FAIT Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

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The Chair (Mr. Bernard Patry (Pierrefonds—Dollard, Lib.))

Professor David Dewitt (Professor of Political Science, Director, Centre for International and Security Studies, York University)

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1110

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1115

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The Chair

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Professor Farhang Rajaee (Professor of Political Science & Humanities , Carleton University)

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The Chair

Mr. M.J. Akbar (As Individual)

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1150

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1155

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1200

The Chair

Mr. Stockwell Day (Okanagan—Coquihalla, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. M.J. Akbar

Mr. Stockwell Day

Mr. M.J. Akbar

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1205

The Chair

Mr. Bernard Bigras (Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, BQ)

The Chair

Prof. Farhang Rajaee

The Chair

Prof. Farhang Rajaee

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1210

Mr. Bernard Bigras

The Chair

Prof. Farhang Rajaee

The Chair

Ms. Aileen Carroll (Barrie—Simcoe—Bradford, Lib.)

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Prof. David Dewitt

Ms. Aileen Carroll

The Chair

Prof. David Dewitt

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The Chair

Ms. Alexa McDonough (Halifax, NDP)

The Chair

Prof. David Dewitt

The Chair

Prof. David Dewitt

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1225

The Chair

Prof. Farhang Rajaee

The Chair

Hon. Diane Marleau (Sudbury, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. M.J. Akbar

Prof. Farhang Rajaee

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1230

The Chair

Prof. David Dewitt

The Chair

Mr. Keith Martin (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. M.J. Akbar

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1235

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The Vice-Chair (Hon. Diane Marleau)

Prof. Farhang Rajaee

Mr. Keith Martin

Prof. Farhang Rajaee

The Chair

Prof. Farhang Rajaee

The Chair

Mr. Murray Calder (Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, Lib.)

Prof. Farhang Rajaee

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1245

Prof. David Dewitt

Prof. Farhang Rajaee

The Chair

Mr. Murray Calder

Mr. M.J. Akbar

The Chair

Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, Lib.)

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1250

Prof. David Dewitt

The Chair

Ms. Aileen Carroll

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1255

Mr. M.J. Akbar

The Chair

Prof. David Dewitt

The Chair

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1300

Ms. Alexa McDonough

The Chair

Ms. Aileen Carroll

The Chair

Ms. Alexa McDonough

The Chair

Ms. Alexa McDonough

The Chair

Ms. Alexa McDonough

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

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NUMBER 045

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

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[English]

    The Chair (Mr. Bernard Patry (Pierrefonds—Dollard, Lib.)): The order of the day, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), is consideration of relations with Muslim countries.

    We are pleased to have with us this morning as witnesses, from York University, Professor David Dewitt, professor of political science and director of the Centre for International and Security Studies; also, from Carleton University Mr. Farhang Rajaee, professor of political science and humanities. As an individual, we have the pleasure of having Mr. M.J. Akbar, a journalist, author, and former MP from India.

    Welcome, all of you this morning, in front of our committee. We are very pleased to have you here with us.

    The way we're going to start is as I call you, with Mr. Dewitt, Mr. Rajaee, and Mr. Akbar, you will have about ten minutes for a statement as an introduction. After that we will go to the committee.

    Professor David Dewitt (Professor of Political Science, Director, Centre for International and Security Studies, York University): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the invitation. I much appreciate the opportunity to come here, and I've enjoyed reading the testimony of witnesses who have preceded us over the months before.

    Unlike those who have spoken before this committee, and indeed my colleagues, I'm not an expert on the faith, the history, or the sociology of Islam or the Muslim peoples. I'm a student of international affairs, and it is from that perspective that I will offer some introductory comments, which I hope will lead to an interesting discussion. I will not, therefore, repeat what has already been stated, nor, I hope, will I tread on the views of my colleagues who do come with the expertise of their intensive knowledge and familiarity with both the politics and the history of Islam and Muslims.

    I'm going to divide my comments primarily into three parts: observations about Islamic politics; Islam and international politics; and questions of Canadian policy. Obviously, these are just opening remarks, and I look forward to some discussion.

    There's much to be said here, nearly all of it controversial, and I dare say none of it terribly original. I acknowledge my debt to the many scholars of repute who work in this contested area, so let me be brief with some initial observations.

    As you've heard in the previous testimony, Islam has been both a religious and a political force—a force for change, for enlightenment, for oppression, for expansion, for consolidation. As both religion and power politics, it has a long and varied history. Let me state at the outset—I think it's important to state it in the context of post 9/11—that Islam is not the enemy.

    It might be useful to consider Islam the faith and Muslims the faithful, in terms of space and place. In terms of space, Islam, as you know, spans the globe, from Arabia to Africa to Asia to America. As for place, it has its political locus in dar el-Islam and dar el-harb: the universe controlled by Islam and that part of human societies that lie outside.

    For some, this may indicate a perpetual conflict between the two. But space and place also may be disassembled in the more modern sense of nationalism and the state. Throughout history, Muslim peoples involved not just in conversion and war, but also in trade and diplomacy, have led to peoples of Islamic faith settling in and affecting indigenous communities. Now we have countries, indeed states, which self-identify as Muslim or which recognize significant Muslim communities. A political expression of Islam in a Muslim-dominant society can take many forms, as one can witness in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Sudan, Algeria, or Nigeria. There is a tension between the ideology of state-building and national consolidation and the impact of Islam as the religion of the majority.

    Similarly in other countries there is a tension, though this need not be an impediment, between the existence of Muslim peoples and their presence as a minority—whether, for example, in France, Great Britain, Canada, China, Russia, the Phillipines, or India—and the political project of these countries in their efforts to pursue state concerns and national identity in a multicultural context.

    More complicated still, where in Muslim-dominated states there are significant schisms within Islam, overlain with ethnic or identity factors, as in Syria or Lebanon, Turkey or Iraq, place is different from space. With place, unlike space, there is memory—an explicit connection between the foundational history and identity that comes with being a Muslim of faith and the physical location of these people, most specifically, but not only, of course, regarding Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. But place also has its importance within the schisms of Islam, whether in terms of difference within Islam, as most widely noted between Shia or Sunni, or in terms of the coterminous factor of ethnicity, as with Kurds, or Turks, or Afghans, or Ibos, or Javanese, or those in Mindinao.

    There also are the conflicts that emerge around place, when significant Muslim societies, as in India or in Indonesia, co-exist with similarly strong faith-based societies that confront and conflict with each other in terms of the political and economic aspects of their identities. Most dramatic, perhaps, is the situation in Israel, where place and history are counterposed, and the struggle has taken on an ethno-national-religious expression.

    Just as an aside, again I don't come as an expert on faith and faith-based politics, but my experience has been also not only in research but in involvement in a number of “track two” diplomatic efforts, both in the Israeli-Palestinian situation, and in aspects of southeast, south, and northeast Asia.

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    The crucial point here is that space is relatively easy to deal with politically, while place is not.

    Place is a contributing factor to the tragedy around Jerusalem, to the struggle of the Kurds, to the enmity between Shiite and Sunni in the gulf. Place brings religious identity and zealotry and commitment to geographic location into conflict. It encourages mobilization in religious terms around material situations and therefore ends up taking political expression.

    There's much more to be said in all this. For now, let me conclude this section with one last point. Any understanding of Islam and especially the political implications of Islam must be embedded in the knowledge of local circumstance. As with most faiths and social forces, context determines much. To put it differently and somewhat sympathetically for the politicians in the room, politics is local, though in this case complicated by the transnational mobilizing capacity of the Islamic faith and the community.

    So now let me turn to Islamism and the politics of confrontation or cooperation. Let me quote from my colleague and friend, Don Emmerson of Stanford University, a widely recognized expert on southeast Asia and on Islam, a person I'd highly recommend you have the opportunity to meet. He says:

Islamism is the expression, in rhetoric, symbols, or action, of a desire to build an Islamic state, to defend or develop the Islamic community, to enlarge that community or deepen its Islamic faith, or to assert the Islamic identity of one's group or oneself. What “Islamic” means in each of these overlapping contexts is more or less subjective and contested.

    If we are to understand Islamism in general, we must face it in the particular, in the local. However tempting it is to treat Islamism as a single phenomenon, Islamist figures and movements differ greatly and not least in the extent to which they emphasize one or more of the concerns noted by him above: a state project, a communal defence, a social mission, or distinctive identification. In none of these are they necessarily conflictual, violent, or the enemy, though in each of them they well may be. So we can confront Islam's interests or we can seek ways to cooperate.

    I want to suggest that our choices as Canadians are not entirely of our own making. In some cases--as, for instance, with Islamism expressed in terms of violence and political extremism, as with the Taliban--I believe that the degrees of freedom for us are severely constrained. We either confront or we ignore--the latter at our peril.

    On the other hand, as an example, the politics of Malaysia's current prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, offer some latitude. Aspects of his politics and his policies are repugnant, as with their continuing to publicize the infamous protocols of the elders of Zion, or the way he has used Islamic identities and connections for narrow sectoral interests. Yet other aspects of his government are to be admired, notably in national development, education, and progress in women's rights.

    While referring to Malaysia, let me point out that in a few weeks only the second time in its history the Organization of the Islamic Conference will be meeting, and only the second time in Kuala Lumpur. This is only the second time it has met in Asia, in spite of the fact that Asian countries--Indonesia, China, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh--are home to the largest numbers of Muslims in the world. That should suggest something to us about the coherence and convergence of interests within the larger Islamic community. It is issue-specific, context-dependent, and much of that is political, pursued in the self-interest of the powerful.

    The Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Arab League, OPEC, Aopec, the African Union, all are organizations that in one way or another give political and economic expression to Muslim peoples and countries. That is not to say they are not representative or democratic or effective, that it is an empirical and case-by-case issue. Rather, it is to note that there are international forces that partially or wholly emerge from parts of the Muslim world through which we can seek opportunities to influence, to cooperate, and, if necessary, to confront.

    I also would add that NATO, the OSCE, and of course the United Nations all have as members countries with Muslim majorities or significant minorities. Thus, it is important to acknowledge that all of us have to better appreciate the ways by which the Islamic faith and peoples who identify as Muslims, as varied and as complex as all that is, affect the politics of states and interstate organizations.

