how resourceful jihadists are.

Mosques have sprung up everywhere throughout Europe where none had existed before, as the Muslim population grows and thrives and infiltrates every segment of society. Imams are sent out from fanatical Islamic countries to preach their hate propaganda against the West and against Israel and the Jews, along with other targets of their vituperative disdain. Those imams convince their followers that the West has insulted Islam and it is for this reason that Islamists target the West, to restore honour to Islam and to Allah.

Young Muslims having been raised in the West are just as susceptible to recruitment in violent jihad as their brethren raised in Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, Yemen Sudan and elsewhere in the Muslim world who have earned their hateful stripes attending Wahhabist madrassas, from whence they fan out into the world to make their martyrdom mark. Among 15-year-old German Muslims, 40% feel Islam is of more importance to them than democracy; 37% feel European Muslims should live under sharia law.

In Britain a very similar segment of the Muslim youth population between the ages of 16 and 24 believe they should live under sharia law. In Britain, 40% of Muslim university students also support universal sharia law. And a significant proportion of that percentage also considers it fully legitimate in the name of Islam to kill those who offend Islamic sensibilities or defy Islam. Shamefully, trade unions and academic institutions have found in supporting Islamists a new role for themselves as champions of the 'underdog'.

This is a universal problem, and a growing one, for non-Muslim countries that have opened themselves to emigration from Muslim-majority countries and now harbour their own significantly proportional Muslim populations. The tendency to live separate lives, to avoid integrating into the larger society, to reject deficient values that have no place in Islam, to spurn overtures by the majority population helps immeasurably to ensure that Muslims will continue to regard non-Muslims as inferior and unworthy.

As European countries become more and more reflective of their growing Muslim populations and their indigenous culture, heritage and values become subsumed by Islamic ones, while Muslims among them continue to degrade their fellow non-Muslims as despicable and ripe for dhimmitude the situation will only accelerate. For Canada and the United States whose growing Muslim population is producing a similar, albeit still muted effect, there is still time for sterner immigration rules to stem the tide.

Europe, on the other hand, now firmly infiltrated and facing an upheaval of monstrous proportions in loosing their firm hold on their own traditions and values and systems of justice that recognizes equality between the genders, and a voluntary acceptance of a pluralistic society, will be hard pressed to restore itself and protect itself from further blighted invasion.

Paralyzed With Inaction

"People are dying out there. Gaddafi's forces have rockets and tanks."

What looked convincingly like a rag-tab rebel army coming together to oust a vicious dictator whose time had finally arrived, is now beginning to resemble the death throes of an embattled resistance. The government of Libya's Moammar Gadhafi's forces have artillery, tanks and helicopters that the rebel forces cannot match for efficacy.

The rebel groups remain unorganized, and disputes have arisen between them. Their confidence is sagging as they realize the extent to which their lesser-favoured armaments are not quite equal to the task of meeting government troops head on. They have been strafed and bombed and bloodied and chastened by the experience. The euphoria they have been living with is fading.

They are undisciplined and wasteful of the ammunition they have. They have managed, in small towns that they have occupied, to alienate the residents who were eager to welcome them. Alienated them by the rough antics and dangerous and unwarranted abuse of their weapons, firing into the air at all hours, disrupting normal life.

The rebels, although not professional soldiers, come from warrior Bedouin stock. Whose tribal loyalties and and traditional battles against one another are still ingrained in their psyches although they are now shopkeepers, teachers, gas station attendants, doctors. They have long since identified with a genuine need to free themselves from the shackles of their dictator. And are now collectively dedicated to that mission.

They do not have enough arms, rocket-propelled grenades, and equipment modern enough to match those of the government troops. Resupplying their front lines has been difficult. And leadership has been fragmented. In any case, the instant conscripts do not follow orders and respond enthusiastically but without discipline. The brigades they have formed fly by the seat of their pants.

They do know, however, that they need help. "People cannot run away, it's cordoned off. they cannot flee. All those who can fight are fighting, including teen-agers. Children and women are being hidden", is the message from Zawiyah's desperate scenes of government troops inflicting carnage. "Many buildings are completely destroyed, including hospitals, mosques, electricity lines and generators."

Where, they ask bitterly, is the West. Which mounts international podiums to speak of the unacceptability of the situation. Which speaks of no-fly zones, but does nothing. The rebels do want assistance. "We will complete our victory when we are afforded a no-fly zone. If there was also action to stop him from recruiting mercenaries, his end would come within hours", claimed Hafiz Ghoga, spokesman for the National Libyan Council.

France and England await the United Nations' decisive determination to act. The Security Council will not budge, however, with Russia and China insisting that Libya must itself solve its internal problems. The Arab League is set to meet to discuss the plea by the Gulf States that NATO and the UN declare a no-fly zone.

And the European Union countries fret about the growing emergency that will inevitably result in their receiving more refugees than they can comfortably absorb.

Beware Greeks Bearing Grudges

Europe is not a happy place, lately. Austerity measures are no more popular there than anywhere else in the world. There have been protests against belt-tightening everywhere in the world; strikes and protests and union demands, from Israel to the United States, Europe to the Middle East. People are angry as they see food and energy prices rise while their incomes do not.

And they don't want to take it anymore.

There's a big difference, however, between angry strikes and anarchic protests. Between civil disobedience and violent disorder. Once again Greeks have gone on a rampage to let their government know they have no intention of quietly submitting to the austerity measures it wishes to impose upon them at the demand of the International Monetary Fund.

The European Union and the IMF have extended a $150-billion rescue loan to Greece, after all, and understandably they would appreciate the assurance that Greece is serious about undertaking financial reforms, for they would like to be repaid eventually, thank you very much. The IMF is pressing George Papandreou to speed up structural reforms.

And the Greek populace is responding by raging against the recession and the imposition being placed on the normalcy of their lives and their expectations. Tens of thousands of workers, pensioners and students marched in protests, the hell with the debt crisis. Riot police were out in force at Athens' central Syntagma Square letting loose tear gas.

Bahrain has its Pearl Square, Libya its Green Square, Tunisia its Mohammad Bouazizi Square, Egypt its Tahrir Square, and Greece has its Syntagma Square. Where protesters marched to express their disgust over the prices of food and goods not matching their ability to purchase, and where they expressed their unwillingness to be governed by those who ignored their fundamental needs.

In Wisconsin, the Democrats in the Indiana House of Representatives fled the state to deprive the Republican majority from a quorum required to pass a bill restricting worker's rights to collective bargaining, in an effort to bring the state's finances under control. In Greece protesters are out in force flinging stones and firebombs, vandalizing transit stops, and setting fire to trash bins.

A wholesale rejection of the government's economic policies in the wake of the country's near bankruptcy. In attempting to reduce its debt of over $400-billion, the government thought to lease state assets: "We want the government to drop all these measures, to abandon plans to sell property!"

