Montreal dance ticket pricing ruled discriminatory

However much you might believe that there is rampant anti-Black discrimination thoughout Canadian society, it's still hard to get on board with a Montreal community centre's BIPOC ticket pricing for its Shake La Cabane family dance night event.

The event was advertised as $25.83 general admission or $15.18 for anyone "Black, Indigenous or People of Colour". The event's organizers justified it as a "micro-reparation" for a discriminated population, "in the name of solidarity, not charity", and mentioned a couple of examples in the USA as precedent.

But they were forced to backtrack and cancel the event after a public outcry and the attentions of various Quebec politicians. Oh, and an opinion from the Quebec Human Rights Commission that such a policy violated the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, specifically Section 10, which calls for the "full and equal recognition and exercise of [a person's] human rights and freedoms, without distinction, exclusion or preference based on race".

I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time.

How do we deal with Syria now?

In the aftermath of the whirlwind collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, there are lots of unanswered, and possibly unanswerable, questions, at least until the dust settles a bit more.

One thing that is happening is that some countries, including the UK, France, Germany and several other European countries, are immediately suspending asylum applications from Syria. (Canada has made no such moves.) Why the rush? Why the precipitate reaction, within hours of the regime's fall?

A steady stream of Syrians have been fleeing the country for years now. But the main reason for the asylum claims has been that they are fleeing the murderous Assad regime, and that of course no longer applies, so the argument goes. Indeed, some Syrian refugees in the diaspora may be looking to return to Syria. In addition, any Syrian refugees leaving now may well be members of the failed Assad regime itself, something I admit I hadn't thought about.

The other major issue that is still very much up in the air is how to deal with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main architects of the uprising, and presumably the likely mainstay of any new government for the country. Problem is, HTS is a proscribed terrorist organization according to the US, UK, EU and Canada, so this makes diplomatic and political dealings verboten.

In their defence, HTS did break with Islamic State as long ago as 2016, and they have tried to tread a more moderate path since then. Several countries are already looking into de-proscribing HTS in a hurry, although it's a bit embarrassing that they would only seek this move now, when push has come to shove.

As for some of the other Islamist organizations involved in the putsch, some of whom are at least as suspect from a diplomatic point of view, I guess each will be considered according to their merits in good time. 

But no-one saw this coming, and reactions to it will not be swift, and will necessarily be cautious.

Another senseless mass killing in Haiti

Witchcraft is alive and well and living in Haiti. Or at least that's what a local warlord believes.

A lot of bad stuff happens in benighted Haiti, but this is among the worst. Monel Felix, better known as Mikano, a gang leader from Wharf Jérémie in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, called in a voodoo priest when his son mysteriously sickened and died, and the priest blamed the boy's death on some elderly locals practising witchcraft. Leaving nothing to chance, Mikano ordered the old folks rounded up and shot or stabbed to death. At least 110 deaths have been confirmed, and maybe as many as 184 according to some sources. The mutilated bodies were burned in the streets.

Spiralling gang violence in Haiti has resulted in at least 5,000 deaths so far this year, but this adds a whole new horrific twist to the situation. The boy probably died due to the disease-ridden unsanitary conditions in Haiti since order broke down last year, but Mikano chose to believe a voodoo priest instead. And his henchmen chose to carry out his mad orders. What a place!

Republican attitudes to their electoral system entirely dependent on who wins

It's hardly news - and hardly unexpected - but recent polls of American Republicans' attitudes toward their electoral system have miraculously completely changed.

In 2020, just 21% of Republicans believed that the elections were well run and administered. In 2024, that percentage has shot up to 93%! 

So, what changed? Well, nothing really. The US electoral system, janky as it has always been, has not been changed. The only thing that changed is that, in 2020 the Republicans lost, and in 2024 they won. 

The attitude change was influenced - nay, directed - by Donald Trump, of course, who spent most of 2024 spreading baseless claims about election cheating in preparation for a possible loss. When it turns out that he won, the claims, no longer needed, suddenly disappeared. It's almost enough to make you cynical...

Meanwhile, Democratic voters did see the electoral system as slightly less reliable in 2024 than in 2016 or 2020, showing that they are not completely immune to the same kind of sollipsistic magical thinking (it's known as the "winners effect"). But it only went down from 96% to 84%, proving that many more Democrats than Republicans live in the real world.

The anti-woke backlash takes control

An article in the Globe and Mail succinctly summarizes the pressures on big businesses to cave in to the anti-woke sentiments that are in the ascendancy in the USA.

There are anti-woke campaigners and influencers out there diligently and assiduously working to persuade American companies that ESG (environmental, social and governance) and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies are anti-business and, hell, anti-American. Several Conservative states have also been pushing hard in this respect, and with Donald Trump taking the helm at the federal level, you just know that there will be even more pressure on companies to abandon any progressive developments they may have been experimenting with.

Once such American conservative influencer is Robby Starbuck (presumably not his real name), who boasts that his campaigns have been instrumental in causing companies like Deere & Co, Harley Davidson Inc, Molson-Coors Beverage Co and Walmart Inc to pull back from DEI policies (changing their hiring practices, pulling out of relationships with equity groups, cutting funding for pride parades, etc). 

