Scholastic Cynicism, Hypocrisy and Propaganda

Mehran Banaei

Since October 7 Hamas’s reaction to 75 years of Israeli brutal occupation of Palestine there have been numerous student protests at Canadian and American university campuses to end the savage bombing of Gaza. The students are not alone, their protest is also supported by a handful of academics, particularly by those who teach the history of the conflict. In response to these protests, the university administration has expelled a number of students and professors for their pro-Palestinian stands. The students and faculty members are being silenced by the university, accused of promoting violence against Jewish students, supporting terrorism, and above all are labelled as antisemitic. These ridiculous allegations are frequently attached to the critics of Israel when so many of them are of Jewish background, some are even children of Holocaust survivors. A case in point is Professor Norman Finkelstein, an American academic and fierce critic of Israel who was unceremoniously kicked out of Hunter College and later denied tenure at DePaul University in Chicago over a decade ago for his unsparing criticism of Israel, exposing the West’s double standards and sheer hypocrisy of the Israeli narrative.

More Canadian and American professors and graduate students are now experiencing what Norman Finkelstein has been experiencing. They are labelled anti-Semites, and painted as pro-Islamist extremists. Their academic freedom is ignored, precisely because their research, teachings, and publications are incompatible with the Israeli account of the 75-year-old conflict between Palestine and Israel.

Prof. Jasmin Zine, a distinguished sociologist at the University of Wilfrid Laurier, argues that Islamophobia has turned into an effective industry with countless online influencers promoting anti-Islamic sentiment around the world. Her research indicates that the current anti-Islamic sentiments are far worse than post-September 11, 2001. Adding that the post-9/11 propaganda of the War on Terror has laid the groundwork that has made it so easy to collectively label all Muslims around the world as a bunch of violent religious fanatical terrorists who are threatening democracy and the stability of the civilized world. The pushed one-sided narrative collectively toasts all Middle Easterners, particularly Palestinians and Iranians. Moreover, she adds that this racist narrative paved the way for the Palestinian genocide. If and when the narrative is challenged by some well-informed academics and scholars who oppose the Israeli and American accounts, then they too are immediately accused of being anti-Semitic, glorifying violence and promoting terrorism. In addition to the importance of academic freedom for professors to teach, she also emphasizes on the importance of academic freedom for students to learn. Critical thinking ought to be encouraged and kept apart from indoctrination.

Prof. M. Muhammad Ayyash of Mount Royal University in Calgary exposes the underlying Zionist strategy of silencing opposing voices and suppressing academic speech which is detrimental to the fabricated Zionist narrative of the settler-colonial agenda. The agenda which its purpose is the Palestinian genocide. He stresses for anyone, academic or non-academic who disagrees with the pro-Israeli narrative, there should be no fear of reprisal and getting fired for criticizing blatant Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity. The crucial point is, that these academics are not hired to teach maths or science. They are hired to teach what has been happening in Palestine and are doing their job impartially with a clear conscience. Unlike Salman Rushdie, what they write is not novel or fiction, it is based on empirical research findings. Yet, the former is praised as the freedom of expression, the latter is not even allowed. Weaponizing antisemitism would lead to taking sides, censorship and a significant drop in the quality of higher education.

One cannot disagree with these professors and blindly accept the imposed bogus definition of antisemitism, equated with the condemnation of murdering children, and defending the BDS with criticism of Judaism. Ironically enough, this ridiculous and hypocritical discourse is taking place in Western countries where the freedom of speech is a matter of national pride, and supposedly a constitutional right often used to criticize adversarial countries like Russia and China. There is nothing controversial said or done on the university campuses based on cherished Western democratic values. Israel has no impunity from being criticized. How can a genuine advocate of justice be selective, and vocal about what is happening in Ukraine, but be silent when it comes to the annihilation of the Palestinian population? Justice is indivisible with no geographical boundaries. Indeed, in the case of Palestine, framing advocacy for justice as defending terrorism is a slippery slope, using mendacious standards not applied fairly and wholistically. The tide is turning, Israel is losing its grip on public opinion. Truth is exposed, people can no longer be easily fooled or bullied.

However, having said that one always has to be mindful of hidden agendas. The Zionist regime is a master of deception. They have always managed to divert the public attention from the core issues at hand to trivialities and distractions, and possess the required apparatus to do so. The root of the Israel-Palestine conflict is occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. The progressive activists ought to be mindful, as I am sure they are, not to fall into the Zionist trap. While their outcry is indeed very legitimate and worthy, they must be of utmost careful not to allow the real debate to drift from genocide to academic freedom on university campuses. The main issue and discourse is what Israel is doing in an illegally confiscated land, not the politics on Canadian and American university campuses. Israeli’s smoke screen is designed and used very cleverly to shift attention from occupation, de-Arabization of the Palestinian territories and murdering the Palestinian children to academic freedom. In the past, they always sidetracked the main discourse to, for instance, a fictional threat of Iran’s nuclear program with the sole intention of wiping Israel off the map. Likewise, once again they would happily rather that the public attention and activism be focused on academic freedom than halting genocide and the carpet bombing of Gaza.

Inevitably, those who value freedom most, must sometimes choose to lose it for taking the just course of action. Resisting occupation is not terrorism, and supporting the freedom fighters is not antisemitism.

Falsely accusing the critics of Israel as ‘antisemite’, will change the disgusting concept that is depicted by this word. It will turn ‘antisemitism’ into a very respectful term which ultimately makes one to declare, that if condemnation of settler colonialism, genocidal expansion and killing children makes me an ‘antisemite’, then I am very proud to be one.

