SIDDIQUI: Challenges we've met, new ones we need to . . .

[Oscar]

Challenges we've met, and new ones we need to: Siddiqui – Part 1

[ http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commenta ... diqui.html ]

By: Haroon Siddiqui Columnist, Published on Sat Mar 28 2015

Haroon Siddiqui reflects on the ways in which Canada has evolved over the 17 years of his column, and considers the challenges Toronto, Ontario and the country now face.

This column has evolved over its nearly 17 years. I came to my subjects mostly by default — reporting on what wasn’t being adequately covered and analyzing news developments with a point of view that reflected the new cosmopolitan Canada.

When I began in 1998, Canada’s demographic transformation was well underway, birthing Marshall McLuhan’s global village. Immigration was reaching levels not seen since the early 20th century. Multiculturalism, constitutionally entrenched, was leading to a rights revolution in conjunction with the Charter of Rights. New issues were demanding attention ” employment equity, access to professions, fair policing, balanced media portrayal of minorities, etc. Many of those challenges remain, in varying degrees, but have since been taken up by both the public and private sectors.

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This streak of independence helps explain the consistently high levels of Canadian skepticism toward America’s endless war on terror that has led to one catastrophic mistake after another, dragging Canada along at times. We are also suffering from spasms of anti-Muslim bigotry. Multiculturalism has been made collateral damage, used as a smokescreen to attack Muslims in the same way that free speech has been invoked to spread hatred.

But multiculturalism is the creed that defines and distinguishes Canada in the world. We must remain proud of it. Ours is not a dead, ossified culture but a living, breathing entity that evolves daily. It makes us flexible enough to work our way through differences, in a civilized way. It has shown us that while there can be a million excuses not to find reasonable accommodation between minorities and majorities, there are enough ways to live and let live. That’s the Canadian way. We ignore this principle at our peril.

What are our new challenges?

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The federal level is another story. While every government is entitled to some partisanship and the pursuit of policy objectives it deems fit, Stephen Harper’s has crossed several red lines.

He is an ideologue who has changed Canada. In a libertarian fit, he killed the national census that was the envy of the world.

He turned immigration from a tool of picking future fellow-citizens into a pool of cheap labour, to be exploited and sent home, the way oil-rich Arab countries do.

He has turned the nation of peacekeepers into one of warriors.

He has turned foreign policy into a partisan tool of winning votes, thereby sacrificing our common good at the altar of the narrow interests.

He is deeply divisive. It’s clear that he would say or do anything to stay in power.

He is also authoritarian. His MPs and even cabinet ministers are terrified of him.

He needs to go. Regardless of one’s reservations about Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau, either would be far preferable.

Our top priority is to fix the economy. When you travel the world, you see gleaming new infrastructure, while ours is crumbling. You see young people bursting with hope, while ours are despondent, despite being the most highly educated Canadian generation ever. Yet no government, at any level or of any political stripe, seems to have an answer.

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PART 2

Haroon Siddiqui’s parting reflections on career and country

[ http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commenta ... untry.html ]

By: Haroon Siddiqui Columnist, Published on Wed Apr 01 2015

Columnists are usually tethered to a news beat or a genre. But some are allowed to graze far and wide. I’ve been among the lucky ones.

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I set myself some other guidelines.

Follow the Star’s Atkinsonian principles, named after legendary publisher, Joseph E. Atkinson — economic and social justice, equality of citizens, and the pursuit of independent Canadian economic and foreign policies.

Defend the Charter of Rights and multiculturalism. Stand up for minority rights. Be firm against racism and bigotry, including Islamophobia, the new anti-Semitism. Give voice to the voiceless.

Explain the remarkable demographic transformation of Canada, which has made us the most heterogeneous society in the history of humanity.

Bring the new Canadian cosmopolitan sensibility to public policy.

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This is my last column. I am retiring from the Star, where I’ve been nearly 37 years, following 10 years at the Brandon Sun in Manitoba and two at the Press Trust of India news agency in Bombay. - - - -

Recruited to the Star in 1978 by Marty Goodman, publisher, and Ray Timson, managing editor, I was dumped in the newsroom and forgotten. I asked Ray what he had hired me for. “Boy,” said he, jabbing his finger into my chest, “you should know something about the Star — we pay you for what you know, not what you do.” Imagine a manager anywhere in any line of work saying that these days.

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In recent years, the Star has not been immune to the steady erosion of revenues but John, along with John Cruickshank, current publisher, and Michael Cooke, editor-in-chief, have preserved editorial excellence with groundbreaking investigative journalism and freedom for columnists.

Some people pressured the Star to “do something about that Siddiqui.” But, to his great credit, John let me be. Rare are the media institutions these days that stand for journalistic integrity.

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The Star gave me the time and resources to serve as the president of Pen Canada, director of Pen International and in various capacities at Canadian Newspaper Association, Advertising Standards Canada, Canadian Press news agency, Ontario Press Council, Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Canadian Club, and the advisory boards of Ryerson School of Journalism, U of T's Institute for Studies in Education and York University's Centre for Asian Research, among others.

Readers have been deeply engaged with this column, responding with about 3,000 emails and letters a year, each of which I tried to acknowledge, albeit briefly, sometimes testily, for which I apologize. As I try to write a book or two, I shall reread the rich stash of more than 40,000 missives, which show two clear trends.

The angry have become steadily angrier since Sept. 11, 2001 and are stewing in hatred. They are not to be confused with the critics who, while disagreeing strongly, were civil. The majority of the respondents have been supportive, especially at the most critical times, such as for the Sept. 19, 2001 column, eight days after the terrible tragedy, entitled It’s the U.S. foreign policy, stupid, or the columns leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the more recent ones, Forget terrorists, be terrified of Harperites, and Harper's flip-flop on war fits a pattern of deceit.

Most readers have been quintessentially Canadian — open-minded, fair, full of useful suggestions and committed to the idea that Canada has become a light unto nations not by imitating Europe or the United States, but by setting its own high standards.

Take it from this incurably optimistic Canadian who has been lucky enough to write from nearly 50 nations, Canada is as close to nirvana as it gets.

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Haroon Siddiqui has been copy editor, foreign affairs reporter, news editor, national editor, editorial page editor and columnist for the Star. In conferring an honorary doctorate on him in 2001, York University called him “a modern-day Bruce Hutchison,” the famous 20th-century chronicler of Canada. Siddiqui has won several journalistic awards and honours, including the Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada. His new email: siddiqui.canada@gmail.com