The union-led strikes paralyzed maritime traffic and train services, disrupted the capital's urban transport and flights and resulted in a news black-out. Hospitals and schools were affected, and public administration offices and banks shut down. The population generously assisting its government in coming to grips with the country's debt crisis.

Very civilized.

Societal (or Multicultural) Death Knell

"We have been too concerned about the identity of the person who was arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him." French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy

That great civil exercise in expressing understanding, compassion, solidarity and equality among cultures, ethnicities, religions and heritage has come to a thudding halt. Not that all those generous extensions of civility are to be halted, no longer to be honoured. But not at the expense of the expectation that when people of diverse backgrounds migrate to a country other than that of their origins, they must value the prevailing culture, social mores and values, and their laws, and take steps to integrate into the welcoming social system.

That is not too onerous an expectation. When people seek shelter, refuge, a place for themselves in countries not their original ones because of social or political unrest, or unjust conditions, or endemic poverty, they must be prepared to pay some dutiful homage to the welcoming country. The most effective way to do that is to recognize the national values and the social contract that others within the country honour and practise.

The bright idea of multiculturalism, having due regard for other cultures' diverse practises as a way to help people adjust to a new social environment might have sounded like a good idea, and made the welcoming parties feel generous to a fault, but there was an unforeseen fault that resulted in the incoming immigrants and refugees deducing from that generosity that it was no longer incumbent upon them to make any kind of obligatory overtures, to 'fit in'.

Multiculturalism resulted in people feeling confident about retaining all their old cultural practises, of living in the social comfort of a familiar language, social customs and religious practises that were often divisive, and which certainly led them to keep themselves physically apart from those whose society they joined. Ignorance of the welcoming society's values and priorities resulted, as well as an ongoing and growing sense of undeserved entitlement to ever-increasing demands for special treatment.

Which led inevitably to feelings on both sides of the cultural/values divide that were antagonistic in nature; that far too great an accommodation was being made for immigrant communities, effectively diluting the importance of the prevailing society - and the reverse, that the prevailing society's expectations of the immigrant community were unfair, insensitive and intrusive.

The rise of disaffected first- and second-generation youth from immigrant families who felt outside both experiences, belonging securely to none, led invariably to those youth feeling aggressively aggrieved against the prevalent, majority society, particularly in the case of the Muslim demographic. For whom the vision of their adopted homeland's response to an emerging, violence-based Islamic jihad was interpreted as "Islamophobia", and toward which the disaffected homeland youth responded as new recruits for violent jihad.

"The French national community cannot accept a change in its lifestyle, equality between men and women ... freedom for little girls to go to school", said Nicolas Sarkozy, choosing to focus on that aspect of Islamic cultural differences at odds with France's, rather than addressing the more incendiary problems of youth violence in France's infamous Muslim ghettos rife with restless, unemployed and resentful youth ripe for jihad.

"If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome to France". As to the question of whether multiculturalism has succeeded or failed: "My answer is clearly yes, it is a failure", he said during a television interview. Fairly well echoing the statements of British Prime Minister David Cameron, German chancellor Angela Merkel, Australia's ex-prime minister John Howard and Spanish ex-premier Jose Maria Aznar.

Multiculturalism has encouraged immigrants to retain far too much of their singular and often-oppositional cultural mores that set them apart from those of the prevailing culture. Integration became an unachievable dream, far from reality. Prime Minister Cameron's vision of a "more active, muscular liberalism", where equal rights, rule of law, freedom of speech and democracy are actively promoted has overtaken the misguided multiculturalism ideology.

Although other countries in Europe have not yet pronounced themselves completely fed up with the strains that 'accommodation' has placed on their patience, on the remarkable changes that have taken place in their nations' consciousness, and their countries' physical and social landscapes, many have taken steps to indicate their displeasure with prevailing Islamic stealthy infiltration, undermining their valued historical European roots.

The United States, in attempting to come to terms with, and to acquire a deeper understanding of the emerging violence among home-grown Islamists exercising their options to join al-Qaeda derivatives and enacting atrocities there, has turned to Canada and to Australia. To try to emulate those two countries in their attempts through their national security agencies to defuse palpable dissatisfaction and arrest the potential for fanatic-jihad violence. By liaising at the community level with organized Islamic elites.

Which would be akin to the halt aiding the blind. America's melting pot society, that absorbs immigrants with the expectation that they will readily adopt and adapt to prevailing social values has hardly been less disappointing than that of multiculturalism. Call it a melting pot, call it a cultural mosaic; when an adverse ideology or religion has the strength and determination to be interpreted as adversarial to prevailing values, its result is akin to multiculturalism, by default.

If the organized face of Western-based immigrant communities dedicated to their Eastern-based religions, ideologies, politics and cultural mores continue to preach and teach and support differences rather than exhort the acceptance of the adopting countries' nurturing social values, what point is there of liaising with them? It is from the crucible of the fundamentalist, organized mosques and clerics that impressionable young Muslims are encouraged to surrender to militant, political Islam.

This is one of the many results of multiculturalism, along with emigrant-acceptance policies incapable of distinguishing which immigration-seeking applicants based on background and assessable criteria present as reasonable candidates for immersion in and acceptance of Western society.

New French Pamphleteer Sensation

He is 93 years old, and as such can be considered to have acquired the wisdom that comes with venerable old age.

He has had experiences that qualify him as one who can look back and assess the state of the world, then and now, making comparisons and announcing his qualified diagnosis. Which appears to be that his French countrymen are too placid, too busy going about their distracted lifestyles, and in his opinion, not sufficiently engaged in the social and political life of their country.

His message will have huge appeal to the 4.1 million Muslims now residing in France. Stephane Hessel's experience had little to do with the perceived shortcomings he now recognizes, of his country in addressing itself - or failing to, in reflection of the current climate of hopeful neglect and resulting resentment among immigrants - to the ills he perceives among the body politic of his country.

This is a man with a storied past. A former spy with the French Resistance. Who happens also to be a survivor of the Holocaust, since he is a Jew, besides being a decidedly angry personage. Who wouldn't be angry if life had served up a performance consisting of not one but two incarcerations in Nazi prisons, and death camps thrown in for good measure. He escaped to join the resistance.

And now, well seasoned by experience and by all the time that has elapsed since the end of the aspirations of the Third Reich, this man who was a former diplomat to offset his stint as a freedom fighter, and who just incidentally is one of the last surviving authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - who better than one with his experiences to delineate human rights? - has written his own brief tract, Indignes-vous!

He wants to mobilize public opinion, encourage people to think, to engage in some introspection; is this the society they want, where inequities, social and economic, dominate the social fabric of the country he so obviously loves?

