Canada can’t muzzle me
is a British antiwar activist and Respect Party member of parliament for the London constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow.
A long-time champion of left-wing causes, in 2004, Galloway memorably came to the U.S. to appear before a Senate subcommittee to answer accusations of corruption relating to the United Nations oil-for-food program. But then-Sen. Norm Coleman, who was leading the attack on Galloway, got more than he bargained for when Galloway turned the tables, putting the U.S. actions in Iraq on trial and delivering "a blistering attack," in the words of CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
Recently, Galloway participated in the Viva Palestina aid convoy, which traveled from Britain, through Europe and North Africa, to bring humanitarian aid to residents of Gaza, suffering in the wake of Israel's recent brutal assault.
But when Galloway attempted to travel to Canada to begin a North American speaking tour this month, he was denied entry on national security grounds under Canada's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. According to the Globe and Mail, "The Canada Border Services Agency has told Mr. Galloway that an aid convoy he led into Gaza earlier this month amounted to engaging in terrorism and being a member of a terrorist organization because he said he would donate the aid to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh."
In this commentary, Galloway explains why the Canadian government's attempts to keep his views out of the country will fail.
THE CANADIAN immigration minister Jason Kenney gazetted in the Sun on March 20 that I was to be excluded from his country because of my views on Afghanistan. That's the way the right-wing, last-ditch dead-enders of Bushism in Ottawa conduct their business.
Kenney is quite a card. A quick trawl establishes he's a gay-baiter, gung-ho armchair warrior, with an odd habit of exceeding his immigration brief. Three years ago, he attacked the pro-western Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora for being ungrateful to Canada for its support of Israeli bombardment of his country. Most curiously of all, in 2006 he addressed a rally of the so-called People's Mujahideen of Iran, a Waco-style cult, banned in the European Union as a terrorist organization.
On one level, being banned by such a man is like being told to sit up straight by the hunchback of Notre Dame or being lectured on due diligence by Conrad Black. On another, for a Scotsman to be excluded from Canada is like being turned away from the family home.
But what are my views on Afghanistan which the Canadian government does not want its people to hear? I've never been to Afghanistan, nor have I ever met a Taliban, but my first impression into the parliamentary vellum on the subject was more than two decades ago. At the time, the fathers of the Taliban were "freedom fighters," paraded at U.S. Republican and British Tory conferences. Who knows, maybe even the Canadian right extolled these god-fearing opponents of communism. I did not, however.
On the eve of their storming of Kabul, I told Margaret Thatcher that she "had opened the gates to the barbarians" and that "a long, dark night would now descend upon the people of Afghanistan." With the same conviction, I say to the Canadian and other NATO governments today that your policy is equally a profound mistake. From time to time and with increased regularity, it is a crime. Like the bombardment of wedding parties and even funerals or the presiding over a record opium crop, which under our noses finds its way coursing through the veins of young people from Nova Scotia to Newcastle upon Tyne. But it is worse than a crime, as Tallyrand said, it's a blunder.
The Afghans have never succumbed to foreign occupation. Heaven knows the British empire tried, tried and failed again. Not even Alexander the Great succeeded, and whoever else he is, minister Kenney is no Alexander the Great. Young Canadian soldiers are dying in significant numbers on Afghanistan's plains. Their families are entitled to know how many of us believe this adventure to be similarly doomed and that genuine support for troops--British, Canadian and other--means bringing them home and changing course.
To ban a five-times elected British MP from addressing public events or keeping appointments with television and radio programs is a serious matter. Kenney's "spokesman" told the Sun, "Galloway's not coming in...end of story." Alas for him, it's not. Canada remains a free country governed by law, and my friends are even now seeking a judicial review. And there are other ways I can address those Canadians who wish to hear me.
More than half a century ago Paul Robeson, one of the greatest men who ever lived, was forbidden to enter Canada, not by Ottawa but by Washington, which had taken away his passport. But he was still able to transfix a vast crowd of Vancouver's mill hands and miners with a 17-minute telephone concert, culminating in a rendition of the "Ballad of Joe Hill." Technology has moved on since then. And so from coast to coast, minister Kenney notwithstanding, I will be heard--one way or another.
First published in the Guardian.
