In case of emergency...
Maybe everyone else doesn't play out the same kinds of scenarios in their heads that I do. Not a day goes by that I don't consider what would happen if Canada suffered a takeover by Handmaid's-Tale style wackos (wait - did that happen already...?). Or if all the electricity where cut off for longer than a couple of days, such that Toronto would run out of clean drinking water. Some days I imagine Toronto in a situation à la Camus' La Peste. Some days it's Saramago's Blindness.Maybe I should just avoid dystopic fiction?
Or maybe it's good that I'm prepared.
No one in Beirut had a relaxing week this week, I expect. But the Canadians stuck in Lebanon, witnessing first-hand (and, in some cases, dying from) the violence that their own Prime Minister condones, received not-quite-enough help from their embassy.
Have a look at these reports:
Pregnant Canadian Woman Awaiting Evacuation Turned Away at Beirut Port
MPs Squabble over Cost of Saving Dual Citizens
Evacuation of Canadians from Lebanon to Start Wednesday
In a rare show of sense, Mr Harper had his own airbus diverted from Europe to Cyprus to pick up evacuees. Horribly, however, both Conservative and Liberal MPs took time to argue about whether all Canadians are Canadian enough to be saved from bombs.
My passport tells me that I can go to Canadian Embassies abroad for help if I need it. Just as I am good at imagining disasters, likewise had I imagined that such help, if needed, would be swift and effective. This week we all learned that Canada can't evacuate you from a war zone quickly, even if you're pregnant. Apparently we have no standing plan for dealing with this sort of thing.
Maybe Mr Harper needs to read more dystopic fiction.
Labels: Canada, international
posted by Andreus @ 11:33 PM
3 Comments:
At 5:20 PM,
Q.E.D said…
Perhaps, just perhaps, Canadians who live where rockets and bombs are dropped will reassess their reasons for living where they do. Perhaps not. More likely they, and othersw, will throw stones at any government that attempts to rescue them without air-conditioned ships and three full-course meals on the way to saving their lives. Then again, some will condemn governments of any stripe just because they are not all-purpose social substitute parents with millions of dollars at their fingertips for every crisis that comes along. Perhaps too, just the mere fact thay they try to do something makes them wrong...after all it is always easy to sit on the social-moral sidelines and throw stones at those who govern. Nobody likes war. Nobody likes the fact that Canadians have been killed. Nobody wants fighting and bloodshed. All Western governments have a role in promoting peace, order and good government...or so we would like to believe. However, I did not see Western governments condemn those who kidnapped Israeli soldiers when they should have done so. Come to think of it I did not see the media condemning the violence of the Middle East. So was that OK? Perhaps one may fault Israel for dropping bombs. One may fault the Hezbollah for playing "their games" in Lebanon, unfairly considering that they should, of course, come out in the open and play fair! But then, cowards that they are, they will not, any more than they will come clean with the Lebanese government and at least declare that they are fighting for whatever their cause may be.
So perhaps we should all call 911 and pray....but wasn't it prayer that started all this?
At 6:13 PM,
Andreus said…
"Perhaps, just perhaps, Canadians who live where rockets and bombs are dropped will reassess their reasons for living where they do."
Of course! Why didn't they think of that! People living where bombs are dropped should re-assess where they're living! If, for example, you were living in the south of England in 1943, you and all your compatriots were wrong to be underneath the falling Nazi bombs! Why would these people live there? Better to quit the island and leave it empty and ready for the Reich.
"Then again, some will condemn governments of any stripe just because they are not all-purpose social substitute parents with millions of dollars at their fingertips for every crisis that comes along."
How dare European and North American governments have babysat the people of England and France by condemning Nazi violence! If only Churchill had had the benefit of knowing Stephen Harper - never mind this fighting them on the beaches - let's say that the German response to Poland's mere existence - invasion - was measured and appropriate! Let's tell all the Londoners to collect together out in the open while their city's being bombed, and then not get them out of there.... Why do we even have diplomats and passports and such? If you can't take care of yourself when you're on holiday, then you don't deserve the help of the nation you pay taxes to.
At 11:16 AM,
Q.E.D said…
Different experiences in different political times naturally bring about different responses. I should humbly point out that the people of England in 1943 had not been living in a war zone for thirty years and did not move there knowing that fact!
Frankly it is ridiculous for any person in today's world where information is available by internet, fax machine, cell phone, television and through government Foreign Affairs Departments, to place oneself in harm's way knowing full well the place selected is controlled by rabble terrorists who render pain and suffering as a means of proving nothing except to their own concept of manhood.
The sad fact that they, the foreign ers, then find themselves in need of help because of hostilities is just that, very very sad. One can hardly fault the people "at home" for the failure of people who select to live in areas of danger.
This situation has nothing at all to do with what went on when people of a different generation were bombed by the enemy in WWII without all those communication devices to inform them first about what was happening.
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