"I would like everyone - every one of us - to find his or her own reason to cry out. That is a precious gift. When someone makes you want to cry out, as I cried out against Nazism, you become a militant, tough and committed. You become part of the great stream of history ... and this stream leads us toward more justice and more freedom, but not the uncontrolled freedom of the fox in the henhouse."

In other words, he wants, reasoned, rational reaction, a cry from the heart, a commitment, an impassioned but credibly reasonable move to right the wrongs of society where too many are poor and those that are not are too well endowed with the riches of the world. He cautions that those who heed his appeal not succumb to the "uncontrolled freedom of the fox in the henhouse", but he is aiding that very process.

Whereby a public conscience becomes aroused, and through that arousal looks about for a focus for their alienation and the privation they see around them - and that usually does translate as the fox having his way in the henhouse. The henhouse in this instance is the Jewish community within France.

For Stephane Hessel is also an outspoken and dedicated critic of the State of Israel. He denounces Israeli policies, accusing Israel of "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity".

While this is fairly standard fare for the progressive, liberal-left which has, through unions and academics taken up the cause of the Palestinians, and in the process ascribing to Israel perniciously indefensible actions against a weak and fearful society dominated by another, what he is engaged in is stridently slanderous propaganda which serves the purposes of malign Islamist forces in the Middle East and within immigrant-Muslim Europe.

Those accusations which he has helpfully included in his pamphlet-publication identifying an enemy upon whom his followers can focus will do its part to help spread the already metastasizing cancer of anti-Semitism in Europe. And is that not the supreme irony? That a Jew who had experienced the Gestapo, torture, Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen, the Liberation and the General Secretariat of the United Nations, now dedicates himself to the greater good of humankind through skape-goating Jews for the world's ills.

"It's true that reasons to cry out can seem less obvious today" he has written. "The world appears too complex. But in this world, there are things we should not tolerate ... I say to the young, look around you a little and you will find them. The worst of all attitudes is indifference." He is certainly not indifferent. And there most certainly are things that should not be tolerated - in abundance.

Linking Israel and its 'policies' to the miseries of the world in general that creates slums like those which exist in French and British cities breeding material for violent jihadists does not represent social justice. To colour Israel in the vibrant mantel of the modern world's imperialist ambitions preying on a victimized population which in fact represents a dire threat to its existence through incessant violence posing as 'resistance' to the 'occupation' disfavours truth and reality.

Mr. Hessel, whose social-change tract has created a sensation in France is a most unlikely-seeming catalyst for the change his impassioned words are likely to aid. We are not the better for all of that.

Canada-European Union Trade

Were Canada to sign a free trade deal with the European Union, it would certainly have its benefits. Of course the way that Canada subsidizes its farmers would become an impediment to establishing the kind of free trade that the EU is looking for on behalf of its 27 members. And Canadian producers of certain products would face new constraints, being forced through that union, to scale back on their use of product-place-names.

The European Union has enacted some pretty absurd regulations it insists all its members must follow in conformity with its vision of regularization. Not always well received by its many members, and appearing at times fairly ridiculous. But it is a giant bureaucracy, and this is what bureaucracies do; impose their regulating determination upon those dependent on their whims, posing as contractual obligations.

The truth of the matter is, Canada is in dire need of a trade escape hatch. Which is to say, another source of trade opportunities that might rival that of our two-way trade with the United States, our single largest trading partner. (NAFTA-Mexico trade far less so.) And a trade bully, which stands to reason given that the weaker partner in a binary relationship usually is forced to agree with the demands of the stronger. It's the way the world works.

An optimistic estimate of the potential of an economic boost of $12-billion on an annual basis is nothing to casually wipe off the slate of opportunities. Pierre Trudeau, away back when, attempted to branch Canada's trade out into Europe, with scant success. The current Canadian government has been seriously exploring the possibility and the EU has expressed interest. In the process Canada has had to swallow the indignity of the seal boycott.

A restructuring of Canada's agricultural tariff rate in protection of home-grown industries will be inevitable should the trade deal come to pass, and there will be plenty of outraged protests from invested poultry and dairy and cheese producers, among others. It would, in the final analysis, result in less expensive costs to the Canadian consumers of those products in a freer market, and a tightening of business practise for the affected producers.

Competition in an assured more open marketplace is always painful, but the successful producers will come through, and they will also see their markets expanding, as they will then be free to export to the European market with broader opportunities. It's not as though EU member countries don't have their own protected markets. It's a matter of negotiating and shuffling, and compromising.

Supply management won't be entirely dead in Canada, through manipulating to achieve a free trade agreement. There will be adjustments. Protected industries will see some hits but not to the extent that they won't still be opportunistically viable. The true dull note in the symphony of light melodic strains is the EU's intellectual property strictures, particularly with pharmaceuticals and patent protection.

That sounds a really sour note in the theatrical production of opening markets and expanding trade, and one that will hit Canadian consumers, who represent a population whose use of drugs for medical-health purposes is higher than the average.

The Nobility of France

"The concept of ethnic minorities is a concept that does not exist for us."

Ah, France, with its revolutionary ideals of the fellowship of humankind: liberty, equality, fraternity. Who could fail to be moved by the fairness, the utter justness of that magnificent theory put into practise, that all people are equal in the eyes of society and French law. Except, of course, for those who are viewed as suspect, rejected and ejected; deservedly unequal.

Why blame France? Gypsies, the Roma, have always been universally viewed with suspicion. Despised, set aside from normal society. Nazi Germany knew them for what they were; vermin, second only to Jews. Oh, and of course homosexuals. And, along with Jews they were placed in concentration camps where they belonged, and where they could perish.

Germany, the Czech Republic and France call a spade what it is; undesirable within their distinguished company, and to be ejected from those superior countries. It is France, however, which has undertaken a systematic routing of the Roma, uprooting their encampments and hustling them back to where they came from - in the distant past.

Romania and Bulgaria can have them back, thanks very much as in thanks, but no thanks. Of course official France modestly claims not to be violating the human rights of the Roma, for they clearly are in no position to claim human rights for themselves as a blight upon society. They are outcasts, not fit to claim their place in decent company.

Why? Well, obviously; they're Gypsies. And their illegal camps are dens of iniquity; at the very least places where prostitution and crime has proliferated. Which is often what happens as a last-resort claim on existence, when all other avenues have been blocked off by that polite society that disclaims their existence.

And no, of course the Government of France is not selectively choosing to oppress Roma. It's just a coincidence that in their zeal to rid the country of undesirables, some of the Roma have been swept up in the bid to dispose of illegal immigrants.

"Three hundred camps or illegal settlements must be dismantled within three months, prioritizing those of the Roma", read the unearthed memo signed by the chief of staff of the French Interior Minister.

