I am not offended when I invite my Jewish friend over to dinner and he brings his own kosher food. And I do not mind when my Hindu colleague serves me dinner in special utensils reserved only for his non-Hindu guests.
At lunch meetings during Ramadan, my business associates not only feel at ease when I do not eat, but some even offer to conduct the meeting without eating themselves.
For years now, I have been an active member of a Canadian movement called Spirituality at Work. We encourage businesses to consider providing workplace spaces for prayer and meditation: because this is good for the bottom line.
And we invite international speakers to address the same topic, drawing a parallel to the fact that many big corporations worldwide are now providing workplace facilities for their employees to exercise or nap during breaks. Such facilities enhance workers' physical and mental well-being and hence productivity.
Some Canadian airports now provide common prayer rooms, instead of leaving it up to Muslims and others to pray in open hallways, foyers, or unoccupied waiting-rooms. I wish shopping malls would take the same positive step - food courts are no place for prayer!
In fact, I am also willing to pay extra tax dollars so that the dietary requirements of Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or Seventh-Day Adventist and Mormon children can be met in public schools. And the same goes for other public institutions, such as hospitals or prisons.
As part of their design plans for new buildings, many universities now include a common prayer room for students, faculty and staff; this simple proactive step has gone a long way to making campuses more user-friendly.
Similarly, many high schools now turn their gyms into prayer halls for part of school days when students of various faiths need a place to gather for worship. This is another positive move that will produce more well-rounded and confident young citizens.
I live in an area that is well-known across Canada for its surrounding communities of Old Order Mennonites, who choose to retain horses and buggies as transportation. I do not mind that horse-drawn buggies slow down our frantic urban traffic a little, or that a few extra tax dollars are required to build public parking barns and to clean up the organic by- product of old fashioned "horse power."
Mennonite women modestly cover their hair with tied bonnets or caps whose functions are similar to the Muslim hijab, while their menfolk wear wide- brimmed straw hats or black felt ones, similar to those of Hasidic Jews. None of these traditional head coverings ever felt negative to me.
Despite the ongoing legal and political debates over what should (or should not) be included on an official Canadian list of "reasonable accommodations," I believe that every accommodation that preserves human dignity and worth in relation to a person's faith and culture is reasonable. If there is a will to accommodate our fellow citizens from other traditions, there is a way.
Along with millions of other Canadians, I believe that such accommodations enhance our own value, and the value we accord our brothers and sisters of the greater human family. In addition to the positive impact that accommodation can have on Canadian society as a while, it can also be felt quantitatively, giving Canada enhanced productivity and a more competitive edge in the international marketplace.
But if Canada - in part or as a whole -- sends a negative or deterring message to the world that it is becoming less receptive and understanding to minorities, then we will lose too many of the skilled and highly educated immigrants we urgently need.
The traditional populations of European countries are declining as birthrates fall and they must now focus on attracting new immigrants to preserve their economies and infrastructures. Germany is even creating a new ministry of Immigration and Integration in response to this growing 21st-century challenge. Governments are now beginning to reformulate existing policies and plans to encompass the need for direct involvement. Integration is becoming tied to direct federal actions, including responsibility for providing training, addressing discrimination, and meeting the cultural and spiritual needs of new immigrants. This is a virtual sea-change in attitude from the recent past, when immigrants were routinely and falsely accused of not wanting to integrate.
Today, Canada's primary sources of skilled and highly educated immigrants are from mainly non-white and non-Christian countries. As a nation, therefore, we cannot afford to send a negative message to potential immigrants - unless, of course, we want to end up with living standards similar to those of developing countries. The stark reality is that Canada, as we know it today, is not sustainable without the resources of new immigrants.
In Québec alone, for example, that province's main source for highly educated francophone professors, researchers, teachers, engineers, doctors and other professionals is North and West Africa, Syria, or Lebanon. And most of these potential immigrants are Muslims.
Language, culture and religion are the main factors shaping identity, so immigrants to Québec already have a great deal in common with most Québécois from the moment they arrive. And their children will grow up to speak Québécois French rather the French of their parents, love hockey more than soccer, eat more burgers than shawarma, wear more blue jeans than white galbabs, listen to Céline Dion more than traditional Arabic or African artists, dance to more North American bands than Dabka, and celebrate more religious holidays with their non-Muslim friends than their parents ever did.
Historically Québec accommodated the religious needs of Roman Catholics. Today, nuns and priests are free to walk the streets in their traditional habits and soutanes if they chose. Therefore, why not offer an equal gesture of accommodation for Muslims, Jews, Sikhs and others?
Let us not allow some fearful Canadians to kill the growing spirit of understanding and accommodation in our society - it is a truly Canadian value and one that is too precious to lose.
