[R-G] Why I won't wear red...your ribbon or Friday red is actually saying: Yes, we should be in Afghanistan

[Anthony Fenton]

Copyright 2007 Ottawa Citizen, a division of CanWest MediaWorks  
Publication Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Ottawa Citizen

September 2, 2007 Sunday
Final Edition

SECTION: THE CITIZEN'S WEEKLY; Janice Kennedy; Pg. B2

LENGTH: 1449 words

HEADLINE: Why I won't wear red; We all support our troops, for  
heaven's sake, not to mention their suffering families. But your  
ribbon or Friday red is actually saying: Yes, we should be in  
Afghanistan

BYLINE: Janice Kennedy, The Ottawa Citizen

BODY:


What a sad difference a year makes. Last fall I had the privilege of  
spending time with several women in Petawawa, military wives who had  
soldier husbands serving in Afghanistan. Every one of them displayed  
a cheerful, if wry, sense of humour, despite the stress they lived  
under day and night. And every one of them shone with a kind of inner  
strength and courage most of us will never have to know.

They impressed the heck out of me. Still do, when I think of them.  
Because of women like them -- and the obviously good men overseas  
they worried about constantly and spoke of so lovingly -- I was happy  
to make the simple, undemanding gesture of wearing red for a few  
Fridays. But I felt compelled to stop some time ago.

What used to be an uncomplicated show of pure human support has  
become political, and the politics is distinctly ugly. Under Canada's  
New Government, we're witnessing the rise of Canada's New Militarism.

It is both disturbing and scary.

And it's everywhere. It's in the sprouting right across the land of  
those American-style yellow ribbon decals, second-hand imagery with a  
sad little Canadian flag to make it appear not second-hand.

It's in ideas like the proposed "Highway of Heroes," a euphemistic  
designation to tack on to the stretch of roadway over which the  
coffins of dead young soldiers are driven in the repatriation  
process. Calling them heroes, rather than victims of tragically  
misguided policy, helps us justify the waste of their young lives.

There are echoes of the new militarism at the War Museum, where  
authorities have suddenly decided -- or been persuaded to decide --  
that the appraisal and phrasing of history is best dictated by the  
Legion, that the most vocal members of the vets' group should be the  
official editors of our past.

And, perhaps most dramatic of all, it's in the politicization of the  
"support our troops" campaign.

Gestures like red shirts on Friday and decals on cars now create no  
end of uneasiness, evidenced by the controversy over stickers on  
public vehicles across the country. In Calgary, they've refused to  
put "Support Our Troops" on their police cars -- much to the dismay  
of many -- while in Ottawa, Vancouver and Toronto (after a reversal  
of position), they have decided in favour of the decals. That has  
also caused widespread dismay.

Three days after Ottawa police Chief Vernon White announced that the  
city's 180 marked cruisers would now sport the stickers, councillor  
Alex Cullen condemned the decision. Public vehicles should not be  
"billboards for political beliefs," he said.

No, no, said White. It wasn't "a political statement." And police  
services board vice-chairwoman Maria McRae observed that it was  
"wrong for anyone to politicize this."

Too late. And Cullen is absolutely right.

No matter how passionately people try to characterize it as a benign  
gesture of warm fuzziness, the issue of Friday red and support-our- 
troops decals has indeed become politically charged. Wear red on  
Friday or stick that decal on your car, and you're making an  
unequivocal political statement. You're not really saying you support  
our troops (no matter what the printed words say) because -- come on,  
who doesn't support the troops? We all support our troops, for  
heaven's sake, not to mention their suffering families.

No, your yellow ribbon or Friday red is actually saying: Yes, we  
should be in Afghanistan. And yes, I do approve of our military  
presence there.

That is not a position I hold, but at least it's a realistic  
political reflection. What is not realistic is to pretend that your  
decal means anything different. It does not. Prime Minister Stephen  
Harper has made that very clear. "You can not say you are for our  
military and then not stand behind the things they do," he said.  
Support the troops? Then you have to support the mission.

And the mission, as has become painfully obvious, is war. The mission  
is a steady flow home of young soldiers in body bags, wounded  
soldiers with tragically altered futures, Afghan civilian casualties  
so numerous international organizations can't even keep an exact  
count, and devastation on a massive scale. And over this blighted  
landscape designated for "reconstruction," the red maple leaf  
flutters bravely.