The Circle of Iron

Mehran Banaei

Installed and nurtured by the U.S. and U.K., the two “monarchs” of the Pahlavi dynasty ruled over Iran from 1925 to 1979 for slightly over a half-century. What happened in Iran during the 1979 uprising fits the classical definition of revolution. The Iranian revolution from Marxist and Islamic perspectives was predictable and unavoidable. However, the outcome was not. Surprisingly, the long-fought-for change did not improve the social and economic conditions of the majority of Iranians. In fact, they got even much worse than in the pre-revolution era. The standard of living by any measure, dropped rapidly and drastically with the rise of untethered inflation and mismanagement. The Iranian currency devalued from 60 Rials per Dollar to 48,500 Rials nowadays. The U.S. hostage crisis was the beginning of long economic sanctions against Iran, intended to punish and paralyze the regime. Billions of dollars of Iranian assets were illegally confiscated. The country went into isolation, jilted by the “international community” for its uncompromizing anti-American and pro-Palestinian stands.

Given the gloomy socio-economic situation, Iran further experienced a devastating brain drain, as well as wealthy business magnates and entrepreneurs left the country with their assets packed on their backs.

The fear of a copycat Iranian revolution frightened the entire Arab world from Iraq to Morocco. Supported by the West and the Arab League with the exception of Syria, Iran was invaded by its next-door neighbour, a war that lasted for almost 9 years resulting in the destruction of the entire infrastructure and petroleum industry.

Other hostile countries like Israel, consider the post-revolution Iran as a popped-up military and ideological menace to its apartheid existence. To confront the perceived threat, Israel, Britain, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the Netherlands, each has been continuously launching 24/7 satellite TV networks, radio stations, and online journals in the Persian language to promote Western values, atheism, feminism, and ethnic separatism. The goal of this is to control the narrative, promote an inferiority complex among Iranians and provoke them to rise against the Islamic Republic. To further demonize the Islamic Republic, each antagonist state finances and supports a particular Iranian “dissident” disguised as a human rights or socio-political activist. All these groomed puppets have a certain agenda to please their edacious foreign employer. The old colonial and imperial policy of divide and conquer is still in effect. The ultimate objective is the Balkanization of Iran, or alternatively regime change of a non-complying “rogue state” to the type that is weak and totally subservient to the globalists’ whims.

Last fall, the regime’s most vociferous critics and oppositions boldly predicted that the unrest after Mahsa Amini’s murder is the final nail in the Islamic Republic’s coffin. However, the Mullahs managed to effectively neutralize the widespread street protests which rocked the country, and regain full control of the turbulence. Some opponents of the regime are disillusioned by the infertility of such a high-gear impetus to the point that have given up activism and hope of ever seeing the regime’s downfall.

The Iranian revolution resembles very much what George Orwell elegantly depicted in his famous polemical novel Animal Farm. If an extemporaneous revolution is hijacked by conniving opportunist pigs, indeed one should then sooner or later see a subsequent revolution followed by their demise. A dictator is a dictator by the manner in which he rules, be it labeled the Imperial Majesty the “Shah”, the King of kings, or His Holiness the “Grand Ayatollah”. Both enjoy the lecherous lust for absolute power, yet are preposterously unwilling to carry the associated responsibility that comes along with power. As former U.S. president, Franklin Roosevelt famously quipped, a cruel despot may be “a son of a bitch”, but a certain dictatorship seems to be admissible as long as, i.e. “he is our son of a bitch”, referring to Anastasio Somoza Garcia the puppet military ruler of Nicaragua. Thus, tyranny all boils down to and depends on whose interests “a son of a bitch” is serving or halting.

The million-dollar question is, if oppression and poverty stir revolt, if the masses are no longer willing to be ruled by incompetent and detested leaders, if unrest is a concomitant result of brutal dictatorship, then how on earth the Mullah’s regime with such an abysmal track record has managed to survive 44 years against all odds, and still going strong with no sign of foreseeable collapse. On the contrary, Iran a one-time “client state”, under imposed unilateral sanctions with “maximum pressure” climbed away to be a militarily strong and self-sufficient regional hegemon. The same country that could not produce desperately needed barbed wire during the Iran-Iraq war, excelled to become an exporter of modern weapons capable of mass manufacturing ballistic missiles, and modern drones to supply Russia in its war against Ukraine. The Islamic Republic further became a worthy economic and military partner with Russia and China against NATO.

Posolutely, there must be practical reasons behind the regime’s staggering survival techniques and its evolution under adverse conditions.

There are several competing hypotheses, the best is perhaps the lack of a better and unfeigned alternative to the regime. The fact is, there is none. All of the regime’s current oppositions are in essence more dogmatic, more incompetent, more pretentious, more hypocritical, more autocratical and far more brutal than the Mullahs. A bunch of distressed extremists with a common ingrained deficiency, that is being politically illiterate. The irreconcilable oppositions which compete with one another in licking the rear end of the heads of a violent global system of exploitation to put them in power, could never enjoy genuine public support.

Tehran’s regime may not be popular in the West, but it is very much favoured in a region where Western outright hypocrisy, deceitful schemes and jingoistic attitudes are deeply resented. For thoughtful partakers, a wolf in a suit and tie, or in high heels holding a placard advocating human rights is never a better alternative than any exposed predators with visible red teeth and claws dripping the blood of their victims. As such a change from one dictatorship to another is futile. A mere cosmetic “change” hardly changes anything substantial. The circle of iron will continue one way or another.

“Woman, Life, Liberty,” A Futile 360° Political Turn

Mehran Banaei

During the 1979 “Islamic Revolution” in Iran, hardly any of the partakers in the revolution paid attention to how Islamic is this so-called Islamic reform. An uprising that involved the participation of the entire country against U.S. imperialism and its despot puppet, the Shah, consisted of university students, trade unionists, socialists, Marxist feminists, Muslims, ethnic and religious minorities was subtly hijacked by power-hunger clergies. The end result was nothing short of what George Orwell elegantly depicted in his satirical novel Animal Farm. 43 years later, once again Iranians are about to make the same rudimentary mistake. What appears to be a legitimate gender equality movement is nothing but a conning plot for a prescribed regime change.

