Editor:
Fear is a scary thing. It festers in the brain-stem of all of us. Feeding on suspicion-laced ignorance, it soon mutates into anger and hate. Social norms are rationalized away as weak. “Do unto others…” is dismissed as a utopian or childish fantasy. Blowhards become demagogues and good people become frozen.
Watching the Republican circus south of the border spewing their vile invectives against Syrian refugees, I am reminded of the internment of Japanese Canadians during WWII. The fear and suspicion of “other” gave us permission to imprison innocence with impunity. The rule of law and human rights vanished. We become capable of things that, when sober, would shame us.
Compassionate courage has always been our best face. During the immigration of destitute typhus-infected Irish in the 1840s, the people of Quebec adopted the orphaned children, allowing many to keep their Irish surnames out of respect for their heritage. Today in Quebec there are roughly 500,000 who identify with Irish ancestry from this period. Undoubtedly there were some troublemakers amongst them, but I doubt many would curse the Irish for their lack of contributions to the building of Canada.
The Lower Mainland Sikh community has opened their arms to the Syrians. Khalsa (Sikh religious) schools have offered 1,000 refugee children free tuition for a year, boarding for 400 students and their families as well as many other gestures of generosity. Principal Bagga said: “What we have learned from our Gurus is that whenever there is a need, we are there. It doesn’t matter what religion someone belongs to; they are all equal. We should respect every human being on earth.”
This is the Canada that I celebrate.
Neil Bryson, Halfmoon Bay
