Canada's Failures in Middle East Policy

Photo: Al Hussein Mosque, in the souk, Amman

January 28, 2011 - In all the commentary following Canada's recent Middle East debacles, the failure to secure a UN Security Council seat and our military getting kicked out of the United Arab Emirates, commentators and politicians have failed to find the causes. It is not just our policies and actions that arouse enmity, but also official government statements, especially those of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Now, with demonstrations spreading through Arab capitols, we should take closer cognizance of the Middle East view of Canada. Make no mistake, Canada’s position is known on the Arab street, and it matters.

Working in Jordan in 2002, before the latest Gulf War, through 2006, I had a chance to hear and feel the changing attitude of Jordanians towards Canada. From what I read in the newspapers, Jordanians’ view of Canada is representative of the Gulf States generally. In 2002, on the street, seeing my Canadian flag bag tag, people called out a friendly “Hey Canadi!” I learned enough Arabic to introduce myself and always added, “...from Canada.” This never failed to start a conversation.
I was close enough to the seat of power to have a UN security badge that identified me as a representative of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. I regularly met with government Ministers, and among my close colleagues was a member of the royal family. In 2002, wherever I went, whether in the boardrooms of Amman, the souks of date-palm shaded villages, or sitting on colourful carpets in Bedouins’ goathair tents far out on the desert, they asked me the same thing: “Will America attack us?”
America, of course, had already attacked Afghanistan, and in 2002 was sabre-rattling against Iraq. “Us” meant Arabs; Muslims. Jordan’s monarch is a Hashemite, as was the former King Faisal of Iraq. The countries’ Bedouin tribes are blood relatives, their history is intertwined, and their ruling elites are Sunni Muslims. Canada was well-known, even to the tea-boys and street vendors, as a country of peace, a counter-point to our aggressive neighbour, America.

In 2002, I lived in a hotel a long mile from our office. I enjoyed the walk, picking up some fruit, dates and nuts for lunch each day on the way to work, and falafels or a shwarma on the way back in the evening, stopping along the way to look at wares in the shops and chat with the police who guarded every villa and government office. That fall, the terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi was indicted for the murder of an American diplomat in Amman, but I felt safe: I’m Canadian.

Sadly, our reputation had changed for the worse by 2003 and has gone downhill ever since. The first big drop from grace was when we sent troops to Afghanistan, prompting Osama bin Laden to put Canada on the list of countries, the citizens of which should be killed in the name of God. Bin Laden’s enmity with America-supported Gulf State dictators resonates with mainstream Arabs, even though most decry his methods and abhor violence. In 2002, my environmental work took me and my Jordani colleagues—ecologists—all over Jordan, right up to the Syrian, Iraqi, Saudi, and Israeli borders. We drove out alone in a rented 4x4, wherever and whenever we wanted. In 2003, with the Iraq war raging, we never went anywhere without armed guards that, outside of Amman, consisted of two soldiers in a pickup truck with a .50 calibre machine gun in the back. We needed permits and an itinerary approved by two Ministries, who sent an advance emissary to all the Bedouin tribes saying that the strangers were not to be molested. We stopped at each military command posts to have a de rigueur tea with the commandant to explain our scientific mission, even though he had been briefed.

By 2006, when my wife and I had an apartment in Amman, our personal feeling of safety and camaraderie with the locals had largely vanished. We felt eyes staring at us. No one called out “Hey Canadi” in the souks. Being Canadian was no longer a plus.

In August 2005, terrorists had fired a rocket at a US warship in Jordan’s Gulf of Aqaba, missed their target, and hit a ferry, killing one Jordanian. In November, bombs simultaneously ripped through three hotels frequented by foreigners, killing 57. My wife and I daily walked to work and back—our client, a high-level Crown agency Director, repeatedly urged us to take a taxi—past a court house where the trial of the alleged hotel bombers was taking place. The lawyers and others who were chatting outside the building seemed to scowl at us: foreigners, Canadian, American, all the same. The big change, even from 2003 had, I believe, a lot to do with Stephen Harper’s continual pro-Israeli/anti-Palestinian statements, first as Leader of the Opposition, and from early 2006 on, as Prime Minister.

These comments are noticed in the Arab world. We read about them in the Jordanian Times newspaper, and heard them on BBC, Al-Jazeera and Al-Arribiya television news. They don’t make us any friends. They reveal our government as biased against Arabs and Muslims, and our leader as being not well informed on the background and history of the region.

It therefore came as a surprise to me last summer to read that Canada would dare to seek a seat on the UN Security Council, which Gulf States and their allies would surely, and did, defeat. The United Arab Emirates’ expulsion of Canada’s air base, used in the war against Afghanistan, although it caught our bureaucrats and politicians by surprise, was a logical consequence of Canada’s continual acerbic comments about issues important to Arabs. Nor have we learned: just yesterday (January 27), www.thestar.com reported that “The United Arab Emirates’ top diplomat says he’s been ‘insulted’ by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s war of words aimed at his country”.

Demonstrations are spreading through Arab capitols. Even in the Amman neighbourhood where my wife and I once strolled and bought pastries from friendly vendors, 3,000 marched today changing “We want change.” This is a critical time for the region, and it matters what our leaders say. Canada should follow the advice of Walt Disney’s cartoon rabbit Thumper: “If you can’t say somethin’ nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”