The leading pseudo-Muslim avengers of 1979 are replaced by a bunch of pseudo-feminist cheerleaders like Masih Alinejad, a U.S. citizen and a recruited mouthpiece of the CIA advocating women’s rights in Iran by military intervention and crippling sanctions. Her campaign has resulted in a new generation of disenchanted young boys and girls jamming on the streets. So intoxicated by overdoes of endorphins obtained by a thrilling ride taken on a bandwagon, their senses are totally numbed to an illusion of freedom manufactured by people who are no friends of Iranians. Not realizing the movement is being led by imperial feminism financed by CIA et al. Hardly anyone is questioning, if and how this movement is going to empower women. Or, is this just another cosmetic change, replacing one falsehood with another, under the pretext of liberty by the regime change industry only to favour the U.S. global hegemony?

In 1979, anyone who dared to warn the protesters to get out of the muddy water and avoid floating on a diverted stream would have been ostracized and labeled “counterrevolutionary”. Consimilarly, these days anyone attempting to warn the revolting crowd to think twice before embarking on in vain course of action, or watch out for opportunists and wolves in sheep’s clothing is immediately attacked and labeled as a “pro-regime apologist” or “stooge”. Tragically in such a contaminated climate, it is then not surprising to see, as Harvard philosophy professor George Santayana puts it: a nation that fails to learn from its history is condemned to repeat its mistakes.

The death of Mahsa Amini in custody, who was arrested for not wearing her headscarf in accordance with government standards, quickly sparked an unprecedented worldwide protest. For a long Hijab has been obtruded by orientalists as a symbol of women’s oppression, a woman who is wearing it, ought to be oppressed, suppressed and depressed gasping for a breath of freedom. The irony is while the Western media disproportionately is covering stories of a portion of Iranian women who resent observing the Hijab in the context of coercive misogyny, it is important to stress that currently, far more so-called democratic societies have outlawed the Hijab than theocratic regimes that have mandated it. For example, in France, in the Province of Quebec in Canada, in Bosnia and in Hindu-dominated regions of India, it is illegal to wear a Hijab. The banning of the Hijab has been upheld by courts and legislative bodies, stripping Muslim and Jewish women of their freedom of choice and rights to cover their hair and neck. The elective observance of the Hijab results in fines, job dismissal, refusal of access to education, athletic activities, Government services, etc.

Compulsory veiling laws and veiling bans are both equal ways of the state dictating to women what is appropriate or inappropriate attire. It is intriguing to see, that Femperialists object to covering where and when it suits them, yet are totally indifferent to the imposed regulation to uncover, like the former is all about controlling women, but the latter is not. Where is the feminists’ outcry for those women who are forced to uncover? A person who is vociferous with respect to one, whichever of the two, but is utterly lips-sealed with respect to the other has zero credibility and is indeed an outright hypocrite. Most such critics are too dim even to notice the similarity. One’s concerns for women’s rights, if truly genuine, cannot be so selective and bonded by geography and politics. 

In the West, no feminist cares about Iranian women when they are oppressed by multilateral sanctions that are intended to cause maximum pain[1], but everyone is heartbroken when their hair is veiled. What kind of women’s rights activists can be silent about the tainted socio-economic and well-being of Iranian women, but outraged about compulsory veiling?

If the issue at hand is the tragic death of an innocent girl who died during detention, where is the outcry for countless women who have died or been beaten while in detention by Israeli and Western security forces? The deceased Iranian girl overnight became the darling of the West while no one has heard of, remembers or cares about Rachel Corrie an American protestor who was bulldozed to death by Israeli forces in bright daylight.

Consistency is the measure of validity in all claims. Selective amnesia is always the favorite gizmo of deceitful establishments. Lack of consistency gives the advantage to score a point by focusing on deplorable cases, while blithely concealing and ignoring the unfavorable cases detrimental to one’s position. For example, the use of excessive force during an arrest and the death of a detainee is far more widespread in Western countries than in any banana republic. A genuine feminist would consistently object to all identical cases which equally violate human rights be it for men or women.

To obtain the best turnover in marketing an idea or product is to predominantly concentrate on women. This approach always guarantees the best market share and the highest attention grab.[2] Particularly in political campaigns, thus, the slogan “Woman, Life, Liberty” is a marketing gimmick created and widely endorsed by Western feminists and Hollywood celebrities in support of Iranian women. Subtle mass persuasion techniques and controlling narratives to shape public opinion are the utmost undemocratic acts the advocates of “democracy” constantly engage in, to achieve their goals. The slogan that went viral in this fashion is in fact completely contrary to feminist basic tenets. What happened to feminists’ gender-neutral nouns and pronouns argument? While the 2SLGBTQIA+ acronym is getting bigger and bigger, here somehow one gender is totally excluded through the significance of language with impact in both theory and practice. All-inclusive concerns are narrowed down. As George Orwell warns, in no time one subgroup can become “more equal than others”. The proper slogan that should have been used is: “People, Life, Liberty”, but of course, having done so would have never attracted this much attention. Those who never cared about Iranian women who have been sanctioned to death by Western regimes are suddenly more catholic than the Pope. The induced crocodile tears shed have manufactured a flood on its intended passage.

Opposing the adopted slogan is not merely a linguistic objection. The injustice that Iranians are going through is not gender or ethnic-exclusive; it involves all walks of life across the board. In fact, there are far more male political prisoners, male dissidents, male strikers and far more men on the streets in Iranian cities protesting the regime than there are women. However, this movement is ridiculously presented as a women’s revolution.

There is no liberty whatsoever when colonialist and imperialist powers decide for you who your leaders ought to be. When these criminal neoconservatives instigate a wave of anti-government protests using their powerful propaganda machine, it never brings liberty or improves the quality of life for either of the two sexes. Imperial feminism is profoundly entrenched in the appropriation of women’s rights in the service of the U.S. hegemony and particularly has been utilized in justifying devious Anglo-American exploitation of the Middle East. Just as always a Western-sponsored regime change only serves their own vested interests. Exploitive interventionists and merchants of death always depict themselves as liberators and champions of human rights. One has to be overly skeptical of their intentions, and wary of their disgusting crocodile tears.