    Moreover, we do need to become much more aware of the emergence of what some might call civil society within Muslim countries and communities. These may be liberal and reformist, or conservative and reactionary. They may be dominated by Islamist forces. They do represent social, economic, and political forces as divergent as their countries and their context. Lumping them all together in terms of the Taliban, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or Jamaat Islamia is as mistaken as assuming that all mosques and imams are under the influence of the Wahhabi.

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    That said, nor should we be overly romantic or naive and pretend that there are no extremist forces at play both within Muslim countries and within the larger Muslim world, influenced and supported directly by some Islamic institutions or indirectly through groups and governments. That holds for institutions in Canada, the Islamic schools and the mosques, as elsewhere.

    Let me quickly turn to my last section, Canadian politics with Muslim countries. As I've argued elsewhere, Canada engages in a mix of what I'd call assertive bilateralism and activist multilateralism. One is not a replacement for the other. Rather, they are complementary in our foreign policy. This is no different for our relations with countries that proclaim an Islamic identity than it is for countries with secular states having a variety of ideological preferences and faith communities, including Muslim minorities. What I am suggesting is that there are Canadian standards--normative, ethical, moral, legal, and pragmatic--which inform, or should inform, all our diplomatic relations across political, economic, and security sectors.

    Since the end of the Cold War, the Canadian government has articulated a series of preferences and undertaken a number of commitments. We suggest that we no longer should be, nor need to be, constrained by at least a few of the traditional constraints of this Westphalian system. In particular, I'm referring to the need, when deemed appropriate to our values, standards, and interests, to challenge what we deem to be unacceptable behaviour by governments, regimes, organizations, and individuals. This is articulated in various ways in Canada and by Canadian leaders, not least by our being a signatory to the convention on human rights and through the ideas underlying the notion of human security and the assumptions that inform the core notion of a responsibility to protect that emerged from the Canadian-sponsored International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. This is not the place to go into this in detail. Suffice it to note that, whether through our bilateral or multilateral commitments, we should be prepared to be as consistent as local conditions and context permit, and that at times means not accepting the politics of the other.

    What does this mean in terms of our relations with Muslim countries? Where human rights abuses are systemic and pervasive, this should signal an adjustment to business as usual. When opportunities to promote and especially to assist peoples in these countries in their pursuit of reformist agendas leading toward democratic politics arise, we should be prepared to invest in various ways. I recommend Noah Feldman's book on Jihad and democracy as something to give us some insight. This might be in security sector reform, trade liberalization, education, or, in particular, capacity building of the civic institutions in these countries. It should mean our interest in good governance, transparency, and a reduction in violence, things that CIDA once had on its agenda.

    When an Islamic party receives the votes to form a government, we need to think clearly of the implications of not supporting that effort, never mind the unintended consequences of being supportive of nullifying it. Think of Algeria more than a decade ago. We've now borne witness to deaths in the 150,000 range, with democracy now virtually non-existent. As Don Emmerson wrote, “It would be hard to imagine a worse result”.

    We should not assume that an elected Islamist government will impose an Islamic state along Taliban lines. Remember that no one elected the Taliban. Islam and Muslim symbols have political resonance. To deny that is foolhardy and wrong. We need to respect it and appreciate it. The politics of post-Suharto Indonesia give additional testimony. Hence, we need to support efforts at democratization. But for the interests of Canada and Canadians and for the integrity of our government, we must be prepared to speak clearly and act accordingly in difficult circumstances.

    Now I'm finishing up.

    Many regimes within the Islamic world are problematic. Authoritarian, interventionist, restrictive, opaque, arbitrary, and duplicitous are strong words, but they can be readily applied to too many regimes. They are neither democratically elected nor democratic in practice. Human rights of both the individual and communities are often what is most strikingly abused or denied. It is not that these are necessarily the indicators of an Islamic or Islamist government, but that they are found within Islamic countries, just as they have been found in non-Islamic countries. But we should not shirk from addressing them appropriately just because they are from within Islamic countries.

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    Now let me temper these strong sentiments. As a Canadian, I'm acutely aware of the importance of keeping channels open, of engaging rather than isolating, of incremental efforts for good accumulating into setting the foundations for still greater change, of educating and socializing and ultimately facilitating the internal desire for change. These are dearly held liberal values and ideals.

    One educates in favour of progress, and education comes in many forms using many instruments. In Asia this may be called constructive engagement, when ASEAN uses it to explain its relations with Burma, or when we and others in the west discuss our growing involvement with China, in both cases in spite of some serious concerns with their respective domestic affairs.

    Thus, I repeat what I said a while ago. Each case must be assessed and evaluated on its merits. The context must be understood, the options evaluated, the consequences appreciated. For Canada, our relations with Muslim countries or countries with significant Muslim minorities range across the full set of relations. In trade and commercial terms, China and India loom large, possibly Nigeria and gulf states, depending on energy issues, and in security politics, Russia and China, India and Pakistan, Iraq and Iran, along with Israel and most of the Arab states, due to weapons of mass destruction and proliferation.

    In domestic immigration politics, China and south and southeast Asia, along with the Horn of Africa, central Africa and west Africa, as well as Lebanon, loom large for Canadian domestic interests. In overall politics, our bilateral and multilateral relations, both domestic and international, the Israel-Palestinian-Arab situation remains a concern to all levels of government in Canada today.

    What more or what different can we do? Our commitments to human security and peace building and humanitarian intervention need to be enhanced, but this cannot occur without a clear connection to our international security policy, our development policy, our defence policy. I'd argue, particularly in defence and in CIDA and in our development politics, we need reconsideration of our capacities. Capabilities in all three sectors need to be enhanced and refocused. If we can't do everything, we need to choose what, when, where, and how we wish to invest our scarce resources and our leverage, and pursue track-two diplomacy in this area where we can contribute.

    Finally, let me say that neutrality is not an honourable nor necessary posture. We should take positions and they should reflect our values.

    I've not mentioned at all our concern about our relations with our allies or the U.S. How we manage the impact of American politics in the Muslim world is of vital interest, not just to us but to our Muslim friends, because we do have a special relationship with the United States and we do have an obligation to think carefully about how American relations affect our relations with those Islamic and Muslim minority countries.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Dewitt.

    I simply want to say to you and to our witnesses that our committee will travel, probably, in October. We're going to divide the subcommittee into three groups; two will go to the Middle East and the other will go to India, Pakistan, and also Malaysia and Indonesia.

    We'll go next to Mr. Rajaee. I want to thank Mr. Rajaee for providing his brief to the committee earlier so we had a chance for it to be translated into French.

    Thank you, Mr. Rajaee.

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    Professor Farhang Rajaee (Professor of Political Science & Humanities , Carleton University): Thank you.

    Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

    I have provided the committee with a rather long piece I wrote, trying to put our relationship with the Muslim world in general, the present conditions, onto paper. I will try to summarize as much as I can.

    When I was asked to appear before you, I was thinking about some broad day-to-day affairs, practical issues that Canada is facing in dealing with the Muslim world. I thought I should maybe go through a long list of those and deal with those. However, when I received the prepared statement from the parliamentary research branch, I decided to go broader than that.

    The reason I did that was because I looked at the statement and I noticed that the statement is presupposed by the binary opposition of the clash of civilization and the way in which America looks at the world. I have been educated in the United States and I had the best time of my youth in the U.S., but that has nothing to do with what I'm going to say.

    The presupposition of the paper and also the idea of the clash of civilization is very different from the world I have decided to make my home. I am a new proud Canadian and I thought the reason I did that was because this country looks at the world and operates from the world view of peace, order, and good governance, and of course the present condition of global village and multiculturalism. Based on the latter conviction and the latter decision, I will try to address three questions for you.

    First, has September 11 changed the world to the point that now we have to have such a gathering and have such an effort to go and see the world and so on? Secondly, what is our challenge in the global condition today? And thirdly, where do we go from here?

    Did September 11 change the world? The tragedy was very unfortunate. May God bless the souls of those who innocently were killed and punish those misguided people who made religion their ideology of terror. Having said that, I do not believe that September 11 changed the world. September 11, however, changed the world for those who Joel Beinin, professor of history in Michigan, called “terrorologists”, who think of the civilized condition as the Manichean world of enemy and friend divided and power as panacea.

    For many, including me, September 11 did something very important. September 11 was a wake-up call, a very important wake-up call. But a wake-up call to what? I will address two aspects of it. There are many, many aspects of it that one could address.

    Number one, it woke us up to the world, that it truly has become global. It is said that once we thought the world was flat. Later it was proven to be round. Now it is definitely a web shape, a web world in which everybody's life is affected by everybody else.

    I am quite aware that this web-shaped world, which I call the world of one civilization with many cultures, is one civilization, in that all of us are part of a technical world, an information world. Even the terrorists are using the information technology, information availability. We had the revelation yesterday about how it was all planned in the Internet and so on. It's one civilization, which is a civilization of technology and information, but the very good thing about it is that it's the world of many cultures. Thanks to the effort of all wonderful emancipatory groups such as feminists, such as women's liberation, such as post-modern thinking, we recognize that we have a world in which there are many cultures.

    So it's a world of one civilization, many cultures. At the same time, I'm quite aware, in the language of James Rosenau, that it's a world of “fragmegration”. It is a fragmented world as well as an integrated world. It is both at the same time. Fragmentation and integration go at the same time. That may be hard to grasp sometimes.

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That is the first recognition or wake-up call in the wake of September 11.

    The second wake-up call was that all of a sudden it was down to the people of the heartland of the Muslim world. I repeat, the heartland of the Muslim world is haunted by the unfortunate paradigms of Islamism.

    If you look at the Muslim world in general, you can come up with magnificent culturalist fears, all the way from Southeast Asia to the post-Soviet world, to the African Mediterranean world, and even to the world of diaspora. But then there is the core of the Muslim world, the subcontinent--namely, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, the Iranian context, and the Arab world. Now, why is that heartland important? Remember, it was where the Muslim world was at the forefront of civilization, production, dynamism, and power the last time—the Ottoman world, the Safavid world, and the Mughals. The rest of the Muslim world consisted more or less of minorities. Those people knew how to be minorities; they knew how to live in a minority world. But the heartland is the one that confronted this astonishing uproar called modernism, imperialism, or whatever.

