[R-G] Galloway: Canada can't muzzle me

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/21/george-galloway-canada

Canada can't muzzle me
     *
           o George Galloway
           o The Guardian, Saturday 21 March 2009
           o Article history

The Canadian immigration minister Jason Kenney gazetted in the Sun  
yesterday morning that I was to be excluded from his country because  
of my views on Afghanistan. That's the way the rightwing, last-ditch  
dead-enders of Bushism in Ottawa conduct their business.

Kenney is quite a card. A quick trawl establishes he's a gay-baiter,  
gung-ho armchair warrior, with an odd habit of exceeding his  
immigration brief. Three years ago he attacked the pro-western  
Lebanese prime minister, Fuad Siniora, for being ungrateful to Canada  
for its support of Israeli bombardment of his country. Most curiously  
of all, in 2006 he addressed a rally of the so-called People's  
Mujahideen of Iran, a Waco-style cult, banned in the European Union as  
a terrorist organisation. On one level being banned by such a man is  
like being told to sit up straight by the hunchback of Notre Dame or  
being lectured on due diligence by Conrad Black. On another, for a  
Scotsman to be excluded from Canada is like being turned away from the  
family home.

But what are my views on Afghanistan which the Canadian government  
does not want its people to hear? I've never been to Afghanistan, nor  
have I ever met a Taliban, but my first impression into the  
parliamentary vellum on the subject was more than two decades ago. At  
the time the fathers of the Taliban were "freedom fighters", paraded  
at US Republican and British Tory conferences. Who knows, maybe even  
the Canadian right extolled these god-fearing opponents of communism.  
I did not, however.

On the eve of their storming of Kabul I told Margaret Thatcher that  
she "had opened the gates to the barbarians" and that "a long, dark  
night would now descend upon the people of Afghanistan". With the same  
conviction, I say to the Canadian and other Nato governments today  
that your policy is equally a profound mistake. From time to time and  
with increased regularity it is a crime. Like the bombardment of  
wedding parties and even funerals or the presiding over a record opium  
crop, which under our noses finds its way coursing through the veins  
of young people from Nova Scotia to Newcastle upon Tyne. But it is  
worse than a crime, as Tallyrand said, it's a blunder.

The Afghans have never succumbed to foreign occupation, heaven knows  
the British empire tried, tried and failed again. Not even Alexander  
the Great succeeded, and whoever else he is, minister Kenney is no  
Alexander the Great. Young Canadian soldiers are dying in significant  
numbers on Afghanistan's plains. Their families are entitled to know  
how many of us believe this adventure to be similarly doomed and that  
genuine support for troops - British, Canadian and other - means  
bringing them home and changing course.

To ban a five-times elected British MP from addressing public events  
or keeping appointments with television and radio programmes is a  
serious matter. Kenney's "spokesman" told the Sun, "Galloway's not  
coming in ... end of story." Alas for him, it's not. Canada remains a  
free country governed by law and my friends are even now seeking a  
judicial review. And there are other ways I can address those  
Canadians who wish to hear me.

More than half a century ago Paul Robeson, one of the greatest men who  
ever lived, was forbidden to enter Canada not by Ottawa but by  
Washington, which had taken away his passport. But he was still able  
to transfix a vast crowd of Vancouver's mill hands and miners with a  
17-minute telephone concert, culminating in a rendition of the Ballad  
of Joe Hill. Technology has moved on since then. And so from coast to  
coast, minister Kenney notwithstanding, I will be heard - one way or  
another.

• George Galloway is Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow gallowayg at parliament.uk