Starbuck reckons that he has persuaded companies worth over $2 trillion to change their policies away from DEI and ESG, leading to "better workplace environments as a result". Here is his shtick: "Companies can clearly see the America wants normalcy back. The era of wokeness is dying right in front of our eyes ... We are now the trend not the anomaly." *Sigh*

The article does point out that, thus far at least, Canada has NOT been following this disturbing trend. Indeed, the Globe and Mail's Board Games corporate ranking shows that Canadian companies have make significant strides in ESG and DEI in the last couple of years. But, already, some Canadian companies are making changes in their US operations to accommodate the changing climate there.

And, of course, when America sneezes, Canada catches a cold (or worse). With anti-woke campaigners and legislators already hard at work in conservative provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan, you can see the tide turning and the backlash beginning here too. If and when Pierre Poilievre gets elected (more of a "when"), it will take off in earnest. Years of effort and painfully slow progress down the drain in the blink of an eye.

Politics in Namibia (really!)

We are currently travelling around the deserts and savannas of Namibia, and it so happens that there will be a general election while we are here.

Now, you'd be forgiven for knowing nothing about Namibian politics. It's a small country of 3 million people (well, actually a BIG country of 3 million people), and there's not much that happens here that impacts the larger world. In fact, for an African country, it has been remarkably stable and democratic since it gained independence from South Africa in 1990, and rarely makes news for anything.

The country has been ruled by SWAPO, the political party of the South West Africa People's Organization that led Namibia to independence back in the late 1980s. And, much like the ANC in South Africa, it is starting to get a bit stale and corrupt. 

When outgoing President Hage Geingob died of cancer in February of this year, his vice-president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah became SWAPO's presidential candidate. She is very much an old-school establishment candidate (she was a member of the SWAPO Central Committee back in the 1970s and 1980s), and she is still considered the front runner in the upcoming election.

But change is in the air. A relatively new party, going under the rather awkward moniker Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), is making inroads into SWAPO's traditional fiefdom. They made a good showing in the 2020 local elections, and party founder Panduleni Itula (ex-dentist and lawyer) finished in second place in the 2019 presidential elections. He is expected to do even better this year, and, judging by the posters we are seeing on the streets, that looks more than likely.

UPDATE

Well, so much for that. SWAPO candidate Ms. Nandi-Ndaitwah won handily, despite a palpable groundswell of public opinion in favour of change. 

Apparently, SWAPO (which also won a majority in the National Assembly) retained its strength in rural areas and among older voters who remember SWAPO's role in the independence struggle. 

In the end it wasn't even close, with SWAPO polling 57% in the presidential race and the second place IPC just 26%, although Itula and IPC are vowing that they will not accept the result because of rhe "deeply flawed" electoral process, marred by technical difficulties, ballot paper shortages, and delayed and extended voting in some areas. Don't hold your breath, though. 

Taliban continues to erase Afghan women

The Taliban in Afghanistan are starting to jump the shark with a series of new proclamations that are pretty hard to take seriously (unless of course you are Afghan, particularly an Afghan woman).

Already banned from showing flesh of any kind, looking at men they are not related to, and singing, reciting and reading aloud in public, a new Taliban edict has now come down disallowing women from being heard at all, even by other women. So, they cannot sing or play music, they cannot hold down a job of any kind, they cannot hold conversations with one another, they cannot even pray or recite Quranic verses:."Even when an adult female prays and another female passes by, she must not pray loudly enough for them to hear". 

Because? Well, female voices are potential instruments oftemptation and vice, don't you know? 

At the risk of incurring punishments that include beatings, detentions, torture, rape and even death, Aghan women are gradually being completely erased.

For what it's worth, men are now obliged to cover their bodies from their navel to their knees when they are outside their home, so no more of that naked shopping, guys! The Taliban's laws are becoming increasingly restrictive and bizarre, some of them worthy of a Monty Python sketch were they not so distressing and sad.

UPDATE

It gets worse! The Taliban has now banned windows that look onto areas where women MIGHT be seen inside their homes. A government spokesman explained: "Seeing women working in kitchens, in courtyards, or collecting water from wells can lead to obscene acts". He didn't elaborate on what kinds of obscene acts such a sighting of a working female might lead to, which is rather disappointing. I'm not sure even Monty Python could have thought up some of this stuff.

Buyers' remorse in Dearborn, Michigan

Arab-Americans, such as those in the  Arab-majority city of Dearborn, Michigan, made quite a song and dance about how they where going to "punish" Kamal Harris amd the Democrats for not being loud enough in their support for the beleaguered Arabs of the Middle East. I have already commented on how silly and short-sighted this was.

After the election, there is probably a lot of buyers' remorse in Dearborn (not that their votes either way would actually have swung the result, of course). The city voted 42% for Trump, 36% for Harris and 18% for Green Party candidate Jill Stein (which, as a vote against Harris, effectively counts as a vote for Trump). American Muslim voters in general voted 53% for Stein, 21% for Trump and 20% for Harris.

Well, I hope they are pleased with themselves. They have helped elect a Muslim-hating, ultra-pro-Israel President and Congress. Some of them will get deported. As one Muslim commentator put it, having seen some of Trump's pro-Israel cabinet nominations, "it does looked like our community has been played". You don't say! But the important thing is that they really showed those Democrats, eh?