    The second realization post-September 11 was that the heartland of the Muslim world is haunted by the ideology of Islamism. What is dangerous about it, in one word, is that “the end justifies the means”. Unfortunately, any ideological approach to understanding politics comes away with this formula, that the ends justify the means. It is prevalent among the Islamists.

    If that is the case, if our realization is that the world we live in is a world of one civilization and many cultures at one level, and a world that is faced with this phenomenon of Islamism at another level, what is our challenge? How are we to deal with this? How do we handle this? How do we settle our difficulties with this phenomenon? Of course, the outward manifestation of this ideology is terrorism, but how do we deal with it?

    Let me invoke two sets of images. The first image is the image of a surgeon or health provider. The second image is the terminator or the gardener. Unfortunately, the terrorologist tells us that you have to be either a surgeon or a terminator, that you have to find the terrorists, get rid of them, and eliminate them. The health care provider or the gardener tells you they are not against getting rid of the weeds. No gardener tolerates the weeds or no health care worker tolerates microbes. But in order to eliminate them, we have to understand where they come from. What is the phenomenon? That does not mean justifying it or apologizing for it, but trying to understand it in order to get rid of it.

    So the second approach, the approach of the gardener or the health care worker, asks, “Where did terrorism come from?” We have been opened up to another interesting phenomenon: that most of the people who are culprits are from the middle class. This runs contrary to any sociological theory. All sociologists, from Aristotle to modern ones, have been telling us that the middle class is the backbone of moderate society, that the middle class is the backbone of democracy. In fact, Ralph Dahrendorf became famous for putting forward the idea that the middle class is the backbone of western industrial societies and democratic system. All of a sudden, you have all of these culprits who are middle class. That explains something. That must tell us something. We should be more careful, rather than just saying these are a bunch of this, that, or the other.

    So the therapist, health worker, health provider, or gardener approach says, “Let me understand the phenomenon of terrorism.”

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    I suggested in the paper provided for you that terrorism is the result of a triangle, a triangle of injustice or perceived injustice. That's only one angle of it. The second one is empowerment: I can do something about this injustice; I can do something about this difficulty I'm facing.

    Third, and more importantly, there should be an ideology that justifies my doing something. My action would be meaningful. I am a Muslim, and I go with the verse in the Koran that says if you try to kill me, I will not kill you, because I cannot answer to God. That's one way of looking at the Koran. Of course, there are verses in the Koran with which you could justify what you do.

    So it's the three things: injustice or the sense of injustice, empowerment, and the ideology of terror.

    I have explained for you that a hundred years or almost a century of injustices in the Muslim world has created some sort of sense of injustice. That has to be addressed. Bin Laden should be taken at his word when he said we have been tasting it for 80-odd years. Eighty-odd years goes to World War II and to World War I and post-World War I development, and of course some of the things that Professor Dewitt suggested: irresponsible government, unaccountable governments, repressive governments. And let me tell you, many of these people attribute them to the west. Everybody talks about most of that, but most of that is not in ancient history. So that's the sense of injustice.

    The second one is empowerment, the empowerment that came as a result of post-world-war schools, universities, oil money, and globalization. Globalization is very, very significant. Whatever you can say negatively about globalization, the fact that globalization is indiscriminately empowering is very significant and it has empowered a lot of people.

    The final one, the ideology of terror, has been in the making not today, not yesterday, but since the 1960s, by people like Sayyid Qutb, Abd Faraj, and so on and so forth. Why did Abdel Nasser execute Sayyid Qutb? It was because Sayyid Qutb put forward the world of “us” and “them”, the world of terror.

    So these three have come together, and unfortunately, Islamism has put the final seal on it. The sense of injustice, empowerment, and the ideology of terror have come together, and it is prevalent--I repeat, it is prevalent--in the heart of the Muslim world. It is prevalent in Egypt. It is prevalent among Palestinians. Unfortunately, it is prevalent among Iranians, and so on.

    The third question is, what can we do in Canada? How can we approach this? First and foremost, we should look at the world through our own interest.

    Let me make the argument that The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, if you read it very carefully, has been written from the point of view of American national interest. It is Samuel Huntington, and of course his subsequent writing. It's not the theory of international relations; it's the theory of the future of the American position in the world. We have to look at the world through our own prism, defined by our ideals, and of course our long-term practical objectives: multilateralism, multiculturalism, human rights--and I repeat, peace, order, and good governance. That was the phrase that made me think about even applying to come to Canada.

    For those of you who don't know, I'm a very new Canadian. I've been here only seven years.

    So first we have to define exactly what is our national interest toward X country and Y country--and again, Professor Dewitt made such an excellent presentation in contextualizing each, case by case. Secondly, of course, as a citizen of the globalized world, what can we do there?

    Number one is to help counterattack misinformation, as of course we see in the case of the attack against Iraq. Now we're finding out what the real information is.

    Number two is to weaken or destroy the triangle of terrorism that I told you about. If we can delegitimize that triangle or somehow rectify some aspects of it, automatically Islamism loses its appeal.

    Third is to uphold the importance and the significance of the UN. I was so glad that Mr. Richard Perle's essay, “Thank God for the death of the UN”, came to such a very shameful end for him, of course, and I'm glad he's out of the picture.

    And the final one is to encourage civil societies and foreign aid.

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    When I was approached to talk to you, some people said the members of the committee may have questions about Iran. I would be more than happy to entertain those directly during the question and answer session. I think I am almost over my time, so I will stop here.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    We have saved Mr. Akbar for the end. I think I told you in the beginning that he's a journalist from India who also has a sense of how Parliament works, being a former parliamentarian.

    We're very fortunate you're here in Ottawa and appearing in front of our committee.

    It's not that often that we have a secretary of state come to listen to our deliberations. We welcome Mr. Kilgour, also.

    Mr. Akbar.

    Mr. M.J. Akbar (As Individual): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your comments.

    As a member of Parliament, I did not reach ministerial rank myself, so I understand the privilege of getting a minister into a parliamentary committee room.

    I want to start from a very practical point of view. I hope you realize and appreciate the great cache of goodwill you have built up as a nation by your decision not to send troops to Iraq. It provides you with an enormous opportunity to become the bridge between the west and the Muslim world, which I'm afraid is at the moment in a bit of a shambles. That bridge is constructed of many things, but primarily perhaps of language. It is a bridge that requires an understanding of what the two sides mean when they use words that are very emotive, very important, and decisive in their own minds. You will come across elements of this bridge, I think, as you travel.

    I must put in a kind of caveat. One of the first things you will hear almost continuously when you hear Muslims is that Islam is peaceful; Islam means peace. Of course that is absolutely true. Salaam is Islam, and Islam means peace. There is no religion that preaches violence, and so on. But please remember one thing--it is a defensive reaction. If Islam meant only peace and had no space for war, I don't think we would be sitting here discussing it.

    I presume it is nobody's contention that war by itself is wrong or bad, and certainly not after the last two years, when we've had America launch two wars in the name of humanity, the greater good, a higher purpose, and all the things that Paul Wolfowitz forgot when we was telling us the truth a couple of weeks ago.

    I only mention this to stress that Islam is a religion that created a dialectic for war in its very formative stage. In that sense it is a very different kind of religion. The reasons for this war called jihad...which is recognized, a word that has been demonized--and this is one of the great problems; the word has been demonized because it has been misunderstood.

    The terminology and the fact of jihad were created within the prophet's lifetime and were part of the revealed text of Islam. They were not just the experience and the behaviour patterns of the prophet.

    The dialectic of this war was determined partly by the prophet's own experience in his own time and persecution. There is a fundamental difference between Jesus' attitude toward persecution and the prophet Mohammed's attitude toward persecution. Jesus is as much a prophet of Islam as he is of Christianity. While Jesus answered persecution with martyrdom, Mohammed, who was also building a state, in addition to a religion, accepted persecution for a long while, even choosing immigration to Medina in the process. But at some point, the prophet also lifted up the sword.

    I do want to stress, however, that jihad is not simple, nor is it irresponsible, nor can it be started by a maverick. This is very clearly laid down. There are ten basic principles of the Islamic war known as jihad. They are very well documented in the early texts, certainly when the first armies were going out from Abu Bakr and Umar.

    I'll just briefly tell you that one of the things that does not exist in jihad is terrorism. I think of the ten elements or rules of jihad, numbers six, seven, and eight are very clear that you cannot kill a non-combatant, you cannot kill women and children. You cannot, in fact, destroy palm trees and vegetation in a jihad. It is that strict a disciplined war.

    The misuse of it does not deny either the reality of it or the fact that it has been a very important part of Muslim history. Essentially, as you've heard just now, if it has to mean anything it is a war against injustice.

Á  (1145)  

    As practical politicians, you know that perception is far more important than truth, whatever the truth might be. If people believe something and if they believe there's injustice, then they react.

    I would suggest that in order to understand the Muslim world as it is now and how the Muslim world extends, you should know it is a kind of inverted crescent from Morocco to Indonesia, even geographically. If you want to understand the Muslim world, you should know there are two demographic elements. While the religious heart of Islam might be in Mecca and Medina and in the Arab world, the demographic heart of Islam is in south Asia and southeast Asia. That is where the really large bodies of Muslims live. In fact, if this whole Islamic world is seen as a waterbed, where something that happens at one point creates currents that affect somewhere else, then you will often see the impact or reflection of what happens in the west in Bali, Indonesia, or some other place.

    The second element is that now Islam has also created a diaspora of its own. Canada is part of the diaspora now; I think perhaps 600,000 Muslims live here. A little to the south, in America, this diaspora experience was translated into the phrase “the nation of Islam”. I must really warn you against that phrase; it simply has no history or resonance in Muslim history. Islam has no nationhood; Islam is a brotherhood. Islam has not been converted into an ideology for nations. Nationalism has existed literally from the time of the Prophet himself. Nationalism may have taken on a sort of tribal manifestation at that point or later on and devolved into a small-state manifestation. Certainly, when Islam began to interact with Persia and this thing, the Persians were not going to deny their own nationalism or subsume it under the larger course, and this was very clearly established.