Foul! Cries the European Union. This is not fair play and does not express the rules of the EU: "No citizen must become the target of repressive action because he belongs to a specific ethnic minority or nationality": E.U. spokesperson.

Whoops! Major misunderstanding... Another memo issued to ensure the matter has been clarified: "Pursue the dismantling of camps, whoever the occupants may be". That should do it. Five thousand already evicted, sent back to 'countries of origin' where they may continue to live in the extremities of want and poverty.

Problem, what problem? Even Canada is loathe to accept them as refugees fleeing persecution.

The Hunting, Sporting Life

The hypocrisy of the European Union, the environmental groups, the animal rights activists is so blatantly evident, but obviously beyond their notice. Their sanctimonious hounding of Canada for engaging in the traditional seal hunt as an unacceptable, inhumane and intolerable practise insulting to their sensibilities and therefore needful of a huge campaign to discredit Canada and to refuse importation of seal products may make them feel good about themselves, but it also points out just how absurd they are in their egotistical self-congratulatory group hug.

Canada's and Greenland's Inuit have appealed to the European Court of Justice to suspend the EU ban on seal products. And, surprisingly, perhaps not quite gratifyingly, since it represents a suspension and not a retraction of purpose, it was agreed that a suspension would be implemented. The ban will likely be imposed eventually. Simply because the animal rights groups have been working so strenuously over such a prolonged period of time, enlisting the eager assistance of 'celebrities' in their zeal to overturn centuries-old hunting processes for Inuit and Newfoundlanders.

Activists and the urban animal rights groups whose unremitting dedication to the cessation of harvesting of seals, will not be pleased at the delay. Their declaration of the seal hunt as a barbaric practise, and those who do the hunting as savages speaks volumes about their ignorance. Humanity harvests plants and animals for consumption. Just as animals other than humankind hunt other animals for their ongoing existence as carnivores or omnivores. We will never all succumb to the allure of vegetarianism.

Historically within Canada it took great courage, skill, brute strength, perseverance and determination to succeed in harvesting seals. The harvest also guaranteed that Inuit villagers would live to see another season. It was hunt successfully or perish. Many hunters did perish, unequal to the battle of the sea ice and the vicissitudes of weather conditions. This was no sport, this was a necessity of life's prolongation; hunt or starve to death.

Whereas force-feeding geese to produce a delicacy on a gourmand's dinner table is no necessity. Hunting rhinoceros to obtain the bone for traditional Chinese pharmaceuticals is questionable in its efficacy. Above all, the proud old tradition of posing the brute force of a massive beast against the cunning and cleverly acrobatic manoeuvres of a man whose profession is to give pleasure to a witnessing public through outsmarting the beast and causing its death, is a true travesty.

Bull fighting in Spain, Portugal, France, Latin America and Mexico, is seen as a sublime 'sport'. Far more refined and certainly urbane than hunting to fulfill an existential need. The graceful carriage of the matador and the picador, as opposed to the lumbering brute force of the beast is a delight to those for whom the theatre of man-and-beast represents the highest order of entertainment.

A plague on those houses.

Sucked Into The Maelstrom

For all their creative intelligence, Jews appear to lack one intellectual craft that others originating in the Middle East have perfected and which they possess in abundance; base cunning. How else explain the astounding success that Arab Muslims are experiencing in painting the Jewish State of Israel as a world-class outcast for its unspeakable treatment of a population within the geography dedicated to the extermination of Israel?

Through careful manipulation of public opinion outside the Middle East, aided and abetted by the widespread phenomenon of anti-Semitism rampant and satisfying to those who view Jews as a people who exemplify base cunning in a twisted perception of reality, the aggressors are viewed as victims - as they themselves indeed see themselves - while the defenders are identified as violent aggressors.

Talk about innocent babes in the woods of Eastern intrigue; believing that as they intended to behave in their own best interests, but honourably, their actions would be reciprocated for after all weren't they dealing with 'peace activists' and 'humanitarians'? They walked straightforward into a carefully laid trap as effective on world opinion as a suicide vest is on the corporeal body, resulting in an explosive denunciation of brutality.

Five boats as a decoy and the sixth, loaded to the gills with dupes and hard-line violent terrorists mingling in comfort with one another on a shared mission in a sixth, large ferry owned by a radical Islamist group that divides its time supplying munitions to like-minded terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and issuing charity to the downtrodden in the Muslim world.

"[Remember] Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Mohammded will return!" Muslims, and most particularly Arab Muslims have a very, very long memory. A burning resentment, a fury that will not be stilled at their lost glory of conquest and the achievement of a vast sultanate where the non-Muslim world was in thrall to the might of the Muslim world and co-existence was possible, at a price.

The peace activists who believed they were fulfilling a purpose in shielding and helping the unfortunate Palestinian Gazans from drear impoverishment because of the brutal blockade of their territory through an unspeakable intent to starve them out of existence, were the willing pawns of cleverly manipulative cunning, helping to legitimize the planned assault on a blockade of an aspiring 'nation' whose main concern is the annihilation of a neighbour.

When unwary IDF personnel descended on the Turkish-owned ship they thought to direct it without violence to a legitimate port landing, where its cargo would be checked and unloaded and transported overland to Gaza, while the peace activists would be invited to leave whence they had come. Little suspecting that an ambush lay in wait for them, with a fighting force well armed with knives and iron clubs and explosive devices awaited their descent from a hovering military helicopter.

Each of the IDF men on rappelling to the ship's upper deck was surrounded, beaten, small arms confiscated, protective gear torn away, and threatened with death. When shots rang out from the lower deck to the upper deck, a desperate radio message to a higher military authority gave them the clearance to fire back in self-defence. The result: when military men are assaulted, they will react with deadly force, and they did.

And in so doing, despite the provocation, the irrelevance that the boarded ship had not yet reached boundary waters, earned the wrath of a watching global audience. Hearkening to the moral indignation of the Arab League, the Palestinian Authority and Iran's Ahmadinejad who waxed eloquent on "The inhuman acts of the Zionist regime against Palestinians". Proving yet again that reality is subservient to guided perception.

As the countries of the Middle East gather their indignation to aid Turkey in its condemnation of Israel in refusing to accept a Turkish-based and -organized aid flotilla, a chorus of denunciations heedless of circumstances rises from the ranks of the European Union and other countries eager to add their condemnatory voices. Nine dead, mostly representative of violence-obsessed Turks plying their Islamist trade.

Where, one wonders, are the collective voices of outrage in the Muslim world against the massacre, in sacred mosques, of scores of worshippers who belong to the Ahmadi faith? Where is the indignation of European countries against a Pakistan which, like other Muslim countries, officially considers the Ahmadis to be kafirs, non-believers, seen under Pakistan law as non-Muslims, and infidels, ripe for massacre.