(Dr. Mohamed Elmasry is national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress. He can be reached at
np@canadianislamiccongress.com)
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in his government's recent Throne Speech announced that he wants to extend Canada's participation in the Afghan War for another two years. Many people are asking; Why are we in Afghanistan and for what purpose are our soldiers dying? What are the other costs to Canadians?
The Conservative Government is attempting to portray the Afghan war as "a humanitarian mission" while continuing to fight against Afghans who are resisting what they see as "foreign invaders." I wonder how Canadians would see American, Russian or Chinese soldiers who invaded our country, overthrew an unpopular government, killed tens of thousands, wounded many thousands more, and caused wanton destruction and massive environmental damage. Even if they claimed that they were bringing "democracy to Canada" I do not believe that most Canadians would be impressed.
A recent poll published in the Globe and Mail showed that Afghans want the fighting to end, and they support negotiations with the Taliban. The Globe report notes: "Despite the enmity toward the Taliban, 74 per cent [of Afghans] said they supported negotiations between the Karzai government and Taliban representatives as a way of reducing conflict. In Kandahar, support for talks jumped to 85 per cent."
But what is the cost of the war in Afghanistan to Canadians? The deaths of 71 soldiers and a diplomat are fairly well known, but the financial costs are less well known. According to one study published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the "full cost" of the Afghan war to Canada will be $7.2 billion by March 2008. This works out to more than $100 million every month. What could Canada do with $7.2 billion dollars? How could this money benefit our health care system, help alleviate poverty, provide tax relief, or be used in the fight against global warming?
One aspect of the Afghan war rarely discussed is the impact of the exposure of our own soldiers, not to mention the civilian population in Afghanistan and Iraq, to toxic substances.
In the first Iraq War in 1991 casualties reported killed and wounded numbered less than 800. However, in 2001 the United States Veterans Affairs Department officially recognized 159,000 U.S. Desert Storm soldiers as being disabled and another 60,000 becoming disabled in Gulf service after the 1991 war. The 2001 report also noted that 8,000 Gulf War vets had already died.
These numbers are staggering, especially since they date back to 2001: the rates of cancers and other illnesses can only have gone up since then. The numbers we do know represent some 220,000 casualties from the First Iraq War -- casualties virtually no one talks about.
U.S. Army reports released at the end of December 2001 suggest that one cause for Gulf War illnesses was low level exposure to sarin nerve gas. The gas was released into the air when the U.S. military improperly blew up Iraqi chemical weapons sites in 1991.
The other suspected cause for "Gulf War Syndrome" is Depleted Uranium or DU. Major Doug Rokke (Ret.) who has a PhD served as health physicist for the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Assessment team in Iraq. He directed development of radiation and safety education and field procedures at the Bradley Radiological Laboratories. He now has a 40% army disability because the uranium in his urine is 5,000 times the permissible level. He also has trouble breathing.
In 1991 his team was brought in to clean up contamination caused when U.S. troops fired DU weapons accidentally against their own soldiers ("friendly fire" casualties). DU is basically reprocessed nuclear waste. His containment team went into smashed-up tanks without radiological protective suits. Within 72 hours they were getting sick, had respiratory problems and rashes that bled. Over the years since then, many team members have died. Dr. Rokke says they were abandoned by the U.S. Defense Department. Rokke himself was fired from his job at Bradley Labs in 1996 after he wrote a report saying the U.S. Army had a huge liability for contamination at one of their own bases in Alabama. (See
http://www.traprockpeace.org/du_gulf_war_2.pdf)
The Veterans Affairs Department has awarded disability benefits to 60,000 soldiers who went into the Gulf countries after the war was over. Two thousand of these Gulf War "theater" veterans have died. This is very alarming. It means that the Gulf area (Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia) is still highly contaminated.
The chief suspect again is DU, "depleted uranium," whose name is a mistake, says Rokke. "There's nothing depleted about it." He says the dangerous "alpha proportion" actually goes up in the processing. More than 900,000 DU projectiles were fired during the first Gulf War. When the weapons hit, about half of the uranium was released as tiny radioactive particles that will last for billions of years.
Looking for a quick victory and low body count, the U.S. military fought the first Gulf War without regard to the long term effects of exposure to DU and other environmental hazards on its own soldiers. The cheapness and great penetrating power of the DU shells influenced a political decision to downplay the risk of uranium poisoning. (For much more info on DU see http://traprockpeace.org/depleteduranium.html#VAReport)
Now another generation of U.S., Canadian and British soldiers is being sent to fight in a toxic waste land by politicians, most of whom have never been in combat themselves. These soldiers stand to pay a very steep price for fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their future health costs and lawsuits will be very expensive, but the human cost in pain and suffering will be incalculable.