 

References:

1) Nephew, Richard (2018), The Art of Sanctions: A View from the Field, Columbia University Press, New York.

2) Curtis, Adam (2002), The Century of the Self, A 4-part Television Series, Episode 2: “The Engineering of Consent”, BBC Documentary.

The American Spring: A Perennially Hijacked Revolution

Mehran Banaei

Oppressed masses entangled in a capitalistic system operating on an orgy of greed and lust for power, where a few psychopaths systematically control all national and international affairs will eventually reach the boiling point to rise up against tyranny. The ruling class unwilling to relinquish the illegitimately seized power under the pretext of “democracy” would hold onto their throne by any means necessary. Those who dare to rise up against them are brutally crushed.

One particular group which for centuries has been subjugated to mental and physical slavery in a violent system of global exploitation is the community of African descent. Historically they have raised numerously against institutionalized racism and systematic injustices, but each time the uprising has been sidetracked and diverted on a detour to nowhere. All empires rest on hypocrisy, deceit as well as violence. Thus, the usual employed strategy is the use of force as well as giving a few meaningless, but highly inflated concessions. In this strategy, language plays a crucial role. The end result is that the unwary settles for a change which is always cosmetic, not real and substantive. Case in point, at the peak of the civil rights movement in the U.S. the word Negro changed to Black and then to African-American. Nevertheless, the so-called African-Americans continuously experienced the same human rights violations and were subjugated to worse Police brutality. The U.S. Police’s violent and coward reaction to George Floyd peaceful protesters has made Saudi Arabia looks like a human rights paradise. So much for “the land of the free and home of the brave”.

The real change occurs when victims of prejudice keep the same stained term, but change the mindset, attitude, social perception and stigma attached to the term. In the last century, African-Americans repeatedly took the bait. In comparison, the Gay community was much smarter. Members of this community proudly continued to refer to themselves as queers, but aimed to change the social perception and the attitude of people and legislators towards their community. Unlike Negro, queer was a derogatory term intended to insult and belittle homosexuals, while the root meaning of Negro in Latin refers to things of black colour with no negative connotation. There is nothing offensive about Rio Negro, a river located in Northern Brazil which its water is black due to the high concentration of organic constituents of soil, minerals and vegetation. Why should it be different, when the same term is used in a descriptive way to refer to a particular human “race”? The fact is that using the term Negro was how most black Americans comfortably described themselves. The civil rights movement somehow diverted as though the racial tension in the USA was a semantic issue, not a human rights issue. If it was the latter, human rights violations are resolved when victims enjoy the same rights as everyone else in society and are treated equally in the eyes of the law. The term Negro was often used unequivocally by civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. They did not settle with hypocritical trivialities. They knew better: respect in a form of lip service is worthless.

The African-Americans are being manipulated again by more subtle diversions, cosmetic changes and worthless concessions. For instance, reducing the “Black Power Movement” to controversial “Black Lives Matter”, the former is a struggle for equality in all aspects of the sociopolitical sphere, the latter is “don’t shoot me” or “allow me to breath”. Thereby, moving away from having the power to focusing on begging to have some basic rights. Furthermore, of course black lives matter, but so too the Indigenous lives, the Latinos and all others who have been systematically oppressed or have not. In pursuit of justice and combating racism, why should the American Spring be racially exclusive? This would no doubt, will provoke a swift backlash, i.e. “All lives matter”, “Blue lives matter”, etc. Although some slogans are launched by members of the black community, it is the corporate media that gets to choose which ones ought to be publicized and which should be buried.

Consider, the temporary removal of the 1939 Oscar-winning movie: Gone with the Wind from HBO streaming service due to its upbeat depiction of slavery. After two weeks, the movie returned with an added disclaimer, like the new insertion to an old movie is a huge amelioration to the current social conditions of the black community. Further concessions given are in changing the name of some sports clubs and supermarket products as well as discontinuing biased TV series: “Cops”, or by re-naming some streets to “Black Lives Matter”, as if by changing the name of a street, the neighborhood will suddenly turn into black utopia. We can observe none of such changes came with a change in police conducts towards the black community. On the contrary, it has gotten far worse. What is really achieved when police brutality against blacks occurs on Black Lives Matter Avenue?

To retire brands or changing the product name is a common corporate strategy. Like changing Marlboro to Philip Morris, at times it is a necessary business move for their own corporate vested interests, not for the good of the black community. Under the current climate when sales are going down, the change made is de rigueur. The move is not an indication of being supportive of a sociopolitical cause. Acknowledging reality for what it is, is what matters.

Over the past century, the civil rights of blacks in America did not improve despite having many high-ranking black politicians, black senators in Congress and having a black President for 8 years. Inequality, displacement, exclusion, segregation and mistreatment by law enforcement agencies and the judiciary continuously persist. This demonstrates that the solution is not within the upper leadership, but within the whole global system of exploitation where foreign and domestic policies are intertwined. America’s hawkish domination of the world’s resources and jingoistic violation of other nations’ rights contributes to the domestic brutality at home. One cannot have contradictory ethical standards, behave like a demon abroad, while pretending to be an angel at home, particularly when one’s priorities are set on the accumulation of wealth.

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America needs a foundational change to resolve its race problem; any other remedy is nothing short of an ineffective band-aid approach. Unless the entire global power structure, the culture of greed changes, nothing substantially will ever result. Race or nationhood is a human construct, not a way of nature. There is no such a thing as racial supremacy or the chosen people in the state of nature which gives undeserved economic privileges to some, but not to all.

Cheering for a Corporate Logo!