A New Hellenic Philosophy: Rise Up!

The ancient world looked toward Greece as a fount of learning. The intellectual rigour of its ancient philosophers, mathematicians, statesmen and scientists were world-renowned (the ancient world) and their collected wisdom represented a world heritage. It was the Greeks who in 320 B.C. established the greatest collection of written works in the world, at the Library at Alexandria. And it was, unfortunately, an unruly mob protesting, that destroyed it by setting it afire.

The Ancient Library of Alexandria.

Do we then assume, a heritage of pyromania in the Greek tradition? And what has happened to Greece, formerly celebrated as the fount of worldly wisdom? The home of the world's greatest philosophers whose thought and work has never been eclipsed, has become quite other than it once was. It is now home to mediocrities of thought and of responsible action.

There is now the Greece of the European Union which gladly surrendered its drachma to the euro, and borrowed heavily to finance a lifestyle that it could not afford, but insisted it could, and it would. It has become a country whose concerns and values are administered by trade unions with its government a willing accomplice to the slow decay of responsibility.

The Greek communist party and Greek unions rage against the tide of incoming debts whose result will bankrupt the country, claiming that this is an ill-conceived and devilish plot by the IMF and the EU to belittle a once-proud country with an incomparably brilliant heritage of creative thought and understanding of the world around them.

What has happened is that this once proud nation has atrophied into a third-rate country incapable of matching its aspirations to its operations, where people feel entitled to what they have not earned, and are unwilling to share their earnings in the form of taxation to enable their government to provide services the population claims entitlement to, nonetheless.

If any of this makes sense to the average Greek thinker, it would be interesting to have them share it with the rest of the world for whom this is a puzzling non-starter. Banners reading "Peoples of Europe - Rise Up", will have consequences that absent-minded Greeks have missed; Europeans will indeed rise up, in righteous anger that they must sacrifice to save the imprudent.

The outrageous, uncivil and violent behaviour of protesters who have made the streets of the capital a very dangerous place, and who have engaged in a nation wide intifada against their struggling government forced to face the music of their incautiously dangerous economic fiddling, is incomprehensible. Throwing rocks and incendiary Molotov cocktails, demolishing property and destroying lives.

Thugs associated with unions and deeply dysfunctional ideological movements clashing with first-responders so that firefighters are unable to rescue people trapped in burning buildings represents a civil atrocity of atrocious incivility. All are implicated; teachers, hospital workers, trash collectors, pensioners, construction workers and any number of other public employees.

"Never! We will never pay for the EU and IMF." 'Pay for?' What might that mean? They will never pay their debts, they will bring Europe's financial situation to a stunning state of peril that will envelope other countries also teetering on the edge of default, and with them countries which have managed their economies wisely, and who are now called upon to rescue an improvident neighbour.

Worse, and more far-reaching, because the world economy is now so inter-related and inter-dependent, stock markets are teetering in uncertainty around the world, and other economies outside those of a united Europe are warily and fearfully witnessing the outrageously irresponsible behaviour of Greek citizens.

But the time has come for Greece to turn itself around toward responsible management of its economy. "This will create a different Greece", claims Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou. "Our basic bet is that we are cutting down on disorder, cutting down on graft and tax evasion. ...There was a sense that people who had the power and means could go around and do what they wanted. They asked, 'Why should I pay my taxes when others don't?"

So the ranks of civil servants will be reduced, and those remaining will see a 3-year wage freeze, withdrawal of yearly bonuses; retirement age will be raised to 67 from its current 58-year average, and pensions will be diminished. The VAT will increase by 2%, and new tax hikes placed on fuel, alcohol, cigarettes and property. Above all, the corruption of tax evasion will be met head on.

Welcome to reality.

PIGS Trough

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Chinese Proverb.

That hoary old adage of teaching a person to fend for themselves being far superior than supporting that person causing a lack of personal initiative and continued dependence is right. Folk wisdom knows whereof it speaks. Take away the burden of self-responsibility and you kill with kindness, setting the stage for continued lack of responsibility to self. There is a right time to help, and the right time to encourage someone to take the initiative to help himself.

Those whose existence is dependent on the goodwill and charity of others do not recognize the need to help themselves, they feel themselves to be in a comfortable place and simply do not aspire to become independent, even at the price of sacrificing pride in oneself. The cycle becomes one of illusion and delusion. Since help is so readily given, the receiver feels it becomes his due. Effectively, initiative is emasculated.

In Canada there was a seemingly far-sighted, noble experiment to ensure that the entire population of the country wherever they lived within confederation, would be assured a like level of public services and opportunities. A simple enough idea; the federal government would collect taxation from the provinces and re-distribute it through a scheme called provincial equalization. Wealthier provinces would support those less-well-endowed provinces.

The largest beneficiary of this system of generosity were the country's east coast provinces where employment tended to be seasonal. Additional assistance was given by way of unemployment benefits, assured at a higher level in the identified have-not provinces. And the Province of Quebec was singularly entitled to a stupendous share of the entire package. This seemed to work for a while and it made Canadians feel fairly smug about themselves.

Until the realization struck that the 'have' provinces somehow missed having services that the 'have not' provinces were able to mount for their citizens, thanks to the kindness of the self-sacrificing 'have' provinces. What's more, the 'have-not' provinces, having become accustomed to those no-strings-attached transfer payments saw no reason to make an effort to enrich themselves through their own resourcefulness.

Somewhat akin to the situation seen right now unfolding on the world stage where the European Union, patterning itself in a similar manner, to accord special treatment for its less-wealthy members finds itself in a financial and political bind with some of its members: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain, heavily indebted, unable to pay back their loans. Loans granted them, enabling them to live beyond their means.

Except that, since the loans were granted to them by international bankers they had no reason to feel they were living beyond their means; they believed they were entitled to live just the way everyone else does in the states that were better managed and more productive and hadn't built up an impossible debt-load.

It's like the family on welfare looking at the lifestyles of the middle-class and believing they too were entitled to live that way, and in the process misusing their welfare payments then finding them inconveniently finite. Resentment ensues from this, the same kind of anger and bitterness seen in the placards held up by Greek citizens, refusing to face austerity measures.

Little wonder German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country's well-run economic engine has made it one of the more powerfully successful countries in the EU, expresses the anger of German citizens, incensed that they would have to prop up a failing economy in Greece, where people live beyond their means, while German citizens live far more prudently.

At the same time, Greek citizens are resentful that they are in this position, one that they and their government created by their wasteful habits and lack of spending restraints, and they are indulging in a nasty back-lash against Germany, resuscitating old enmities and war-time wounds, accusing Germany of having looted Greek wealth under the Nazi war machine.

