Actualité - Opposition à une conférence de Michael Ignatieff à Ottawa

Franc-Parler publie, à titre d'information, des extraits d'un article sur l'un des prétendants à la succession de Paul Martin à la tête du Parti libéral du Canada, Michael Ignatieff. Cet article provient du site web du Parti marxiste-léniniste du Canada. Ignatieff est un partisan de l'impérialisme et de la réaction la plus débridé. Il fait parti d'une élite intellectuelle vendue au néo-libéralisme et à l'annexion du Canada aux États-Unis. Le 30 mars, il prononçait une conférence à l'Université d'Ottawa où des militants anti-guerre ont dénoncé l'appui d'Igantieff à la torture et à l'invasion de l'Irak.

Role of the Party Machine in Canada's System of Government: The Example of Etobicoke--Lakeshore

Nowhere is the problem facing the Canadian people of the corrupt party system of government more glaring that in the Ontario riding of Etobicoke--Lakeshore. Since the current election campaign began, the electors in the riding have found themselves up against the Liberal Party machine and its star candidate Michael Ignatieff.

Erstwhile Canadian Mr. Ignatieff has returned home after 30 years abroad mostly in the U.S., to lead the U.S. annexation movement from within the Liberal Party and it was hoped from within the party in power's federal cabinet and as contender to succeed Paul Martin as Liberal leader.

U.S. empire-building requires trained political leaders in annexed territories to subvert local governments and seize control. Customarily the U.S. infiltrates or promotes elite cadres inside a target country, people educated in U.S. universities or sympathetic to it, and provides them and their political organizations resources and international propaganda to promote policies and political mechanisms that favour U.S. annexation. Various U.S. government or non-governmental organizations masquerading as supporters of democracy, human rights, free trade, the market economy or any number of issues funnel resources into the target country to advance the cause of the U.S. trained and sympathetic cadres and their organizations. When necessary, the infiltration is buttressed with military intervention comprising a full-scale invasion as in Iraq and Afghanistan or Special Forces that carry out coups d'etat and forcible removal of the existing leadership as in Haiti or engage in special operations to destabilize a government. The current U.S. puppet president of Afghanistan is a typical example of a trained U.S. cadre. The U.S. puppet government of Iraq is likewise full of them.

Canada is no exception and the parties which form the Canadian government are an important instrument in the unrelenting U.S. campaign to annex all of North America.

Ignatieff's credentials as a trained and dedicated U.S. cadre have been proven in practice over three decades and recently through his loyal public support of President George W. Bush's "war on terror" at home and abroad and specifically the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. He also argues for Canadian participation in the U.S. missile defence system.

Ignatieff is a leading exponent of U.S. pragmatism in politics and military matters. Along with the current U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, he has been active in the official U.S. campaign to legitimize the empire's use of torture for interrogation and revenge. From his position as a Harvard University professor of human rights and head of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Ignatieff argues passionately that "torture works" and its use should become routine albeit "regulated."

Ignatieff is a consistent spokesperson for U.S. pragmatism but he is not the only one. Not one "major" political party has broken the mould of the pragmatic ethos. In the course of the fight against a great evil, Ignatieff suggests, a lesser evil is not only acceptable but necessary. The end justifies the means. Whatever works in the fight against the evildoers is good. All matters are judged by outcome. Ultimately every action is determined to be good or bad on the basis of whether it succeeds or not. Principles should play no role in the fight against the evil enemy. This requires a rejection of what Ignatieff calls the "absolutist moral perfectionist human rights stand" on torture or anything for that matter. According to Ignatieff, if torture is being administered by a "non-sadistic" and "patriotic American" and becomes the object of a legal challenge then the torturer should be allowed the legal defence of "mitigation." No great empire should be constrained by "principles" or international law that outlaws torture without qualification. "I can see us (United States) doing it (torture)," he wrote, suggesting however that the word torture has a bad ring to it and should be called something less dramatic. He suggests "coercive interrogation" would be a suitable euphemism, which goes well alongside "collateral damage" to describe civilian massacres.

U.S. pragmatism provides theoretical support for empire-building and militarism free from any "absolutist moral perfectionist human rights stand" and strengthens U.S. resolve to ignore any restrictions of international law regarding behaviour towards "suspected terrorists," other evildoers or in the words of George W. Bush, anyone who does not stand with us in the war on terror.

