The present hostilities in Lebanon are the latest boil in the infection of authoritarianism that plagues the world right now.
It’s easy to blame the leaders, but part of the responsibility comes from the grassroots: here in Canada and everywhere else. Everybody wants to have their cake and eat it, too, and there are plenty of people who know how to use our own greed and selfishness against us.
Lebanese-Canadians
Canada has hyphenated-Canadians in every country in the world. They are the result of people taking advantage of Canada’s need for workers and liberal attitudes. Once they are here, however, they can’t be expected to sever all ties with their home country: their families, friends, and businesses.
And this is where it gets problematic. There are around 45,000 people who managed to gain Canadian citizenship but live in Lebanon. Then, when things fall apart, a whole lot of them want to “return” to Canada, as they have the right to do. Commentators mention over and over how difficult it is for them to leave their families and friends and jobs. In other words, they may have a Canadian passport as an escape route, but they vote with their feet. They’re still Lebanese.
According to one pundit, the last time the Canadian military “rescued” thousands of Canadians from Lebanon, as many as 80% of them went “home” when the trouble subsided.
The Middle East
In general, chances for peace look slim. Many of the citizens of the area are so immersed in their trauma that they find it impossible to feel anything but their own pain. The chances of them reaching out to the opposing side are slim. Enter Benjamin Netanyahu, who is quite happy to make everything worse in order to keep his own power. When a madman is holding the reins, it is easy to see what will happen next. He is just winding up the decimation of Gaza, and has now targeted Lebanon, with complete disregard for collateral damage. Not satisfied with that looming success, he’s now ready to try his hand at Iran.
One misstep and he could plunge the whole area into war. But he’s counting on his support from America to prevent that. And why? So the Israelis can wipe out the recent owners of their land and live there happily themselves without paying the price in social and political cooperation. What started out as an exercise in atonement for wrongs done is starting to look like greed and selfishness,
Canadian Canadians
And let’s not pick on our Lebanese and Israeli friends. Normal old Canadians are moseying along merrily through our own back yard, because being Canadian insulates us from the reality of the world.
This has implications for our political situation. Nobody can be held directly responsible for inflation, housing shortages and global warming. But circumstances have dictated that there is a vacuum in Ottawa, and now everyone is scrambling to appeal to small, important sections of the voting public, and playing political games to throw parliament into stalemate, so nothing is getting done. And once again we have a power-seeking demagogue playing on the fears of the less fortunate in order to advance the interests of his business supporters.
The Bottom Line
This is trickle-down politics. The big cheaters like Trump and Putin support smaller offenders like Netanyahu, and then create an atmosphere where tag-alongs like Pierre Poilievre can thrive. We need to wake up and smell what surrounds us before we end up like the Romans did.
But when I said nobody was directly responsible for all of this, I ignored one crucial element in the equation. Politically, we vote for anybody who will reduce our taxes and let us do what we want. Socially, we put up with a fixed game that guarantees a small elite will get all of the advantages. Financially, we support a system designed so that all the money trickles gradually to the top, where the scum live off the work of the rest of us, and the pain is left behind to be felt by the poor at the bottom.
If you want to find the cause of all this trouble, follow the money.