    But the modern history of Islam really begins in the 19th century because this was the first time parts of the world of Islam were completely consumed, taken over by British imperialism, by British colonization. Both of the two empires you mentioned, the Ottoman Empire as well as the Mughul Empire, eventually succumbed to the British. If the Safavids did retain a certain degree of independence, that independence was heavily prejudiced by a great deal of dependence.

    Almost the whole of the Islamic world was taken over and colonized. After 1918, which is a seminal year in the Muslim memory, there was not a single Muslim country that was not colonized. Until the Second World War that was the situation. In 1919 there arose a great movement that took place in the demographic heart of Islam, which was India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, known as the Khilafat movement, which is very misunderstood because it is seen as a movement that supported Turkey. No, that movement was not in the cause of Turkey. That movement was in the cause of a caliph who would represent the Muslims, particularly in the defence of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The defence of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina you will find in the rhetoric of Osama as much as anywhere else, so it remains a very evocative fact of Muslim perception.

    From there we come to a curious and very Muslim reality. The Muslim world moves from colonization to the first stage, which is decolonization, but decolonization is not an easy process or a simple process the way it took place in countries like India. It was succeeded by neo-colonization, particularly in the Arab world. The process of neo-colonization and the creation of literally artificial kingdoms picked up. I use the symbolic presence of the Hashemites. Since Iraq is at the top of our concerns, the fact is that the Hashemite King Faisal was imposed upon it in 1920 after being kicked out of Syria. A man who had actually never stepped into Baghdad before suddenly found himself made the king of Baghdad.

Á  (1150)  

    That process of neo-colonization ensued and continued for at least two or three generations. The resistance of Muslim society, Muslim peoples, and even Muslim elites against this neo-colonization finally erupted in different countries in a variety of ways. In the case of Iraq it erupted into army coups, which was a very normal pattern. The local armies removed these neo-colonial, artificial rulers from their midst.

    But then comes a stage that I think is perhaps something Muslim countries have not really yet found a way through, either intellectually or practically. It is a kind of post-modern colonization. It's a post-neo-colonization phase, which I've called the creation of alibi governments, where local elites, most often in the form of the army, seized power using one alibi or another in order to create a new form of local despotism, a new form of local dictatorship. This had elements of brutality or despotism but used nationalism as its primary alibi in different areas like the Middle East, where Israel became a favourite alibi. Elsewhere other reasons were used. National development became the alibi that sustained Suharto and various kingdoms.

    What I do want to suggest or say is that this is not simply a Muslim phenomenon. It happened in many countries in Africa that were largely Christian, with the same kind of alibi government formation that denied real freedom to people, people who had national independence, because independence had become synonymous with dictatorship and despotism. It was these governments that first the Soviet Union and then the west, America, dealt with in many parts of the world during the Cold War, and this eventually led to paradoxes and self-contradictions.

    The second point I would like to make is that you must not only understand the nature of the Islamic nation as it has emerged today but also the nature of the war that is being imposed upon certain Muslim countries, specifically the war on Iraq. I see parallels being drawn with the Second World War: it's there in almost every report, every discourse, and every discussion that we did this in Germany and we did this in Japan, and therefore why can't we do this in Iraq? There is a very crucial difference between the Second World War and this war.

    There were two kinds of war that were fought in the 20th century. One was the war between empire seekers. The First World War and the Second World War were largely wars between empire seekers, people who wanted to divide the world among themselves. They were empire builders and empire seekers who wanted to share the world's resources among themselves. The second kind of war that emerged in the 20th century was the war between those who wanted to liberate their nations and those empire builders and empire seekers, whether this war was in Algeria, whether this war was a non-violent one in India, or whether this war took different manifestations in different contexts in different countries.

    The difference is that America sees its war in Iraq as one kind, as a war of artificial liberation, whereas Iraq and most of the Muslim world see this war as part of a continuing effort to liberate themselves from the western imperialism that first manifested itself in the European imperialism of Britain and France, where now America has become the successor imperialist. America is definitely the successor imperialist, as it was in Vietnam, in Latin America, and in a variety of regions of the world.

    Now, these are the two perceptions. The gulf is in these two perceptions, and I dare say there's a little bit of unreality and a lot of reality on both sides as we begin to address this problem. But until this problem is sorted out...I do note from the perspective of my other hat as a journalist--and I'm pleased to report this--that in the media, whether in The New York Times, in AP, or on CNN, what began in Iraq as a war of “liberation” is now being called a war of occupation, and this has been addressed and accepted. This is perhaps the first stage towards finding a median reality both will accept.

Á  (1155)  

    I have one last point. The Americans have entered Iraq. They have created new facts on the ground. Those facts are not going to change. Whatever George Bush's motivation might have been--and as you know, the motivations have recently changed, and even Paul Wolfowitz now says that WMD was only a bureaucratic fudge--I do hope you realize that the integrity of war is defined by the purpose of war. You cannot ex post facto change the rationale and keep calling it a war of integrity.

    However, the facts have changed on the ground. When the facts change on the ground, the geopolitics changes. One of the great problems of the west, as it looks at Iraq, is that it looks only across a north-south median, as if the weathervane travels in no other direction. Iraq is to the north of Israel, and Saudi Arabia is to the south of Israel, and the west looks at the impact of its own intervention only along this dimension. It's either Israel-centric or, as we now know, Saudi-centric, because America became less confident about its ability to use Saudi Arabia as a permanent staging point for its strategic and economic interests in the region. This war has been well defined as a parallel to the Philippines, which finally gave America access to the Pacific.

    I think the real impact of this war is going to be on an east-west parallel. A certain unusual thing has happened that is not yet within the popular consciousness, because the very dynamics of the American intervention automatically include, at some future point or some immediate point, that Iraq must become a democratic state. I presume there is no argument about this anywhere in the world within the western nations. For the first time in 1,400 years, Iraq will be ruled by a certain form of Shia majority government. This immediately changes the geopolitics of the region. For the first time in 1,400 years, an area from the border of Afghanistan to the border of Syria, including in its penumbra some substantial part of northern Saudi Arabia, will be Shia-dominated; it will follow our dialectic according to the Shia perception of what the Islamic future should be.

    I am not getting into judgments; I'm not saying whether this is good or bad. I'm not going to be very fashionable when I say this, but I have a great deal of time for Imam Khomeini's understanding or attempt to find a dialectic for a Shia or Iranian-centric future. Whether you agree with it or not, you must understand it, because of what is happening in Iraq at this moment in Najaf. The key really lies with the southern factions of the Dawa, not the Hakim faction of the Dawa. Hakim has already been destroyed by a bomb. I don't know what the consequences of the time bombs that have been planted at this moment will be.

    I do know that the isolation of Iran will end. I do know that Iran's silence means much more than anything it says might mean. I do know that a new Middle East is being created, but not quite the kind of Middle East that Richard Perle and company thought they were going to create when they intervened.

    Thank you.

  (1200)  

    The Chair: Thank you very much. It's very interesting.

    Now we're going to start the question and answer period. I just want to tell my colleagues there will be five minutes for questions and answers.

    We're going to start with the opposition and Mr. Day, please.

    Mr. Stockwell Day (Okanagan—Coquihalla, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    The presentations clearly are an illustration that history, like art, is in the eyes of the beholder.

    I would like to reflect on a couple of things and then ask a question that's very important in my view and by which, if we can have an answer to it, we may be able to get at the nub of terrorism itself.

    First, I would be somewhat at odds with the statement that Canada has found a cache of goodwill, since it didn't join its historic allies. There are about fifty countries that joined the coalition of purpose who were somewhat disturbed that Canada did not also join its traditional allies.

    We are trying. We can build a bridge—I agree with that—to the Muslim world. Obviously we're having some difficulty when Saudi Arabia arrests one of our citizens and imprisons and tortures him for almost three years; when Iran arrests wrongly one of our citizens, a woman, beats her to death, and won't accept responsibility for it; when Syrian-backed Lebanon arrests one of our citizens wrongly, and only under the glare of the public spotlight is that citizen released. I don't think our government can be accused of using harsh words in dealing with these particular countries. We want to see the bridge. It's a case with some of these countries that their actions speak so loudly we can't hear their words. But we will continue.

    I would like to ask this question. As I looked and listened and looked through the material here, again I see this sense of moral equivalence, when I read an apologetic for Osama bin Laden as a person who felt dispossessed—a very wealthy man coming from Saudi Arabia, which is a very wealthy and powerful country, and he's portrayed as a poor individual who is dispossessed—and realize that there would be any sense of excuse for an insane mass murderer of the order of magnitude of Osama bin Laden.... I appreciate that we have the freedom of speech to get into that debate, and I utterly reject it. It's an acceptance of that moral equivalence that in fact gives him and his followers credibility.

    Can I ask this question? When it comes to the religion of Islam, most of us here with friends who are Muslim would agree with the statement that it has always been our view that this is a religion of peace. Just as, if you're trying to fight an idea, you have to fight it with another idea, or if you're fighting weapons, you have to have other weapons, when it comes to a twisted religious aberration, which I believe the so-called Islamic terrorists are operating under, you can only fight it with the truth of that religion.

    One thing that concerns us is this. It is very clear that the terrorists—“dispossessed”, I utterly reject—have been told that should they reach the elevated state of being a martyr they will be greeted in paradise, and now I'm using their language, by “72 virgins”. They will be able to advocate for 70 members of their own family. They have to, in my view, hear from those who are of the Islamic faith who don't ascribe to that view—I talk to them every day and I believe them. There has to be a counter religious message, not just an idea: this isn't capitalism versus communism.

    First I would ask each of you, in the case of a suicide murderer claiming to be of the Islamic faith, do you believe that the Koran backs up this promise that has been made to them that they will be greeted by 72 virgins? Are there imams who will come out strongly against that notion in the mosque? That's what I'd like to know. Are we going to hear that? I know the heart is there, but are we going to hear it?