A more recent study reported that more than 73,000 U.S. Military service personnel have died since the First Gulf War. These figures do not include Iraqi civilian deaths, estimated at more than one million in that war, or deaths during the period of sanctions, or the additional 1.2 million killed in the current war in Iraq. And in the war on Afghanistan, more than 20,000 civilians have been killed to date.
In May 2007, the United States Department of Veteran's Affairs, in conjunction with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, released figures which reveal "the true cost of the War against Iraq and Afghanistan." According to this report, more Gulf War veterans have died than the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam.
Also in May 2007, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Gulf War Veterans Information System reported the following: Total U.S. Military Gulf War Deaths since Gulf War One: 73,846; Deaths amongst Deployed: 17,847; Deaths amongst Non-Deployed Veterans: 55,999. Total "Undiagnosed Illness" (UDX) claims: 14,874. Total number of disability claims filed: 1,620,906. Disability Claims amongst Deployed: 407,911; Disability Claims amongst Non- Deployed Veterans: 1,212,995. Percentage of combat troops that filed Disability Claims: 36%.
Soldiers, by nature, are generally not complainers. The real impact of those who are disabled from the U.S. invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan and other nations, is not fully reflected in the official Veterans Affairs numbers. Many soldiers suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other psychiatric aliments due to their wartime activities and many are never able to live normal lives after seeing active service.
By contrast, as of October 25, 2007 the official U.S. government numbers state that deaths due to the War in Iraq stand at (only) 3,838 with 28,171 reported as wounded. Apparently the Bush administration does not want as many as 73,000 dead veterans to be compared to the 55,000 U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam.
What the Bush Administration is doing is counting only the soldiers that die directly in action in Iraq or Afghanistan. Injured soldiers are quickly taken out of the war zone for medical treatment. Any soldier who is shot in the war but is removed from the war zone before dying is not counted as a casualty of the war.
The 73,843 dead U.S. soldiers recorded for this scale of operation in Iraq and using weapons of mass destruction is proportionately not that high. However, according to one source, "they expect the great majority of U.S. soldiers who took part in the invasion of Iraq to die of uranium poisoning, which can take decades to kill. From a victor's perspective, above any major war in history, the Gulf War has taken the severest toll on soldiers."
According to reports, more than 1,820 tons of radioactive nuclear waste uranium were exploded into Iraq alone in the form of armor-piercing rounds and bunker busters, representing the world's worst man-made ecological disaster ever. To compare, a mere 64 kg of uranium was used in the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Thus, the American nuclear contamination of Iraq represents more than 14,000 Hiroshimas!
It has been suggested that the nuclear waste the U.S. has exploded into the Middle East will continue killing for billions of years and could possibly wipe out more than a third of the life on this planet. Gulf War Veterans who have ingested the uranium will continue to die off over the next few decades from cancers and other horrific diseases.
Birth defects alone are up 600% in Iraq. Being exposed to the same radioactive contamination, U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars can expect a massive increase in birth defects in their own children. Our Canadian soldiers are being exposed to the same radioactive contamination and other environmental hazards.
This information is not being addressed by mainstream North American media, yet it is readily available on the United States Department of Veteran's Affairs website: http://www1.va.gov/rac-gwvi/docs/GWVIS_May2007.pdf
The financial cost of the U.S. war against Iraq and Afghanistan is also staggering. A recent Congressional study estimates that the bill for Iraq and Afghanistan will reach $2.4 trillion over the next decade. The same study reports that the United States has already spent $604 billion waging the so-called "War on Terror." President George W. Bush has asked for $196.4 billion in war-related financing for the 2007-2008 budget year.
The question that needs to be asked is: What is being accomplished by spending these billions of dollars? According to Lord Ashdown, former leader of the British Liberal Democrats, "NATO has ‘lost in Afghanistan' and its failure to bring stability there could provoke a regional sectarian war ‘on a grand scale'." Lord Ashdown is a highly respected British political figure and also former United Nations representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ashdown delivered his dire prediction after being proposed as a new "super envoy" for Afghanistan.
Lord Ashdown's pessimistic assessment of the war in Afghanistan is shared by Great Britain's Chief of Defense Staff, Sir Jock Stirrup. He said recently that the military cannot resolve the situation in Afghanistan alone and warned that British troops could remain in Afghanistan "for decades" and that even then, the conflict "will only be resolved by a political deal -- after talks with Taliban leaders."
Is Stephen Harper's Afghanistan war the kind of war that Canadians want? We need to ask our political leaders, very loudly, why we are fighting a war in Afghanistan.
(This article originated as a speech given at London, Ontario's "Day of Action" on October 26, 2007 to Protest the War in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was edited and slightly abridged for the CIC Friday Magazine. -- Edward C. Corrigan is a London lawyer certified as a Specialist in Citizenship and Immigration Law and Immigration and Refugee Protection by the Law Society of Upper Canada. He can be reached at
corriganlaw@edcorrigan.ca)