Mehran Banaei

If you ever wondered, how public sentiment and opinion can be so easily manipulated for profit, you need to do no more than pay a little attention to this prime case in point. Toronto has erupted over its local basketball team winning the NBA title. Over a million people poured into the streets on a working day to celebrate the Raptors’ victory. The city is proudly overjoyed by the achievement of a basketball team which ironically has no local player or coaching staff on the team. Yet, it is puzzling, what the Torontonians are actually celebrating. Is there anything worthy of mass celebration? Perhaps a better question would be: how do the Raptors represent the city of Toronto? Indeed, what is the connection between Raptors and Toronto, if any?

Let’s look closer into the Raptors genealogy. The team is owned by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd. Besides Raptors, the MLSE primary holdings are all other Toronto’s major sports franchises: the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League, and Toronto FC of Major League Soccer, as well as their minor league farm teams, the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League (AHL), Raptors 905 of the NBA G League and Toronto FC II of the USL League One, respectively. Apart from baseball, the MLSE has virtually a complete monopoly over all sporting events in Toronto.

In addition, the MLSE owns Scotiabank Arena (originally named Air Canada Centre), the home arena of the Maple Leafs and Raptors, the OVO Athletic Centre, which is the practice facility for the Raptors. The MLSE also manages and has invested in several other sports facilities including BMO Field, home of Toronto FC and the Toronto Argonauts; Coca-Cola Coliseum, home of the Marlies; MasterCard Centre, the practice facility of the Maple Leafs and Marlies; the BMO Training Ground practice facility for Toronto FC and home of Toronto FC II and the TFC Academy; and Lamport Stadium, practice facility for the Argonauts. The total equity of the MLSE is estimated to be between $1.66 to $2.00 billion dollars. The MLSE is owned by Rogers Communications (37.5%), Bell Canada Enterprises Inc. (37.5%) and the current chairman of the MLSE, Lawrence Tanenbaum (25%) who promised to take the team, among all places, to Israel if they win the NBA championship.

It is not difficult to control the public sentiment, if two of the co-owners hold multiple sports TV channels and news networks. They certainly have the right tools to generate excitement and bombard the public with propaganda that, it is all about our community. For example, the “Let’s go Raptors” is a meme that purportedly refers to the based community inspiring to be on the top.

Apart from the usual idolization of players, another subtle strategy used to promote the team and to sell merchandize is by false appeal to a hollow sense of nationalism: “We the North” flag-waving, although there are no Canadian representations anywhere to be found on the team. Furthermore, the MLSE targets racial minorities in Canada under the banner of Canadian diversity united. The unwary public may very well be united, but all united behind one hidden cause, and that is to increase the wealth of the billionaire owners. The goal is disguised as communitarianism and “history in the making”. The illusion of a communal success, which supposedly one is a part, not apart makes people feel euphoric. As long as one feels as such, one is always ready to bend over on a cue, ready to be exploited. Certainly, if the real goal is not disguised, the average devotee on the street would never celebrate the financial prosperity of a corporate conglomerate in which one is always apart, not a part. No private corporation should be allowed to exploit Canada’s name for personal profit, and brainwash the masses to support them.

The fact is professional sports teams competing in major leagues is a lucrative business. All teams are corporate giants, competing for a bigger market share. The actual trophy is not a chrome cup, but rather to make the highest level of profit. The huge profit involved is privatized. Thus, the competition between professional sports teams against one another is no different than competition between corporations in a free market economy. Then, what is the excitement here? Why does anyone care as who the winner is in a competition between Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola or IBM vs. Microsoft? Here, only a handful of people and shareholders benefit. And, those who laugh all the way to the bank, share nothing with the rest of us. So, what is there for the general public? Even if one of the competitive corporations happens to be based in Canada, competing against a foreign-owned company, i.e. Bombardier vs. Boeing, there is nothing for the Canadian public if Bombardier dominates the market and gets richer and richer. In this climate of dollars and cents, why should anybody treat and support an incorporated entity as if it is a national team, competing in an international tournament such as the Olympics. Unlike the Olympics, there is no national pride involved in major or minor leagues. NBA is not a tournament which is meant to bring nations together, nor does it promote peace and unity within the global community through the medium of sports. The difference between the two contests is enormous, yet hardly realized. The NBA itself is a typical money-grubbing corporation, void of culture and history.

One would make a fortune when one sells patented bubbles of air to this fervid crowd

If we understand group psychology and subtle factors involved in marketing techniques, we can then understand how the public sentiment is prepared in favour of frivolous pursuits. These pursuits are a function of prescribed erroneous priorities, which lead to following the crowd blindly. Devotion to a corporate logo is not a result of an inherent natural self-organized phenomenon. It is a product of deliberate systematic brainwashing void of any reflection and critical thinking. It should not be considered as a harmless inconsequential pastime. When frivolous pastimes are aggrandized to the level of tribal frenzy, no matter what the event, people or subject is, the pattern of such behaviour is frighteningly symptomatic of rationality being bypassed at the core of the psyche. Such behavior becomes both a model, dry-run and technique for mass brainwashing and social control, be it for pushing the masses into an unjust war or normalizing the ‘imbibing’ of wicked, indecent acts, a means of social control whose benefit is the same: more profit and power for the few at the naive expense of the so many. Perhaps if one sees such a Corporate Logo, it should be detected as a Corporate No-go! The No-go can effectively distract us from the realization of what ought to have our utmost attention in life, and allows the blood-sucking tycoons to take us for a never-ending ride.

Blame it on the Sleeves!

Mehran Banaei

“It wasn’t me, it was my hand, blame it on the sleeve which controls the hand” is a famous poetic story in Persian children’s literature that all Iranian children are well familiar with. It is a story about a naughty little girl named Saba who frequently misbehaves and when is questioned by her parents, she starts to lie and come up with ridiculous defenses to get away from punishment for her mischief. Her notorious defense is that: “I didn’t do that, it was my hand!” She goes on to say the hand was under the control of the sleeve, and the sleeve, in turn, was controlled by the jacket. Nonetheless, I was wearing my brother’s jacket. Therefore, go blame my brother. A child may think that offering such an explanation may wash off her hands from any responsibilities for her wrongdoings. But, that is the expectation of an immature child growing up. Unlike a child, the grown-up heads of states cannot be so naïve as to live in a child’s world.