    Mr. M.J. Akbar: I'm happy to answer that. It's very simple. In fact, the imam I will name existed in the twelfth century.

    Mr. Stockwell Day: I'm talking about today.

    Mr. M.J. Akbar: No, no. Since we are talking, the virgins were promised in the seventh; the imam came in the twelfth.

    Islamic history also has a strong history of terrorism. This is not the first time that terrorism has been used as a weapon against the imperialists. It was used by Hasan Sabbah the eleventh century when the other Muslim nations found themselves incapable of actually addressing the problems of the crusades. It was before Saladin came. In fact, Hasan Sabbah threatened everyone.

    Now to cut a very long story short, the education of this issue, whether terrorism is valid, that martyrdom that is promised to you is promised in a just war, it is not promised through terrorism.... Imam Ghazzali, after whom it was said, at least in Islam, that the doors of inquiry are closed after him--that was his intellectual reputation, and his interpretation of the law is commonly followed--said very clearly and used the words that terrorism is self-defeating to the Muslim.

    Therefore, today, the person who is remembered—Hasan Sabbah and Saladin were great contemporaries—as a hero in Islam is Saladin, who fought, according to Islamic history, the just war, which was a declared war on principles that you all know. Some of it has been converted into romance. Hasan Sabbah has been rejected continuously for a thousand years, and they say this will be the fate of Osama himself.

    The rejection of Osama is less important that it comes from America. It is far more important that it is coming from Muslim societies and Muslim governments over and over and over again. I urge you, if I have a minute, to look at the reaction of Muslim nations when the west went to war in Afghanistan, when it has gone to war in Iraq. Muslim nations, societies, and people queued up to support America, queued up in Afghanistan, because they recognized the Taliban was an unjust imposition, an aberration on Islam itself, leaving aside it being an aberration on any other idea.

    It is the doubt that has risen over Iraq that has forced Canada not to support the American position with the open arms with which it supported America in Afghanistan. It is in that doubt that we seek some amount of fresh thinking and clarity.

  (1205)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Now we're going to go to Monsieur Bigras. We'll come back if we can after, but it is five minutes each and we're over six. All the members want to ask questions and we need to finish by one o'clock.

    The question will be asked in French by Monsieur Bigras.

[Translation]

    Mr. Bigras, please.

    Mr. Bernard Bigras (Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    In this study of our relations with Muslim countries, one of my concerns is the whole issue of respect for human rights, and more particularly children's rights. Last year, I obtained unanimous agreement in the House of Commons for a motion to fight international child abductions and encourage as many countries as possible to sign the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

    You are no doubt aware that a number of Muslim countries have refused to sign that convention. Of course, they have signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but they refuse to sign a convention with binding provisions. Canada has concluded some agreements, such as the bilateral agreement with Egypt that contains no binding provisions. There are principles stated, of course, but no binding provisions.

    Here is my question. How can we reach a better balance between the protection of children's rights and respect for cultures and religions? I would just mention that I am very open and I do not believe that I need to say that I am in favour of openness and respect when it comes to cultures and religions.

    Mr. Rajaee, you spoke of the importance of the UN. You know that the UN is not a virtual organization. It exists because of international conventions. We cannot go around saying that the UN is important when some countries refuse to sign these conventions that reflect international consensus. So how can we, while maintaining respect for religions and cultures, respect the right of children to be with their parents? In my opinion, that is fundamental. We need to strive for a better balance between the two. What is your perspective on this issue?

    The Chair: Mr. Rajaee.

[English]

    Prof. Farhang Rajaee: I wanted to address the other question, because that question was directly about me. I would be happy to entertain that question if time permits.

    The Chair: Go ahead.

    Prof. Farhang Rajaee: I will not go to the twelfth century. I think the spirit by which the paper was written--and I was hoping that I conveyed it--was that there is a condition that allows any twisted mind, such as Osama bin Laden's, to take advantage of it, and that is the triangle. It's not that he feels injustice, but there are a lot of people who do feel injustice, and his word is appealing to them. My comment was you have to destroy that.

    Professor Dewitt referred to Noah Feldman's book. It's a very good book. Mr. Feldman, by the way, is in Iraq at the moment. Noah Feldman wrote a book called After Jihad. He is trying to put together a democratic system in Iraq. He is a constitutional lawyer from Columbia.

    A new generation of Muslims is emerging that is in fact putting forward exactly the point of view you are. Khaled Abou Fadl in the United States is that voice that is coming forward. But the problem is that Khaled Abou Fadl's voice will be silenced by the forces of extremism as long as that triangle is in operation; as long as you have the sense of injustice on the ground; as long as you have governments that are not accountable; and as long as there is the problem, as the minister just raised, that there are governments that do not respect the rights of children.

    So I quite agree with you. But with regard to how to handle that issue, I'm afraid I am not quite up to being able to give you one of the strategies by which we could fight against that. As Professor Dewitt suggested, one way would be to try to encourage civil organizations that have in fact been formed in the past 10 or 15 years in the Muslim world precisely for the same purpose--to protect the rights of children and women and so on. In fact, there was the argument between Mahathir Mohamad and the worker organizations in Malaysia. Mahathir Mohamad referred to “our Asian way”, and the workers said, “What Asian way? You want to exploit us, and you justify it by calling it our Asian way. Exploitation is exploitation.”

    I know of young Muslims who are interested in precisely the same question. Maybe through contacting those non-governmental organizations....

  (1210)  

[Translation]

    Mr. Bernard Bigras: But there is a reality that has to be taken into account: Muslim law, among other things, states that the son of a Muslim father has to be Muslim. Moreover, the two parents do not have equal access to the children. I understand what you are telling us, but when any country, whether it is Muslim or not, does not comply with an international convention like the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, what measure should Canada take to encourage that country to follow this convention? Do you think that there should be sanctions? What types of measures and means should be used?

[English]

    The Chair: Please answer very rapidly.

    Prof. Farhang Rajaee: Now I get your point. I quite understand that there are certain areas within the international conventions that may be contradictory. There are two arguments to help with that. Number one, there is an enormous amount of debate going on among post-Islamist Muslims about who has authenticated these laws. These laws have been created through history. Therefore, we can change them. So there is that movement going on. Number two, I am afraid that there are certain areas in which we cannot compromise. Here I think of the idea of the laws of the people put forward by an American philosopher who argued that as long as human integrity is preserved, sometimes you have to just accept their framework and deal with it.

    I am sympathizing with you that there are certain areas in which it may not be possible to compromise. However, I repeat, what made those laws authentic? There are lots of younger Muslims who are questioning that. I don't have to follow that eleventh century law. That doesn't make it Islamic.

    Let me take an opportunity to say one word about Mr. Akbar, and let me make it clear here. The prophet never made any decision. Why? Because he justified every decision he made by a revelation from God. So in a way no Muslim is allowed to justify a prophet's behaviour and say I can do it because he did it, because he has authority by the revelation itself. He has access to authority.

    A lot of the younger generation are trying to revise laws to bring them in line with precisely the kind of thing you are talking about.

    The Chair: We need to stop there. I'm going to go to Ms. Carroll, and Mr. Dewitt will have the first chance to respond.

    Madam Carroll, please.

    Ms. Aileen Carroll (Barrie—Simcoe—Bradford, Lib.): Thank you, gentlemen.

    It's incredibly intellectually stimulating to listen to the three of you. It gives me a great sense of how much I have to learn--not speaking for the rest of us.

    Professor Dewitt, quickly, I would really like a copy of your opening comments, when we're able to get them, just because they were really bang on.

  (1215)  

    Prof. David Dewitt: I'd be happy to provide them to the clerk.

    Ms. Aileen Carroll: I know how fast you were trying to get them out.

    You mentioned that you didn't have time to go into responsibility to protect, and if there's time, I would appreciate it if you could discuss this. I think there's a link there that we would benefit from hearing, because certainly Canada was key in the development of that, as you know. And we're on it, right now, as we talk about faith in the UN.

    Professor Rajaee, I think this whole triangle is incredibly insightful, taking it, just as you say, as injustice or perceived injustice, leading to empowerment, leading to ideology of terror. My question may seem naive--I hope it doesn't--but is it that one and two lead to three? Is it that the sense of injustice is so overwhelming, the perception is that everything else has been tried to remedy it, therefore only terror works? I wonder how we just get from one to two to three, necessarily.

    Maybe I should stop. I have a million questions. If I get a second turn, I'd like to come to you, Mr. Akbar.

    The Chair: I'll ask Professor Dewitt to start first, then Mr. Rajaee.

    Professor Dewitt.

    Prof. David Dewitt: Let me link Mr. Bigras' and yours together--

    Ms. Aileen Carroll: Yes, if you can, exactly.

    Mr. David Dewitt: --because the issue is the responsibility to protect and the issue is what do you do about the human rights of children or otherwise.

    Let me actually start with borrowing a phrase well used and well liked by a colleague of yours and a longstanding friend of mine, Irwin Cotler, who would say “speak truth to power and hold power accountable to truth”, and I think he would say it with great passion. The point of all this, the reason I draw on Irwin on this human rights issue, is because in our discussions I think there's a linkage here between responsibility to protect and, obviously, our commitment to human rights and speaking truth to power, which suggests that if you are a member of the UN system and you still are not a signatory to a particular convention that seems to be a convention that tries to draw on a universal position, then it's our obligation to challenge that and to keep on challenging it. There's a point at which the responsibility to protect kicks in, whether it's in terms of our aid programs targeting children and therefore not necessarily being controversial or confrontational but doing it in a very pragmatic way, understanding political realities that if we're going to help the children or help others who face human rights abuse we're not going to be able to do it if we're closing borders, if we're not engaging, if we're not trying to integrate.

    There is something to this notion of constructive engagement, as unpalatable as at times it may seem. I go back to my discussions with my Chinese colleagues in the eighties, before and immediately after Tiananmen Square, on human rights and democracy. They would say, “democracy with Chinese characteristics, human rights with Chinese characteristics”. Now, in one sense that's an alibi or an excuse, but on the other hand it gives you an opening.