Not surprisingly, Gen. Rick Hillier has become an enthusiastic  
cheerleader for the mission. The personable Chief of Defence even  
showed up recently at the big Red
Friday rally in Toronto -- along with Don Cherry, predictably --  
whipping off his camouflage jacket to display a red T-shirt  
underneath. What is a little more surprising (though perhaps not to  
demoted former defence minister Gordon O'Connor) is just how  
outspokenly political the good general has become.

Except that he doesn't call it political.

"From the soldiers' perspective," he told a Globe and Mail  
interviewer recently, "we do not believe a group of people who will  
whip women for wearing heels that click on pavement should be allowed  
to reassume control of their country and the lives of those people in  
it." Soldiers' perspective? Sounds more like something you'd hear in  
the House. Since when do soldiers -- at least Canadian soldiers --  
decide who should and shouldn't be the government of a foreign nation?

But let's accept the general's premise, even with its political  
baggage. If we really believe we should occupy foreign countries to  
change governments driven by ethical principles in conflict with our  
own, why aren't we in some of the other fundamentalist countries that  
also frown aggressively on the clicking of high heels? Why aren't we  
in Sudan, helping oppressed minorities? Why have we avoided occupying  
Zimbabwe, where the corruption of Robert Mugabe's regime is  
destroying his people? Why not North Korea, where another mad despot  
has presided over the starvation and oppression of millions?

A lot of countries in this world are rife with persecution and abuse,  
a lot of places run by totalitarian regimes and dictators with  
medieval views on human rights. And if it's the evildoing terrorists  
we're trying to cut off at the knees, why aren't we in the one place  
that spawned Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 hijackers? Could it be  
because the ruling class of that place, the great oil-rich nation of  
Saudi Arabia, is on excellent terms with the current ruling class of  
the United States?

Beyond the clichés and ragged bits of doled-out wisdom, there's  
really no logical justification for the whole adventure. If we were  
really trying to help oppressed peoples or stop the terrorists, we'd  
also be in all kinds of other places around the world. If, on the  
other hand, we just desperately want to play with the big boys on  
Team Bush (yes, I know its official name is NATO), then we're on  
track. We're right to accept Stephen Harper's militaristic worldview,  
get incoherently schmaltzy with Don Cherry and salute Gen. Rick and  
his red T-shirt.

If, that is, we can live with the insidious mob psychology clearly at  
work. Smoothly abetted by a government that seems to love rattling  
sabres and waving big sticks (even if the sabres and sticks are a bit  
the worse for wear), we're being pushed and shoved into cheering  
simplistically for war.

You don't approve of U.S.-style political decals on police cars?  
Shame on you. You must hate our soldiers.

You think the mission in Afghanistan is a big, tragic mistake? Shame  
on you. You must hate Canada.

You believe we should get out -- now? Shame. You obviously hate freedom.

It's become nasty out there, and stifling. Try to debate issues that  
used to be open for discussion in this country -- issues that go the  
heart of our collective sense of morality -- and suddenly you're  
charged with lacking patriotism, or backbone, or some other fragment  
of cheap and borrowed jingoism.

The new rules of discourse are wartime rules (loose lips might sink  
ships, after all), and the only admissible consideration of war is  
the one that all but chokes itself on its own meaningless clichés.  
Wallowing in cheap sentiment -- as long as it's not our sons who have  
been blown to bits -- we say things like, "they're putting their  
lives on the line for us." Or "they're fighting for Canada." Or, in  
the words of Ottawa councillor McRae (though they could be  
anybody's), our uniformed men and women are "willing to sacrifice  
their lives to make sure this country stays as great as it  
is." (Could someone please explain to me how any of the debacle in  
Afghanistan is a fight for Canada, Canadians or our national  
greatness? Please?)

These days, on the combative watch of Canada's New Government, real  
value is measured in brass buttons, bombs and casualty lists.

And no matter what anyone says, it is deeply political. Every last  
poisonous bit of it.

jkennedy at thecitizen.canwest.com

GRAPHIC:
Photo: Peter J. Thompson, National Post; A woman adds her signature  
to hundreds of others on a banner in support of the troops during a  
rally at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto late last month. ;