The ludicrous explanation offered by the Saudi regime for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi resembles very much the above childlike mentality. It further demonstrates the degree of sub-asinine-ness of the Saudi regime which expects the world to believe their nonsensical defense. After two weeks of flat denial, the Saudi mobsters start to gradually suggest that the slain journalist was somehow accidentally killed in a fistfight. We are expected to believe that an overweight 59-year-old entered the Saudi Consulate to engage in a fistfight like Bruce Lee, but ended up losing. Ironically, it all happened while the pious and innocent Saudi elites were kept in dark. The official Saudi position is that the so-called “King” and “Crown Prince” had no connections with this incident. Certain rogue elements orchestrated the murder without Riyadh’s knowledge. How convenient! Supposedly, the authorities in Riyadh learned about this incident when it became international headline news. This foolish damage control is an insult to human intellect. It is impossible, even for feeble brains to believe in such dribble. How do you accidentally butcher a high-profile critic of the regime in a consulate? And then a minor detail: where is the body?The more ridiculous part of this saga is when the United States President accepts the bizarre explanation as if it is plausible. He seems to be more upset with the mediocre level of the Saudi operation and their subsequent sloppy cover up, than the actual crime itself. Did they not drink enough coffee to stay awake in the “Cover-up 101” training sessions offered by the U.S. Intelligence Services? Trump is upset because after many years of costly PR campaign the true face of MBS, the darling of the West is finally exposed, a fake visionary reformer with hands soaked in blood. This phony presidential puppet is upset, because the international focus is rightly shifted from Iran to Saudi Arabia, a cordial ally of the United States. He is upset, because this gruesome political assassination has received more attention than the devastating silent war in Yemen, which raises the question of why is the U.S. selling so many weapons to the murderous Saudis to prolong their aggression. This episode clearly exposes the utterly sick relationship the Western nations have had and have continued to foster for hundreds of years with the Middle Eastern nations that even the dumbest jingoist in the West is now questioning.

There are two different accounts of what happened at the consulate reported by Turkish and Saudi authorities. The Turkish account indicates that the crime was premeditated and the victim was lured into the consulate to be killed. The Saudi version is that certain Saudi diplomats acted on their own without any authorization from Riyadh.

To identify the responsible party involved, there is no need to focus on the specific flaws in the provided alibi. No need exists to focus on the compiled evidence which are found to be contrary to what is said by the Saudis. No need exists to press them for countless unanswered questions, such as how the top Saudi autopsy specialist equipped with a bone saw ended up being Johnny-on-the-spot at the consulate. Or, how and where the dismembered body was disposed of?

Let’s suppose we have a foggy case of “he said, she said”. Nevertheless, it is not hard to determine who the culprit is and identify those who are primarily responsible in this grotesque crime. The Saudi provided argument can still be easily debunked in principle. The dastardly MBS and his decrepit daddy conveniently ignore a key material fact in this case. Since when, has ignorance become an acceptable defense in any tribunal setting? “We did not know” can never be an excuse or in this case even be a remote possibility. A head of state is always in control, is always in command, particularly in an autocracy where the ruler is obsessed with power. In an autocratic system, only the one on the top gives orders, be that the Caesar, the Pharaoh, the Supreme leader, the Emperor or the King of the Kings. He solely possesses absolute power. Everything else in this system is merely decor. In this system, the ruler can no longer put the blame on subordinates for the concomitant disastrous outcomes of his mandated actions. Here, a dictator cannot eat his cake and have it too. With absolute power comes absolute responsibility. Therefore, in this system, when shit hits the fan, the ruler cannot blame the powerless sleeves for unintended consequences. The responsibility for the mess created is squarely on him. Sleeves have only been following the doomed orders of the wearer of the sleeves.The rank hypocrisy is that the U.S. is supporting Arab dictators and their horrendous crime in Yemen. As always, the American administration lacks a basic moral compass, and chooses profit over principle, profit earned at the cost of innocent lives destroyed.

It appears that the Saudi’s may have introduced a new word in the English language: to get Khashoggied: that is “to enter into an establishment in peace, but end up being butchered.” His last blog has literally been written in blood and guts, and is proving to be the most effective one, as another nail in the coffin of the perverse symbiosis between the greedy West and the corrupt governments of the Middle East has been laid bare.

The Canada-Saudi Diplomatic Melodrama: A Vulgar Soap Opera of Political Hypocrisy and Abject Pretensions

Mehran Banaei

In early August, the Canadian public woke up to the news in which hell had broken loose, as diplomatic and economic relationships between Canada and Saudi Arabia suddenly went sour. In a surprise move, the Saudi regime harshly overreacted to a meaningless tweet made by Canada’s Minister of External Affairs criticizing Saudis for human rights abuses. What follows in the political scene resembled a silly daytime soap opera not worthy of being aired for the second season.

In essence, the spat between the two countries is a clash between two hypocrites who are concerned over their image as opposed to the substance of their policies. The two are indeed guilty of hypocrisy and public deception. Canada supposedly values human rights and Saudis under the leadership of a young “Crown Prince”, as claimed aim for social reform and modernization.

The Canadian politicians like to maintain Canada’s pretentious peace-keeping image. Canada is purported to be a vociferous champion of human rights and democracy. For example, the previous Canadian government in a PR stunt severed all diplomatic ties with Iran and imposed sanctions for that country’s violation of human rights. However, Canada’s ongoing egregious hypocrisy is in criticizing human rights abuses by another regime that the entire Western world including Canada arms to the teeth. Saudi Arabia is the favorite arms export market for the global system of exploitation and violence. Canada sells arms to the despotic Saudi regime, knowing so well they would use the purchased military equipment against innocent civilians, to brutally crackdown on dissents and political oppositions. It then, turns around and hypocritically criticizes a client state for mistreating her own citizens, as though the arms sold to Saudis would play no role in human rights abuses. Why is there a double-standard in supposedly identical cases of Iran and Saudi Arabia? However, as Noam Chomsky asserts “Iran compared to Saudi Arabia is a civil rights paradise.” Yet, Canada chooses to have relationships and do business with the Saudis, which undoubtedly is the most repressive regime in the world.