    So in response to your very pragmatic question of how do you operate in a principled way in an unprincipled world, I think you have to speak truth to power and I think you have to keep pushing and pushing and pushing and not stop.

    My concern is that we have fewer and fewer capabilities, whether it's in the military side of doing responsible things, whether it's in our aid and development programs through CIDA, and that our capacity to pursue those things is becoming more and more strained. So we have to start making choices.

    Specifically on the responsibility to protect, this is a huge area, as you well know. I think it's very important. For the first 18 months of that report it was ignored because it was overshadowed by everything else. It's now starting to come in. I have friends in southeast Asia who were very uncomfortable with it, and they're now holding seminars on it. I'm going to Japan in three weeks. One of the principal issues we're talking about is differences of views on human security and specifically the implications of the responsibility to protect.

    Also, finally--because this is a huge topic, and therefore I won't go any further--in the context of what we're talking about it resonates in some ways with the issue of what do we do in trying to manage the fallout of American unilateralism, in particular in this part of the world. Because on the one hand the Americans may turn their backs on multilateralism, of which responsibility to protect is a core part of the emerging multilateralist structures, but at the same time, they are taking on the very sense of responsibility to protect as a unilaterally determined action.

    So we have a challenge, as Canadians, to try to bring them around to an understanding of responsibility to protect in terms of the community rather in terms of a unilateral action, because, to come back to my two colleagues, I do think that they're right in some of the warnings they give on what's going on in the Middle East and in the larger Arab world, the readings on what is taking place and the consequences of Iraq, and one would not want to see that spill over unnecessarily. And there are many unintended consequences that the Americans failed to consider and are incapable of responding to on their own, and I think we do have a role to play there.

  (1220)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Now we will go to Ms. McDonough, please.

    Ms. Alexa McDonough (Halifax, NDP): I'm interested in picking up on the theme Dr. Dewitt was beginning to elaborate upon. I just want to go back to your earlier quite stark comment that neutrality is not an honourable option, and link it with the challenge that Dr. Rajaee put when he said Canada has a responsibility to itself and to the world to examine these challenges from the point of view of our interests, but also from the point of view of our responsibility as a world citizen.

    It seems to me the tremendous difficulty in all of that is that the two are certainly, in the current context of Iraq, very much in tension, if not outright opposition. The result of that seems to be a paralysis on the part of our current government, which disappoints the world and disappoints a lot of Canadians.

    I want to ask if you can comment on this with specific reference--because sometimes it helps to be concrete and specific--to the case of the Canadian citizen Maher Arar. His rights were clearly trampled by the U.S., our closest neighbour, and subsequently by Jordan, en passant, and finally, for what will be a full year at the end of this week, by Syria.

    It seems as though the way the Canadian government has chosen to deal with the tension between our responsibilities as a world citizen, our responsibilities to our own Canadian citizen, and our self-interest as it relates to the U.S. is to try to have it both ways. What is particularly distressing--I say this for myself personally, but also for a lot of people--is to hear the government constantly say, “After all, he is also Syrian and a dual citizen, and therefore what can we do anyway”. It gets uglier when people say that people should expect that kind of maltreatment in this world. That has immense implications for a nation that prides itself on its multiculturalism, and on recognizing dual citizenship.

    It's that tension, if not outright contradiction, between our self-interest and our responsibilities as a world citizen that I'm inviting further comment on.

    The Chair: Mr. Rajaee or Mr. Dewitt.

    Prof. David Dewitt: Okay, I'll start, very briefly.

    The Chair: That will give the other witness a chance to answer.

    Prof. David Dewitt: Absolutely.

    In this particular case, as I understand it, the initial mistake this gentleman made was to use a Syrian passport when he was in transit. He retained Syrian citizenship, and that was part of the problem. The Americans, effectively, were able to select. If that was the case, I don't really agree with that selection. I think it would have been in America's interest to have sent him to Canada.

    I have no information on this, but my guess is that sending him to Syria rather than Canada was an American signal that they were continuing to be uncomfortable with our treatment of potential terrorists, that somehow if he had come back to Canada we would not have pursued it as aggressively as the Syrians. But Syria has been very active in its bilateral relationship with the United States, in trying to come into the good graces of the Americans and prove that they are not a state that sponsors terrorism.

    Again, I would not be surprised--although I have no evidence to back this up--if the Syrians were interested in having this gentleman imported to Syria and deported from the United States as a signal and a way for the Syrians to make a positive move, a confirming move, in their efforts to try to respond to America's interest in being assured that Syria was not implicit with a terrorist, proven or otherwise. So I think it's part of nasty bilateral politics, and Syria trying to move itself into a different position.

  (1225)  

[Translation]

    The Chair: Mr. Rajaee.

[English]

    Prof. Farhang Rajaee: Professor Dewitt just suggested that we should speak truth to power. I think we should speak truth to power.

    The fact is that if we don't want to be neutral and want to be principled—I'm afraid Mr. Day left, so that part of my response is to him—we have to speak to the Americans about it. The day the Americans declared that the Iranians will be fingerprinted, CBC called me and said, “What do you think about that?” I said, “Why do you call me?” She said, “Who do I call?” I said, “Our foreign minister. It has nothing to do with me.” As an Iranian with an Iranian passport, if I am stopped at the airport, I don't feel insulted. I'm used to it; I've been doing it since 1979. But with a Canadian passport, when they stop me to fingerprint me, it has nothing to do with Iran; that has to do with Canada. The fact that the Americans treated Mr. Arar that way was an insult to our passport, and the fact that Americans are behaving that way toward fellow Iranians or fellow Syrians at the airport, which is happening daily, is an insult to our passport, and we should speak to it very directly. We shouldn't shy away from it.

    The Chair: : Fine. Thank you very much.

    We'll go to Madame Marleau.

    Hon. Diane Marleau (Sudbury, Lib.): Part of the group will be going to India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia. I'm just wondering if you have some advice to us as to what we should be looking for in these countries. Is there anything specific?

    The other thing I wanted to say is that already as part of our tour one thing is very clear, wherever we've gone, whoever we have spoken to, and that is the Palestinian question. I'm wondering whether we will find that same Palestinian question coming up constantly. It has so far, with most groups.

    Thank you.

    The Chair: : Mr. Akbar first, then we'll go to Mr. Rajaee.

    Mr. M.J. Akbar: When you go to Indonesia—it's a suggestion, and I merely ask the question in the hope that some day I'll get an effective answer, along with you—and you ask how much impact the creation of East Timor has had on the younger generation of Muslims there, and whether they perceive this, right or wrong, as a further and a continuing act of partition, such as had been done by the old colonial powers, and whether.... One of the things about Indonesia was that before 9/11 nobody ever thought of Indonesia, certainly, as a radical Muslim nation—and it wasn't; those who have gone there know that it wasn't. It was a very comfortable society. It had come to terms.... It had its own set of problems. It wanted to get even with China. It really had delinked itself.

    What linked it? The question again--whether it's Palestine and the notional reality of space or East Timor, whether it is small or large--is am I being denied justice? Are nations being created? Is a nation that a few years ago absorbed half of Mexico and Hawaii and the Philippines, and which continues to define its self-interest as the ultimate good, to impose its law upon me, impose its will upon me, while I'm helpless before the imposition of this law? That really surrounds the central question, and you can digress from it and distribute it into different geographies.

    Prof. Farhang Rajaee: I think the case of Palestine is an excuse. As long as it's there, it's going to be misused; it's going to be used. It's going to be utilized: that is the point we are trying to say.

    The irony of it and the reason it is important is that in the Muslim world the west has a Janus face: on one face it's the devil, the source of all evil, while the other face is the source of all solution. This is a myth. Maybe we should disembark and tell them: “Hey, we are not responsible; you have to take care of it yourself.” It is true that some people are very angry about the American attack over Iraq, but a lot of people in their hearts are very happy to see that Saddam Hussein is gone. A lot of people said we'll wait to see whether it will prove a window or a swamp. Now that it has become a swamp, everybody says “I told you so.” But had it become a successful case, things would have been different.

    Even if they are not very serious in their heart of hearts about Palestine—they may not lose sleep over the Palestinian cause—as long it is there, it provides “the cause”, and I think these two things come together.

  (1230)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Briefly, Mr. Dewitt.

    Prof. David Dewitt: As an example, I have a good friend who has been very senior in the Malaysian government at various times. He will tell me exactly as my colleague has suggested, that the issue of Israel and the Palestinians is a mobilizing force. It's something they are required to do for local politics, and it provides them a place within the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Therefore, it allows them at a great distance to take what is considered a principled stand within the Islamic community for their integrity, credibility, and political position at no cost. As soon as the Israeli-Palestinian situation is resolved within Israel and Palestine, they'll move on. It's not an issue for them. Right now it's convenient and something they can use. On the other hand, he and others I've met in southeast Asia are very worried that because of the protracted nature of the politics, the way it has been absorbed into their educational system and their media is such that while the elites may be able to move on very quickly when and if there's a negotiated resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian accord, many of the people will find that adjustment much more difficult. That may challenge the integrity of the regime it's prepared to sign on to.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Now we'll go to Mr. Martin.

    Mr. Keith Martin (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, Canadian Alliance): Thank you all very much for being here today.

    As we know, sometimes for terrorist organizations terrorism can become an end in itself, and the motivation, ideology, and political rationale for it can be subservient to the goal of simply its financial or other benefits.

    I will ask you all two questions. What advice would you give to President Bush or indeed our government in dealing with national leaders and religious leaders who continue to focus on and harp on a sense of a lack of empowerment and injustice in order to try to change their mindset and help them lift themselves up by their bootstraps and improve their own economic and social situations?

    I would also ask how we deal with the religious leaders and other leaders and individuals who are supporting the madrassas. They are articulating this violent form of Wahhabism in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and other areas. They are continuing to stimulate this anti-western antipathy, which will not improve the health and welfare of the people in these regions.

    Mr. M.J. Akbar: I live in the region, and we in India are a direct victim, really.