The natural human impulse would be to let Greece and the other PIGS flounder. But since financial institutions are now globally intertwined that would result in huge bank collapses, which would benefit no one, bringing down financial ruin on banks having no connection to the ill-considered loans, but dependent on the health of the ruined banks to keep their own solvent.

And the same is true of countries innocent of the ruinous policies of the PIGS nations; well-run and mindful of careful government spending; they too would suffer. As it is, because of the disaster of downgrading government debt to junk status for Greece, and more on the horizon for other countries, world stock markets have been enfeebled and currencies downgraded.

The world cannot afford to bail out these reckless governments, and they cannot also afford to let them flounder into ruination because of the far-flung consequences. It's an instance where banks should have been far more abstemious in their generosity to clients who clearly were living above their means; a mirror image, in a sense, of the U.S. mortgage debacle that initiated the now-recovering global financial collapse.

Countries that have felt complacent in living beyond their means and encouraging their citizens to do the same, have infantalized themselves politically, socially and economically. Yet their feelings of entitlement still exist, and although they are themselves responsible for their financial plight, they blame outside sources.

How very human. How very adolescent. How very irresponsible.

Paying The Bills

There's a familiar essence to the story emanating from the European Union's determination to save itself by hauling Greece from economic collapse. Of course, to do so is to create an additional burden on those states which have invested themselves with reasonable management of their economies. Germany, however, appears prepared to pull the plug. If not that, then to create an unwholesome aggravating dissent over straining its recession-stressed economy to aid feckless Greece back into the fold of expected financial management.

Greece has been extremely generous to its workers, with regular pay raises, generous holiday times and handily overlooking the fact that the vast majority of Greek workers somehow manage to overlook paying their taxes. With a slender tax base as a result, it's little wonder that, adding the two together the government has managed a whopping deficit. And little wonder that the EU has pressured the Greek government to rein in its unbalanced budget. In response to which Greece has embarked on a program of sweeping austerity measures.

Under which pensions will be frozen, civil service bonuses and will be slashed and new sales taxes imposed on fuel, tobacco and alcohol. This has proven to be incendiarily unpopular with Greek workers and their unions have pledged to fight these measures, and exhort their members to get out there and strike. And they've responded with alacrity, effectively closing down business as usual in the country, amid vociferous denunciations of the government and the effrontery of the EU.

Kind of rings a bell. You'd think this was the Dominion of Canada, with the federation of provinces, some wealthy, most not, signing on in a frail historical moment of brotherhood to the federal government's scheme of transferring money derived from taxes from those provinces which are deemed to be wealthy to those considered decidedly not. This made Canadians proud, that provinces that traditionally did well for themselves, primarily Alberta, Ontario and British Columbia, willingly sacrificed so that the 'have-not' provinces could provide for their citizens services comparable to their own. Equalizing unbalanced GDP.

And it did work very nicely for a while. Then Saskatchewan and Newfoundland became wealthy provinces and Newfoundland for one, thought it could retain the transfer payments, along with its newfound oil wealth. An abrasive attitude, to be sure. And Ontarians, traditionally one of the three high GDP provinces suddenly found itself edging over into a have-not province as industries melted away and unemployment rose during the recession. While Quebec, which has traditionally received the lion's share of any financial giveaways, resisted having its transfer payments cut to reflect its real need.

Quebec clings to what it feels is due it, as an exceptional province that should really be viewed as a sovereign province in all ways but economic independence. Ontario suddenly discovered it rather disliked having its pockets picked when it could least afford it. And all of a sudden, it could 'least afford' to continue to sacrifice its economic well-being for Quebec once the province began to sit up and take notice. Began to notice how exclusionary Quebec and its unions are, refusing to permit construction workers from Ontario to work in Quebec, while the reverse is accepted.

That transfer payments to Quebec, hugely funded by Ontario, result in far lower post-secondary tuition payment costs to students than elsewhere in Canada. That subsidized day care at rock bottom prices the envy of all other provinces is available in Quebec, and nowhere else in Canada. That Quebec's Régie de l'assurance maladie du Québec will now proudly begin to cover costs for in-vitro fertilization for couples unable to conceive naturally. Thanks to generous transfer payments.

The Greeks once preached beware strangers bearing gifts, and that has been transformed to beware strangers preaching reason; Quebecers insist on others' proffering gifts.

Now, To Be Completely Just....

The European Union, now with 27 member-countries, has become a political and trade powerhouse. It wields a heavy hand with its members, insisting on policy conformity from farming and production standards to interference with member-state legislation, insisting on the need for all members to accept a common, functional and political framework. It lays a heavy hand of condemnation on countries not part of the European Union, as it has done in condemning Canada's traditional seal hunt, forbidding entry to EU countries of that product.

Nonetheless, many countries of the world, including many of those not geographically located within Europe, would dearly love to be included in the network of European countries with its dedicated trade and emerging political clout. There are even some who believe that as China and India emerge as the new world super powers and the status of the United States as the world's only super power declines, the EU may step up to the plate to challenge both China and India.

The EU leadership, a revolving one, but one with its own parliament, assembly of armed forces, unified direction and singular currency, also views itself with great pride, as an emerging political and moral force in the world. Initially its current chair Sweden, sought to bring a resolution before the EU calling for Jerusalem to be recognized as the capital of a nascent Palestinian state, utterly ignoring Israeli interests. The EU has never recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

In the wake of urgent, strenuous upbraiding by Israel and Tzipi Livni in particular, at the resolution's bypassing of Israel's interests in Jerusalem, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt accused Israel of playing a "divide and rule" game with the EU, is Israel pulled out all the stops in calling for fairness from countries within the EU more obviously sensitive to Israel's needs and realities than Sweden.

The altered resolution now recognizes both Israel's and the Palestinians' shared interests in Jerusalem as the capital for both states; the present and the emerging one. Arabs have not, in the past, nor do they at the present time, as custodians of some elements of their isolated sacred shrines, recognize the legitimacy of Jewish traditions and holy places. It has never been a priority for Islam to give equal time to any other religion, even those predating its existence, particularly those from which Islam took its inspiration.

Sweden, in any event, and the EU in general, consider Israel's capture during the 1967 Six-Day War of the eastern half of the city to be illegitimate according to international law. International law is rather mute on the right of Israel to reclaim her heritage. And while the EU has called upon Israel to halt all "discriminatory acts" in eastern Jerusalem, nothing stands in the way of Palestinians acting counter to the interests of both themselves and the Israelis, through clearly illegal squatting, and enacting scenes of religious violence.

The Council of Foreign Ministers of the EU speaks grandiloquently of its "readiness to contribute substantially to post-conflict arrangements, aimed at ensuring the sustainability of peace agreements, and will continue the work undertaken on EU contributions on state-building, regional issues, refugees, security, and Jerusalem", all of which speak to its commitment to one party only, the Palestinians. The urgency of Israeli security, of the country's commitment to retaining its right to its holy sites is another matter distinctly lacking resonance with the EU.