The crucial question here would be: why is a supposed democracy and human rights-loving Canada selling arms to a Stone Age autocratic regime? In fact, a country that prides itself in being a champion of human rights, woman’s rights, democracy and pro-peace should not at all be in the business of arms manufacturing. It is like advocating abstinence in the consumption of alcohol while at the same time fostering a thriving alcohol industry. Clearly, there is an antithetical incongruity between the ideal-self, Canada as a peacekeeper versus the real-self, Canada as an arms dealer.

Moreover, if Canada truly cares about human rights as she claims, she should be utmost critical of the apartheid Israel for its violent treatment of Palestinians. Far from that, Canada has always supported Israel while others have criticized the Zionist crimes. At the U.N., Canada defends Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, opposes self-determination for Palestinians, regularly votes against resolutions that condemn Israel, then turns around and sheds ugly crocodile tears for Saudi women and jailed bloggers. The truth is, even breaking diplomatic ties with Iran had nothing to do with Iran’s records on human rights, but had everything to do with supporting the mother of all human rights abusers, the greatest violator of United Nations resolutions and international law: Israel.

Another example of indifference and disregard for human rights is the case of the Rohingya people, who have fled from the brutal Myanmar Regime. Canada does not even want to use the word Genocide to refer to atrocities committed.

On the other hand, the Saudis who are busy with exterior remodeling and image makeover, claim that Canada’s position exerts an overt and blatant interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. The single tweet that was cast is seen as a breach of the most basic international norms and all charters governing relations between states. Look who is talking here, the position of the Saudi regime cannot be more hypocritical. A regime that owes its core existence to the British interference to put the Al Saud family in charge of oil wells in the Arabian Peninsula is upset about foreign interference. The same regime which interferes in the internal affairs of Yemen by waging a war, has been directly involved in the internal affairs of Bahrain by sending troops there, has interfered in the domestic affairs of Iran, Iraq and Syria by financing terrorist activities. The impetuous regime which had the audacity to kidnap the Lebanese Prime Minister in bright daylight cannot tolerate a frivolous tweet intended for domestic consumption.

The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, a well-known warmongering thug who turned into a “Prince” by a neocolonial kiss to the proverbial frog gets offended by the tweet. His Majesty is so insulted that he decides to teach Canada a lesson by halting all trade and imposing sanctions against Canada. These imbecilic Saudi thugs still have not learned anything from their last year disastrous Qatar venture. Bullying Qatar via boycotts and sanctions were so ineffective that Qataris have not yet stopped laughing. Indeed, only fools make the same mistake twice. In halting trade with Canada, for every dollar Canada loses, the Saudis lose much more. The Saudis are notorious in shooting themselves in the foot and scoring an own-goal.

A case in point is in the Saudis suspending their state-owned airline flights to Canada. For the past several years Saudi Airlines had regular flights between Toronto and Jeddah. Here is a case that the Government of Canada had allowed a foreign carrier to operate in Canada and make a huge profit. The Saudis suspended all flights, surely Air Canada and other carriers are more than happy to pick up the Saudi market share.

Consider abruptly pulling out Saudi students from Canadian universities just before the start of a new school year. In a time-consuming process, these squeezed students must first apply at other foreign universities elsewhere, then apply for student visas. They would lose so much, both financially as well as academically as other universities would not give them full credit for what they have taken at Canadian institutions.

Taking spiteful actions against those who superficially stand by rights activists will neither help Saudi Arabia’s image makeover nor attract foreign investment into the country. It only demonstrates their level of intolerance, and results in further isolation of this autocratic state.

This shambolic soap opera shows how much nefarious politics and hypocrisy are intertwined, while in essence, the interconnectivity should be between politics and ethics. Cultural and socio-political superiority do not reside in what one preaches, but in how one conducts one’s affairs consistently across the board.

 

Destitute and Displaced: It is all about Pilfering Natural Resources and Strategic Hegemony

Mehran Banaei

A number of years ago my eyes were badly injured during a recreational soccer game. As a result of this injury, I was temporarily blinded for a few weeks. At the time, I had no idea if I could ever see again. Although this was a traumatic and frightening experience, it was not without its rewards. The whole ordeal was a lesson in blindness. It taught me how I took my vision for granted all along. It taught me empirically what it means to be deprived of one of the most precious senses. Above all, it taught me how easy it is for one to suddenly lose his vision. When I recovered, I began to cherish my eyes and used my sense of vision with a great deal of joy, care and appreciation.

Not long after this ordeal, I found the opportunity to work as a graduate intern at the UNHCR Head Office in Ankara, Turkey. I was responsible to interview asylum seekers and screen them according to the UNHCR’s refugee determination criteria.

This experience was similar to my eye injury, although it was very depressing, it was nonetheless very rewarding. It brought me close enough to witness the plight of those refugees who were in serious financial, psychological and even physical pain. The uniqueness of such an experience is the realization of the same ubiquitous reality that one witnesses night after night on the television screen, but this time perception of this reality is aided with more than one sense. The focus of this perception is on displaced people who are human beings like everyone of us with flesh, feelings and hopes, but are dehumanized by having been turned into file numbers. One of the most unforgettable incidents, while I was there, took place during an early morning interview. A middle-aged asylum seeker was just admitted to the office for his first interview. Although the man appeared healthy, he was under so much stress that as soon as he started to reveal his grounds for asylum he collapsed with a heart attack. He died in the office, right in front of the legal officer and an interpreter. I was told later that this was “nothing,” incidents such as someone burning himself in front of the UNHCR building or somebody throwing his sick child in front of a vehicle to relieve the child of the pain were common incidents there. The situation at the UNHCR camps was far worse than the Head Office.