    I forgot one point you might want to ask Mahathir Mohamad about, and the answer is not that simple. He mischievously but directly called Malaysia a fundamentalist state and a fundamentalist country. But he had a very good reason for saying so, which you may want to inquire about if you're going there.

    On the use of the madrassa, the madrassa has a long history and an honourable history, which I think you need to recognize. After all, it was the educational system around which Islamic civilization and Islamic politics....

    At what point did the madrassa become a problem rather than a solution? The madrassa is the world's largest NGO, and there should really be consciousness of that fact. The poorest of the Muslims today who do not get state protection, who do not get state welfare, or who do not have a home or an education or food are picked up by the madrassas.

    Perhaps I would be permitted to tell a small story. This is related to Kashmir, where we had a terrorism problem long before this. In fact, you mentioned George Bush. A year ago, when I was at the White House as a journalist, I had the opportunity to ask him a question. And this was pre-Iraq, during Afghanistan. I asked him, “Why are there two laws in this world? When America is hit by terrorism, it goes 7,000 miles away, takes over a country, and destroys a government, but when India is hit by terrorism, we are advised by everyone to have patience. Is an American life more precious than an Indian one?” These are the questions that are very much at the heart of our thinking.

    The madrassa as a source.... In Kashmir, when I was covering it 15 or 17 years ago, around 1982.... And our experience in Kashmir is directly linked to what happened in Afghanistan, next door geographically. I met one of the leaders of the Jamaat Islami, one of the Islamist organizations whose name is now more familiar. There was no problem in Kashmir at that time, around 1982-83. He said, “Oh, you're from India.” I'm an Indian Muslim, and I'm proud of both realities. He laughed and said, “Ah, you Indians think you've solved the problem of Kashmir. But do you know something? Your children are no longer going to government schools.” Now, I did not quite understand the meaning of that. He said, “Your children have stopped because the government school structure has decayed. The poorer children used to go to government schools for the midday meal or to use the bathroom, which they did not have at home. But now they're coming to my madrassas. When I send them out in 15 years, do you think they will be loyal to your India?” He was very clear, and I quoted him on it.

    This whole story of the funding of madrassas starts--and this you must accept, although it may sound prejudicial--with the need of the jihadi in Afghanistan. When a generation of jihadi was required in Afghanistan, when all the terminology that has been used.... And what was Afghanistan? Afghanistan was nothing but a series of suicide missions. There was no regular army fighting the Soviet Union, it was all small groups. Each time there was a suicide mission in Afghanistan there were complimentary references, and awards and medals were handed out, at least according to the media. There were stories written about people who were heroes of Afghanistan. The first people who used the term “Islamic terrorists” were the Russians. They used to call them badmash, a term that's become part of the language now.

    So I offer two thoughts. One, the funding of madrassas by Saudi Arabia Wahhabilized them. This phenomenon started in 1977, into 1980, when you needed fresh troops--those who later became the Taliban. Pakistan merely used the same, the next generation after the Afghanistan war, to take over.

  (1235)  

    Someone here wisely mentioned that the Taliban was never elected. There is actually no history in Islamic countries where a fundamentalist government has actually been elected. They have seized power by other means, sometimes with foreign support.

    So on this issue, I think the recognition...and this was pointed out to the west over and over again, but as long as it was not in their best interests to recognize this reality, nobody cared. I think somebody is beginning to care now.

    The second fact is that the societies there now have reached a point where I think what is called the “Israel factor” is emerging among governments. What do I call the Israel factor? Well, the feeling is growing that the only response to terrorism is a ruthless and completely unblinking treatment of the terrorist rather than the terrorism as the problem, of the young person as the problem. There is killing going on, which in fact is breeding more, until this changes and there is an effective and concerted reapplication of the mind to this problem, to get at the disease, by telling governments that we have to address this problem collectively. I think the west needs to take the lead in finding more rational solutions. Killing people only breeds the next suicide mission. That's the experience of Israel.

  (1240)  

    The Vice-Chair (Hon. Diane Marleau): Thank you.

    I think Mr. Dewitt wanted to say something, or Mr. Rajaee.

    Prof. Farhang Rajaee: Very quickly, I think they were very excellent questions, very practical questions, on what to do.

    I think there's the example of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission--

    Mr. Keith Martin: Yes, good point.

    Prof. Farhang Rajaee: --where someone said the atrocities of the past 100 years should be done with.

    A case I think about constantly is the case of Professor Edward Said. Here is Professor Said, who devoted all of his life to making the west aware of the Palestinian question, now running around talking about the “politics of amnesia”. He's telling his fellow Palestinians, okay, that's enough, the world has heard it.

    I approached one of Professor Said's friends and asked what happened to make him change his mind, what happened to make him think he should now talk about the politics of amnesia. He told me it was the emergence of the new left inside Israel. A bunch of Israeli scholars were rethinking the whole history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. They were writing inside Israel, telling the truth to the Israelis. So Edward Said said, okay, I don't need to do that any more, and I'll now tell my fellow Palestinians about the politics of amnesia.

    One more item. When the United Nations Arab report came out, it was quite fascinating. Many Arab diplomats told me it was like a magnificent mirror in our face, identifying all of the difficulties, identifying what kinds of conditions we face, without the conspiracy theory that says it's all the fault of the west, and so on.

    I wish somehow the west would come out and tell the Muslim world, “We recognize wholeheartedly all the atrocities of the past. Now let's move on.” But nobody does it. The only person who came very close--not quite, but close--was Madeleine Albright, who a few years ago said they recognized the coup against the national government in Iraq. That was all. Other than that, nobody has done it.

    So think about what I said, that the west is the problem and the remedy. If you look at the west accepting those atrocities, that may help. Then, of course, there's the politics of amnesia.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    I just want to tell you, Mr. Rajaee, that we met with Mrs. Khalaf of UNDP, who was responsible for that study. We met her in New York.

    Prof. Farhang Rajaee: That's wonderful.

    The Chair: As you know, she was formerly the Deputy Prime Minister of Jordan.

    We'll go to Mr. Calder.

    Mr. Murray Calder (Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    I'm going to deal with a slightly different issue here. We've watched the United Kingdom and the United States right now expend a huge amount of money to promote democracy. We've had this democratic experiment in the Middle East before with the British, and the United States now is losing credibility very fast. I think they probably looked at the situation that if the U.S. does get control over Iraqi oil, they'll take on OPEC. Your Wahhabi tribe I think is frustrating that right now to a great degree.

    My question is this: If it isn't going to be the democratic experiment within the Middle East, what type of government will be in Iraq?

    Prof. Farhang Rajaee: I think the solution is the democratic government, but the problem is that there was no plan for it. There was no post-war construction plan for it.

    Mr. Hakim, who was assassinated recently, was the most important ally for a democratic system in Iraq. I have two reasons for saying that. One, I interviewed him many years ago, and he was a very interesting person, within his heart a moderate. Two, he experienced the post-revolutionary conditions for twenty years, for God's sake. He knew what the conditions were like, and he didn't want that kind of system. So by not helping to protect Mr. Hakim, they destroyed the most important element in such a democratic process.

    So all effort to create such a democratic system is not very genuine in terms of the forces that should be at work. I am completely with you, the solution is a democratic system, and I think Mr. Churchill's comment that democracy is the worst type of government save all others will be valid forever. It's the best we have, and I think we should let it genuinely....

    The problem is that inside the Middle East, people do not believe other people are really interested. When I tell people that Mr. Paul Wolfowitz is truly a Wilsonian at heart, they say no, you must be joking, he's a warmonger, a “new con”, and this, that, and the other. But if you study Paul Wolfowitz, his heroes are the democratic forces in Malaysia.

    So if it were a genuine democratic process, I think it would work.

  (1245)  

    Prof. David Dewitt: Mr. Chair, I would add just one point to that.

    In that process, Iraq is facing the realities of the Shia, Sunni, and Kurd, and similarly Lebanon and Syria, although the demographics are somewhat different. These are democracies where, if we're going to think about them in some sense of using western-tainted, coloured language, we're thinking of them in almost consociational or concessional kinds of democracies where there's power-sharing among distinctively identified communities, where there has to be a degree of mutual respect. In particular, there has to be a capacity to understand that dispute and difference can be resolved through negotiation and sharing of resources rather than confrontation and the use of intimidation and conflict. That's going to take some time, and it's going to take a fair amount of commitment by the international community to backstop that.

    Prof. Farhang Rajaee: In the case of Lebanon, by the way, just as one example, before the 1980s Lebanon was working in line with concession and conciliation.

    The Chair: Mr. Calder, briefly.

    Mr. Murray Calder: You mentioned the international community, being the United Nations. How is the United Nations going to fit into this scenario?

    Mr. M.J. Akbar: The United Nations will not fit in if it becomes the League of Nations. The credibility of the League of Nations died long before the League of Nations died. So I think that's the critical question: Is the credibility of the UN being killed?

    When you talk of alternative forms of civilian post-Saddam government, you cannot tell the Iraqi people that Ahmed Chalabi will be part of that government. It is an extraordinary offence. And you cannot come and tell me that Ahmed Chalabi will be arrested today in Jordan. Now, Jordan is not Iran, it's not a satanic country; it is an ally of the west. But you would be arrested for having stolen $300 million to $400 million from Petra Bank. That's why Ahmed Chalabi can never be foreign minister, because the day he goes to the Arab League, he will be arrested for theft. And he is the Pentagon's key man there. He is protected there instead of Hakim. Hakim gets killed and Chalabi is protected there completely. When Colin Powell goes there, Chalabi is the one sitting beside him.

    Every day there is a visible destruction of the credibility of whatever apparatus you have created. And it's a visible destruction, because people see it on television, people see it in actual practice, and so on and so forth.

    So I really urge all of you to understand, as the decision-makers, that you cannot destroy the future by destroying the instruments that possibly can create the future. I'm really very.... I never thought I would be upset over a body like the UN, but today, as a world citizen, I actually am upset that George Bush has destroyed it for not only one country but for large parts of the Muslim world.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    We'll go now to Mr. Harvey, and we'll finish with Ms. Carroll.