The original draft resolution, a product of Swedish manoeuvring, was emphatically pro-Palestinian, entirely ignoring the needs of Israel in the equation. And in the process of championing the Palestinian cause, stood to lose the co-operation of the State of Israel, which has repeatedly pointed out that negotiations leading to peace have largely been stalled on the Palestinian side, with their refusal to return to the negotiating table.

There are many outside elements eager to try their hand at negotiating between Israel and the Palestinians, inclusive of Egypt, Turkey, France, the United States, despite that for a half-century all such attempts have failed miserably. In the past, both sides came close to what looked like a meaningful agreement that would lead to a cessation of hostilities, but in the end came to nothing, and mostly because of the intransigence of the Palestinians.

Who have their legitimate grievances that should be addressed, to be sure, but in the final analysis, when these failures occurred, it was largely because a return to 'resistance', to 'honour', and to waging 'war against the oppressors' seemed infinitely more attractive than the very real possibility of finding an end to the bloodshed. Israel can be seen to be intransigent too, but she has far more to lose through unreasonable demands of the Palestinians than do they.

Israel has responded to the allegations of the EU's Council of Foreign Ministers, in a reasonable enough manner: "It could be expected that the EU act to promote direct negotiations between the parties, while considering Israel's security needs and understanding that Israel's Jewish character must be preserved in any future agreement." Which means trust must be established, and there can be no trust while there is also active engagement in provocation and violence.

Nor is the ongoing insistence on 'right of return' anywhere near possible, since that would effectively translate as a complete dilution of the Jewish character of the Jewish state, overwhelming the Jewish presence. And this, precisely, is what the negotiations are about; the Palestinian insistence that it be allowed to drown Israel in huge numbers of Palestinians, most of whom have never lived in the geography but who represent the Palestinian resolve to retake that which they hold was theirs.

Which, in reality it never was. The Gazan Palestinians were Egyptians. The West Bank Palestinians were Jordanians. The Jews were the actual Palestinians and have lived in the geography for millennia. Egypt has no wish to re-absorb those Palestinian Gazans for they are an unruly lot, and she has her hands full attempting to stem the tide of her own Islamists. Jordan, in its bloody fratricidal war with the Palestinians in 1971 killed more of its own during Black September than Israel ever has over the years.

It is an indisputable historical fact that the single most holy site in Judaism was co-opted by the later religion of Islam. The Rock of the Dome, the Al Aqsa Mosque was built upon the Temple Mount. And while the mosque and its general area is considered the third most holy site in Islam, Judaism's first sacred site is often denied Jewish presence even now because of the rioting of Muslims refusing to allow Jewish entry to what they claim to be solely their right of approach.

So much for dividing Jerusalem.

Skewed Condemnation

Britain's blood sport so beloved of royalty and the British aristocracy; coursing the hounds to harry and pursue foxes and hares, deer and pheasants had a celebrated tradition. Although originally farmers began the hunt to eradicate animals considered pests to agriculture, it was taken up by the aristocracy and became a signal event of great social importance. A public outcry against the blood sport of fox hunting led to a ban in the mid-1990s.

But fox hunting continues, with fox-hunting clubs established in the U.S., France, Ireland, Russia and other countries. It is considered to be an honourable sport. In fact, in most countries of the world hunting season, for deer, for bear, for moose and coyote is much anticipated, regulated and exuberantly undertaken by modern-day hunters. Boars were located in countries which had no indigenous boar populations, to establish boar-hunting.

The hunt of game animals was considered an exciting sport even where animals were considered to be endangered, like the snow leopard in the Himalayas, or mountain sheep and goats of various types, some of them hunted close to extinction. Where is the world-wide condemnation of these activities? People living in Europe and in North America, for example, have no need to hunt for table food.

Countries like France which proudly boast the celebrity of stars like Bridgette Bardot who launched a personal campaign against the white-coat seal hunt in Canada's North, seeing success in having baby seals no longer hunted, never found it necessary to apologize for their gourmet-torture of geese in producing foie gras. And to the present day the Ortolan Bunting, a rare and tiny songbird the size of a thumb, remains hunted despite official protective status.

The French government simply looks the other way, while connoisseurs hunt and trap the tiny endangered bird which is prepared in wine, roasted and eaten whole. Yet the European Union, whose member-countries routinely hunt game animals, took it upon themselves to name, shame and blame, and mount a ban on seal products, representing the livelihood of Canada's northern hunters and Inuit.

Sad hypocrisy.

Branding a People

It's pretty miserably repugnant that societies are able, with a good degree of impunity, target a group of people distinguished from the general population by charges of illicit behaviours and traditions, unlike those of the mainstream. A people whose presence transcends national borders, living in various parts of Europe and who have, over centuries of suspicion and discrimination, been stigmatized and preyed upon.

This could represent the social conditions of black populations living in mostly-white communities. And it could very well represent the social revulsion heaped upon Jews living for millennia in various countries of the world, and seen as deviant from the norms through their different religion, culture, heritage and ideology. As it happens, even when Jews and blacks had attempted to integrate into the general social structure, they were still set aside and reviled.

One might think that a minority like the Roma living in a country as civilized as the Czech Republic would no longer be threatened, harried, victimized and discriminated against. One might think the more forward-looking, socially advanced and economically advantaged a country is, the more relenting the population would be in its acceptance of those whose exterior and 'culture' remains 'different' than their own.

But the Canadian report released just recently by the Immigration and Refugee Board paints an extremely disturbing picture of a degraded society among whom Roma have been and still are facing extreme difficulties. Intimidation, physical attacks, claims of illegal acts, disallowing Roma to use public facilities, even Roma children being denied entry to restaurants are all shocking pieces of intelligence that defy civil intercourse.

That a political party could broadcast a video on Czech television calling for "the final solution" to the Roma "question" rings alarm bells in recall of the horrors of the Nazi "final solution" to the world's Jewish "problem" resulting in six million European Jews being exterminated in death camps. Arson attacks on Roma homes, unwillingness to hire Roma, lack of economic opportunities, keep the population in subdued fear and poverty.

Little wonder there are incidents of crime and a syndrome of social assistance lifestyles. Roma children are denied decent educations available to all other children of the Czech Republic; they are considered 'retarded' and only the poorest grade of education is awarded them. The high unemployment rate among Roma - an intentional by-product of racism - inadequate housing and the ongoing fear of extremist threats makes for a dreadful existence.

Little wonder then, that the Czech-Roma population is so eager to depart their country of birth, and to seek opportunities for a humane existence elsewhere.