Ignatieff is also a faithful servant of the politics of empire-building and a staunch opponent of the right of peoples to their national sovereignty and their most basic right to be. This stems in part from his allegiance and boastful attraction to his national heritage as a Great Russian chauvinist and aristocrat and his undying revanchism and hatred of the revolutionary peasants and workers led by the communists for the armed overthrow of the Russian aristocracy in 1917. He never tires reminding his audience that his inherited paternal bloodline is the Russian aristocracy, which was forcibly removed from power and relieved of its landed holdings by the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917. Prior to the revolution, his grandfather Count Paul Ignatieff was the Minister of Education in the Tsarist Russian dictatorship of Nicholas II, the last crowned Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland (Ukraine was a subject nation within the empire). Ignatieff's grandmother was Princess Natasha Mestchersky. His great-grandfather Count Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev was the Russian Minister of the Interior under Tsar Alexander III, and responsible for legalizing and brutally enforcing the infamous "May Laws" that banned Jews from all rural areas and towns of less than 10,000 people and strengthened the segregation of Jews in the Pale of Settlement (area enclosed by a boundary) and increased the incidence of violent anti-Jewish pogroms.

The present-day Ignatieff's hatred of the right of a people to be and to live in their own way with their own consciousness of their intellectual and material heritage is expressed with particular venom against Ukrainians, presumably because the Ukrainian people still pose a threat to Great Russian chauvinism. In his 1993 book Blood and Belonging, Ignatieff wrote: "My difficulty in taking Ukraine seriously goes deeper than just my cosmopolitan suspicion of nationalists everywhere. Somewhere inside I'm also what Ukrainians would call a great Russian and there is just a trace of old Russian disdain for these little Russians." And elsewhere in his vulgar diatribe: "To be honest, I'm having trouble (taking Ukraine seriously). Ukrainian independence conjures up images of peasant embroidered shirts, the nasal whine of ethnic instruments, phoney Cossacks in cloaks and boots....

"The great empire chauvinism that appears to be part of Ignatieff's soul is in direct contradiction with Canada's struggle to be in its own right in the face of U.S. annexationism, the Quebec people's right to national self-determination up to and including independence if they so decide, the sovereign rights of the First Nations' peoples and the aspirations of all the nationalities that make up modern Canada for a genuine modern nation-building project built by all.

After 30 years abroad, Ignatieff has been parachuted into the Etobicoke--Lakeshore riding in Toronto and crowned the Liberal Party candidate over the objections of the local riding association and many disgruntled members. The national president of the Liberal Party, Michael Eizenga, chaired the nomination meeting to ensure local people had no say. Michael Crawley, president of the Liberal Party of Canada (Ontario), who was also in attendance declared the party correctly followed all its own procedures in acclaiming Ignatieff as its candidate and not allowing any other members to contest the nomination. A large noisy crowd waving placards and banners loudly disagreed with that assessment and wanted to present their own choices. The chair overruled them and declared they were out of order.

The situation within the Liberal Party is symptomatic of most institutions in Canada. A ruling elite subverts the active participation in decision-making of those individuals outside the elite and denies them a say in the affairs of the institution. The people generally are blocked from playing any substantive role in Canadian political, economic, social and cultural institutions of any kind. A tightly knit highly centralized group directs and controls all activity of most institutions in opposition to the active participation and direction of those individuals who are not part of the ruling elite.

The coronation of a U.S. annexationist candidate in what was presumably seen to be a "safe" Liberal riding also raises the issue of how candidates in Canadian elections are selected and how they are then promoted and presented to the polity of the riding and nationally. Again, the people are excluded from choosing the candidates who stand for election. The choosing of candidates by privileged political party machines subverts the democratic process. Money is funnelled to these parties which then promote their candidates as the only legitimate candidates and the mass media dutifully take up the refrain of a battle among the "candidates from the main political parties.

"Unless the people and their mass organizations are given the main role in selecting candidates then the election cannot be seen as legitimate. Unless all candidates are given equal opportunity to present their views and qualifications then the election cannot be seen as legitimate. The Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada thinks the government itself should fund all aspects of the electoral process including the most important process of choosing candidates who are nominated by people because they are recognised as leaders at their workplaces, educational institutions, neighbourhoods and seniors' homes. The government should also be responsible for funding an information project to inform all members of the polity of the views and qualifications of all the candidates who have been chosen by the people. A mass media worthy of the name would inform the polity of each and every candidate uniformly and equally without prejudice or bias. Otherwise, the electoral process cannot be seen as legitimate and is viewed as a sham dominated by a tiny minority of wealthy insiders who are merely seeking champions for a secret agenda.

The role of political parties in Canadian life is extremely important in providing a particular vision for the country and mobilizing the people to participate in politics. Today, however, the big parties and the parties which merely mimic electoral machines are corrupted. The aim to dominate government and the democratic electoral process using their access to resources to crush opponents and block the people from participating directly in governing and all aspects of public policy and decision-making is narrow and wrecks coherence of any kind.

As it stands in Toronto, the coronation of Ignatieff, first as U.S. annexationist candidate for the Liberal Party in Etobicoke--Lakeshore and secondly as member of the House of Commons, can only be seen as an attack on democracy and the right of Canadians to choose their own candidates and the right of Canadians to a legitimate democratic election. The promotion of the U.S. annexationist Ignatieff is an affront to Canadians and their striving for a real democracy and their desire to resist U.S. domination.

(Parti marxiste-léniniste du Canada)