[Translation]

    Mr. André Harvey (Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Mr. Dewitt, you mentioned that CIDA should change its approach to international cooperation—I do not remember exactly how you put it—but it seems to me that there have been major changes in the way things are managed at CIDA. For example, the budget will be doubled between now and 2010, an action program for Africa with $500 million has been created, and there is better targeting of countries with good governance in place to ensure that our contribution is effective. What other improvements would you suggest to the Canadian International Development Agency to make its assistance activity even more effective? I am absolutely convinced that effectiveness in this area is not always reflected by ratios and budgets. Even if we are not at 0.7 per cent of GDP, I feel that we need to work on the whole trade question in the context of the World Trade Organization to try to show more openness to countries, including those that are in great difficulty.

    I believe that by focusing more on countries with good governance, increasing our budgets and trying to be more responsible, we will get there, but what other improvements would you suggest?

  (1250)  

[English]

    Prof. David Dewitt: I specifically mentioned good governance and capacity building as two of the most important areas in which we can contribute. I note that CIDA did get an increase in its allocation.

    My concern--and this would be a more global concern from the position of a Canadian, not specifically about the topic today--is that there is a tremendous need globally for our engagement, and we can't do everything, and we can't do everything equally well. Therefore, we do have to make some choices. So one of the first challenges for any agency that deals in international affairs, foreign defence, or development is to have the government establish the priorities to which it is prepared to commit significant resources so that those resources can make a difference, rather than those resources simply allowing us to be at the table and therefore being at every table.

    If the government were to decide that Africa, for instance, because of AIDS and so many other things, is in fact our primary development commitment, within Africa there are issues of Islam and Muslim countries and development in the madrassas. There are linkages with the Arab League as well as the African Union. There are many things to be done. My principal concern would be that there has to be a careful consideration of where we are prepared to invest, because we can't invest and expect good things to come out of everything. We have to make some choices. I'm not trying to pass the buck, but I'm suggesting that's the first and most important thing to do, whether it's for CIDA or the Department of National Defence, which I'm more familiar with.

    In terms of if we were to make a decision to commit significant resources to Muslim countries, in particular those within the Middle East, then certainly, taking care of the report that you referred to, the UN report done by the Arab experts, focusing on education and capacity building, education in particular, because you're looking at a part of the world where, depending on the data you use, somewhere between 55% and 65% of the people are under the age of 20, and they are either undereducated or reasonably educated and underutilized, and therefore there's an enormous degree of frustration. On top of that, the role of the madrassas, which my colleagues have spoken to, is of vital importance. It's not just in Pakistan, Kashmir, or Afghanistan. We're talking about Hamas as a Palestinian variant of that in Gaza. We're talking about the Wahhabi madrassas influence in Bosnia and the implications that has in the rebuilding of war-torn societies or in the construction of Islamic states or countries with significant Muslim minorities. Therefore, education is perhaps the most important area over time to contribute to capacity building.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Ms. Carroll, do you have a question for the witnesses, or is it just regarding our next meeting?

    Ms. Aileen Carroll: I'd like to ask the gentleman a question. I know we don't have much time.

    Mr. Akbar, in listening to your comments on the UN, you never thought you'd be out there trying to hold it up. Kofi Annan, as you know, announced yesterday the creation of a wise person commission, which has 12 months to report. That's good, because they've been trying to reform the Security Council for seven years, and that has just become a self-feeding industry. I think what's really important is that he said 12 months.

    I think that the damage the Americans caused the UN in some ways created the crisis and the sense of potential loss and that maybe some quarters needed to be woken up by that. The fact that he has had to come back now because it's not working without them, doesn't that bode well for some of the UN defenders or apologists? Maybe I'm looking for sunshine where everything is darkness. Can you comment on that?

  (1255)  

    Mr. M.J. Akbar: It definitely bodes well. It certainly defends the idea of the UN.

    By the way, it is not merely an ad hoc experience, but there is a whole history in which UN decisions have been basically subject to American funding. We won't give you this $1 million if..., and so on. People forget that the United Nations is a creation of the Americans. It was Franklin Roosevelt who took up a phrase of the Second World War. The allies were called the united nations. They thought there should be a body that would actually give the world something it never had before, something vital to the age of democracy, which hopefully is what we are in, and that is equality, that every nation shall be equal, more or less.

    I think it will be a long, long time before this wound begins to heal. We can look at some of the things that Chirac and Schroeder said. But you must transfer political power to the United Nations.

    Why is India hesitant? Theoretically, it should be with the United States and Iraq because we want to build this strategic alliance and it is a great opportunity and we are not Muslim--Muslim as a nation. It's because we see the destruction of the one institution that has survived both time and skepticism. If this is destroyed, we are in for unilateralism of a very strong kind.

    Just as a subreality, one of the things that is bringing India and Pakistan to the table--it is not bringing peace, but it is bringing them to the table--is the fear of unilateralism. Pakistan will accept what it doesn't say, that it is the only Muslim country with weapons of mass destruction. It knows that its nuclear program at some point might be under threat. Who knows at which point a storm will be raised against Kahuta? I think there is a gradual realization. So that is the law of unintended consequences.

    I'd like to make just one small point on the aid. I would actually offer a radical thought: why don't you give that aid to the madrassas? At the moment the madrassas are being funded only from one source, and that source is determining the curriculum. If somebody actually made computers compulsory in madrassas, you would see a dramatic impact inside. You cannot hope to remove them, but you can hope to change them. Just put computers in them. Those children deserve an education. You cannot deny them the right to an education. But change their education and turn them into responsible citizens.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    There are 30 seconds for Mr. Dewitt, no more.

    Prof. David Dewitt: On the issue of the UN, which hopefully this committee will address at some time in response to Kofi Annan's challenge, I would argue that this is a crisis as catalyst, an opportunity for change and mobilization. But I would take issue with one point my colleague made. It's not just the issue of the unipolar moment and U.S. unilateralism. We can talk about the Cold War period and the post-Cold War period, with very different structures and the UN doing different things. But in the wake of the meeting in Durban, which was a UN hate speech, if that didn't undermine the credibility of the UN system and introduce a different kind of challenge to the integrity of the UN by it being commandeered by a particular bloc that was looking at a very slanted view of international politics, ethics, and human rights.... What Bush did might have contributed enormously to the mobilization of this movement for change, but Durban, I would say, opened the door to some profound questions about the integrity of the UN as a system.

    The Chair: Thank you very much for the very stimulating exchange we had this morning.

    Before we close, Ms. McDonough wants to ask a question that has nothing to do with our witnesses.

·  (1300)  

    Ms. Alexa McDonough: I just want to be certain that on Thursday we are following through on what was recommended by the subcommittee a week ago today, on what was agreed to last Tuesday. I'm wondering if you could just give a report.

    The Chair: I'll ask Ms. Carroll to answer that, but I did review the blues from the last meeting after your call. Ms. Carroll will tell you who the witnesses will be, we hope, for this coming Thursday, and then we'll discuss it.

    Ms. Carroll.

    Ms. Aileen Carroll: Thank you.

    I would just say that two of the senior people from DFAIT will be here to speak on the consular services and on what is being provided, as the committee requested. As well, Mr. McNee, the ADM for security, will accompany the new head of consular services. So that certainly has been put in place.

    Mr. Chair, I anticipate that this will be for at most an hour, with a presentation of approximately 15 or 20 minutes to allow time for the committee. It's not my understanding, and neither is it the intention of the people coming, that they will be here for two hours. I too check the blues, and my understanding is that the Solicitor General...that you wanted other departments. I'm the foreign affairs parliamentary secretary, so I leave it to the committee to approach the Solicitor General and bring forward the bureaucrats, I believe, to give you the sense of what their role is.

    The Chair: That's fine, and thank you for the DFAIT witnesses. We're looking at the Solicitor General also.

    In the case of Ms. Arar--because that was your question, that you would like to have Ms. Arar as soon as possible in front of the committee--I asked the clerk about this. From reading the blues, we agreed to meet with DFAIT and the Solicitor General, with witnesses from there, on Thursday if we can. It's very short notice.

    I'll see if Mr. Cotler would like to be a witness also, as a member of Parliament. The clerk is working on Ms. Arar as well.

    Ms. Alexa McDonough: Mr. Chairman, I have to say--and I'm perhaps going to be too outspoken here--that I don't know whether there's any good faith operating here at all with respect to a recommendation made, without a single dissenter, a week ago today to invite Monia Mazigh before this committee on a priority basis. The full committee met and made a decision. It was made early in the meeting. I asked for confirmation of it at the end of the meeting. That confirmation was given, that she would be invited to appear on Thursday before this committee.

    Now I'm hearing, well, it's short notice, and there are other considerations. I'm asking for the decision that was made to be respected, and for that invitation to be extended.

    Let me say very clearly that I think we all know that we have a very full agenda laid out of many different witnesses appearing on several other occasions, and then the committee is travelling. But we're talking about the life of a Canadian citizen that's in the balance. We're talking about coming up to the one-year anniversary this week of this untenable situation continuing.

    If I could quote.... And I don't want to invoke any of our witnesses in the specifics of this, because that would be unfair, but we're not even talking neutrality if what we're saying is we just are going to tiptoe around this crisis.

    I'm asking, and I'll put it in the form of a motion, for the committee to reaffirm its commitment to invite Monia Mazigh before the committee on Thursday.

    The Chair: Ms. McDonough, you don't need a motion. As I said, it was agreed by the full committee that we would have Ms. Arar. I told you about this, and this is the reality.

    Now, we didn't plan, when we met, any dates for that case. We put it on Thursday just to be sure it would be done. We also want to get the department as well.

    So I'm telling you that we're going to do our best. I mean, I can't be more positive than this on having Ms. Arar here. There's no doubt about it.

    Ms. Alexa McDonough: On Thursday?

    The Chair: We're going to try that if she's available. We have two hours on Thursday, and it won't take two hours for the DFAIT witnesses, as Ms. Carroll just mentioned. So we'll try to have Ms. Arar on Thursday, after the DFAIT witnesses and the question and answer session. That decision was made unanimously by this committee.

    Ms. Alexa McDonough: Thank you.

    The Chair: Fine.

    The meeting's over.