My daily experiences were particularly depressing for a new employee who had to face the misery of destitute and then make a yes or no “moral” decision. Indeed, reading Locke, Hume, Hobbes, Kant and all other theoretical writings on ethics meant nothing when it came to a real-life situation. It was striking to see that the permanent employees were very accustomed to this operational ennui. It frightened me to think that the same thing could have happened to me if I had stayed there a little longer. There, in the legal unit of the UNHCR, legal officers are involved in making decisions on the future of these applicants. They act like quality control inspectors on an assembly line filtering out unwanted goods. The irony in this process is that the needless determine the fate of the needy in accordance with ethical values which are relative and culturally biased. Being involved in this pedagogical process was indeed my greatest difficulty, especially when the system is known to be deficient from experiences elsewhere.

As one of the consequences of the U.S.’s rampant jingoistic military intervention in the Persian Gulf, the majority of the refugees coming into Turkey were Iraqis, who were fleeing the severe economic hardship imposed on them by Western economic embargos. The distinction between a convention refugee and a migrant worker is clear in the UNHCR Determination Handbook, and of course “the UNHCR does not act as travel agency” in population movements. Thus, those who do not fit the convention definition are doomed to be rejected. None of the asylum seekers get any benefit from the UN, unless they are first recognized as a convention refugee. The result is tantamount to a disappointing brush-off for a great number of those who seek asylum.

The standard and ubiquitous cliche: “We regret to inform you that …, thank you for your interest in UNHCR, we hope that you are successful elsewhere in your future objectives” appears in the only correspondence that a refugee receives from the UNHCR. Indirectly, the rejectees are treated as though they are guilty of committing an embarrassing crime like shoplifting or plagiarizing an essay, while their only “misdeed” is trying to provide better living conditions for their family. “You migrant worker, how dare you to impersonate a convention refugee.” A “crime” that without any hesitation anyone of us would commit being in their position. Often both the needless and the needy are where they are due to an accident of birth and fate. The needless, seemingly immune from displacement, are indifferent to the needs of the needy. The needless never think that they too may easily become one of the needy, just as we hardly ever consider that we may lose our precious eyesight.

The rejectees often remain in Turkey illegally, hoping to reach their destination through smugglers. The smugglers, who can hardly be trusted, often prey ruthlessly on the vulnerability of these desperate people. They charge as much as U.S.$10,000 to provide them with a forged passport and an airline ticket. While in Turkey, if they are caught, they are subject to prosecution and deportation by the Turkish authorities.

As a result of this obviously faulty process, many NGOs and refugee rights advocates have campaigned for broadening the 1951 UN definition of a refugee. Although concerned for human rights, I personally never favoured the idea of keep changing the “outdated” definition of a convention refugee in order to accommodate the larger number of asylum seekers of the 1990s and onwards. That is simply because we should always seek an optimal solution as opposed to a band-aid approach and false comfort. Therefore, we must handle any problems at the foundational level, to see what has caused the cracks in the structure in the first place. Thus, we ought to remove the sources which have generated the defects, rather than just dealing with symptoms. Furthermore, if we try to revise the 1951 definition of refugee in order to accommodate the current situation, then what are we going to do in the next few decades when the 1990s or 2010s definition is once again outdated? We have already tried this approach once in the 1960s through the added rights implemented by the 1967 Protocol and that soon after deemed to be insufficient.

Therefore, it seems that changing the definition every once in a while is far from being an optimal solution or a foundational approach. The curing solution does not lie in allowing more refugees to settle in the West. Our attention, if genuine, ought to be in eradicating the problem from its root, which is indeed viable if our priorities are just and correctly focused. For example, in the case of Iraqi refugees, if the UN enforced economic blockade against Iraq was never imposed, then many of these refugees whom I met in Turkey would not have abandoned their homeland, possessions, culture, way of life, family and beg for membership in a foreign and often hostile society. Why should Western powers punish Iraqi children by putting a ban on the exportation of medicine and baby formula? The Iraqi refugees are the victims of the so-called “New World Order”, which evidently breathes disorder.

Three decades have passed; Turkey is once again a major gathering place of refugees from the Middle East. However, this time, they are not the downcast non-convention refugees who are escaping poverty. They are the genuine convention refugees, consisting of Syrians and Iraqis fleeing war zones, an internal war composed and conducted by Western powers.

Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen are the regional nations that one by one are being destroyed primarily for their natural resources or for their vital strategic location. The Middle East is deliberately destabilized by state sponsors of terrorism run by a bunch of well-groomed psychopathic warmongering criminals to ensure the survival of Israel and cheap oil shipped to the West.

The democracy-loving, human rights loving and freedom-loving Neocons have turned the Middle East into an eerie graveyard where the masked scavengers feast. Destruction of properties, environment and human life, nothing seems to stop the perpetrators of these insidious crimes. The heartless imperialist strategy of divide and conquer in the form of “sectarian violence” is in effect to tear apart the Middle East, while cunningly pinpointing the collaborators of this tragedy as the people’s own “antiquated backward” religion. The crisis is painted to look like Arabs are victims of a domestic self-inflicted misery. Seemingly, it has nothing to do with the dreadful Western intervention and piracy.

History attests that so long as the causative and interconnected factors for human displacement are left loose, the plight of refugees around the world will continue to persist. So long as there is profit in war and money is the be-all and end-all of human existence, there will never be peace on Earth. In essence, so long as Man refuses to humble himself and does not realize his unique place in the universe, there will always be wars and human misery. Surely, there is no other solution for our interrelated social ills.

Revised and expanded, a shorter version of this article was published in: Refuge, Vol. 13, No. 8, January 1994, pp. 25-26