Twisted Logic, Twisted Conclusion

Canada's long-disputed seal hunt has now been officially placed under trade sanction by the European Union. All trade of seal pelts, oil, and meat have been banned by the European Union thanks to its craven submission to the propaganda power of the animal-rights lobby in Europe which politicians there see as potentially harmful to them come election time.

There is nothing particularly reasonable about the decision, it is reactive in nature, in recognition of the public's willingness to suspend belief in a humane seal hunt, practised in Canada.

The Canadian government intends to appeal the ban on seal products importation to the EU.
While it is true that aboriginal communities will be exempt from the ban there will be no way to adequately prove to the satisfaction of animal rights activists that seal product importation is solely the result of an aboriginal seal hunt. They too will be impacted by the ban, and most certainly subsistence seal hunters living in coastal communities will be harmed.

To follow this issue to its logical conclusion, shut down all abattoirs.

The federal government's anger over this move, long threatened, but now that it has arrived, no less surprising, will move it to appeal to the World Trade Organization, as it contravenes WTO guidelines. "Canada's hunt is humane, scientific and follows environmental rules of sustainability" announced Canada's International Trade Minister Stockwell Day during a news conference.

Furthermore, the EU's zeal in banning seal products is surprising when viewed in the context of real world and international concerns.

Ranking European Union members do a brisk business with the Islamic Republic of Iran whose dangerously incendiary and oft-stated intention to commit an act of existential aggression against a member-state of the United Nations - one which has friendly relations with its democratic peers in the European Union - identifies the EU's values as puzzlingly hypocritical at the very least.

Fundamentalist theocratic and militaristic Iran has defied the international community and the United Nations in its dismissal of demands that it cease working on nuclear adventurism for the purpose of attaining nuclear weapons. At the same time that it thumbs its Islamist nose at the UN and its nuclear-watchdog, it promises to annihilate Israel. The world has witnessed the recent quasi-election for president in Iran with an utterly corrupted outcome.

No country nor its legislative body is ignorant of the fact that Iran is a murderously repressive state, one that tyrannically oppresses its population, uses sharia law to loosely apply the deterrent of capital punishment, routinely violates the human rights of women, homosexuals, political dissenters and minority religions.

Yet countries of the European Union see nothing amiss in their multi-national electronics companies, their oil refining conglomerates doing business with the country.

What a peculiar double standard. The European Union and its members states have little to feel superior about when it comes to demonstrating their collective ethics and principles.

Perplexing International Reaction

It's puzzling to the casual onlooker reading the news why UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the European Union and U.S. President Barack Obama would give voice to a condemnation of events that took place in Honduras over the week-end, where the country's Supreme Court advised that it had authorized the country's military to remove its president, Manual Zelaya.

For the simple reason that President Zelaya, despite warning from the Supreme Court that what he planned to undertake was illegal, proceeded with it nonetheless. Former Honduran President Zelaya insisted on holding a referendum to change the country's constitution. Because he would have it so, despite being warned by the Supreme Court of its illegality.

The country's armed forces did just what the Supreme Court ordered them to do; arrested the president and ushered him out of the country. Whereupon the Honduran deputies unanimously elected Congress head Robert Micheletti as interim president. Mr. Micheletti is a member of Mr. Zelaya's Liberal party.

Despite international condemnation, and that the U.S. the UN and the EU have stated their backing for the ousted president, Hondura's new President Robert Micheletti rejects their position. "What we have done here is an act of democracy, because our army has complied with the order of the court, prosecutors and judges. Our national army ... complied with the constitution.

The Supreme Court contending it had so acted to protect law and order.

Former President Zelaya was removed from office for "repeated violations of the constitution and the law and disregard of orders and judgements of the institutions", while newly appointed President Micheletti promised to govern with "transparency and honesty" and to "work tirelessly to restore peace and tranquility that we have lost".

In the interim remaining in office until just past the turn of the new year when the new president who was elected in November 2009 is slated to take office. These are non-renewable four-year terms under the country's constitution.

Manuel Zelaya, taking inspiration from and encouraged by his great good friend Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, aspired to change the constitution to enable him to run again for election, and possibly, like Chavez, remain president for life. While Venezuelans, in the end, submitted to their president's will, Hondurans would not.

Public support for Mr. Zelaya had fallen to 30%. "Our country has been without a route and rudderless for quite some time, and agitated politically", according to opposition deputy Antonio Cesar Rivera. It would appear from all the data coming out of the country that the peoples' will has been done, and the country's constitution upheld by its judicial guardians.

U.S. President Obama, calling for calm stated "Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference". That appears to have been done. Why then, does he then go on to state through a senior official in his office that Washington recognizes only Zelaya as president?

Gross interference, yet again, in another nation's internal concerns.

Put-upon

Canada, a marine country of great size, with the Pacific Ocean on its West Coast, the Atlantic on its East, and the Arctic at the top of its geographic formation, was traditionally, among other of its fundamental occupations as a nation, a fishing-endowed country. Salmon on the West Coast, Cod on the East Coast. Both the salmon and the cod fisheries have been in a state of collapse. Canada has, in theory, sovereignty over a 200-mile-limit from its shores. The country processed the fish its fisherfolk caught on land, in fish-processing plants.

Other fishing nations of the world who developed fishing fleets to the point where their fleet was equipped with vessels incorporating processing plants within them, fished offshore, and on many occasions, within the 200-mile limit. Portugal, Spain, Russia, Panama, Japan, the U.S. and other countries sent their trawlers and factory-ships, unlicensed to fish inside the 200-mile limit, sometimes with illegal nets and undersized mesh, to vacuum the oceans of fish. Now the cod fisheries are gone, and salmon rarely seen in sufficient quantities for commercial fishing.

The latest assault on Canada's sovereign natural resource harvesting is the seal hunt. Adverse publicity in the past called an end to whitecoat (harp seal pup) harvesting, their cute little white shapes with enormous eyes beseeching life. Enormous efforts on the part of activists claimed victory in that battle. Now, after years of threatening to impose an embargo on all seal products, the European Union has finally voted to launch a ban on seal products entirely. Effectively putting sealers on the East Coast out of business.

The EU's 27 member nations succumbed to the energetic and purposeful lobbying of animal rights groups, with the European Parliament voting 550 to 49 in Strasbourg to impose a ban on seal product imports; pelts, oil and meat. Although the vote must still be ratified by individual European governments before becoming law, it would appear that there is no reason now to believe that it will not pass handily. This represents, needless to say, a total capitulation to the demands of animal rights activists.

The point of all of this is rather pointless. If we humans are to continue nourishing ourselves by consuming fish and meat and poultry where is the rationale for banning the seal hunt? As it is practised today it represents a humane and sustainable hunt. Little different, really, than raising cattle or sheep or hogs or chickens for human consumption. And since most populations eat fish and meat, it falls short of ethical and even treatment to isolate the seal hunt for special treatment.