The world mourns what Canada approved
The world is mourning the death of the former Supreme Leader of Iran. Across multiple days and in multiple cities, tens of millions of people have been and will be gathering to celebrate the life of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and grieve not only his passing but the manner of it in a cowardly airstrike by the United States of America.1
Delegates from more than 100 countries are attending the funeral from the 3rd to the 9th of July easily representing more than half of humanity.2 And so the question for me as a Canadian is, why is Canada not attending, why is Canada so out of step with the world.
And I think this extremely bizarre image from Western culture is a symptom of the underlying cause.3
There are so many things wrong with the Supreme leader of Iran before Ali Khamenei, Ayatollah Khomeini having anything to do with the American comic book arch villain Joker, let alone appointing him as an ambassador for the country, that it is hard to know where to begin. All that needs to be said is that it neatly showcases the hysterical level of villification of the government of Iran in America. It would be funny if it didn't have horrible real life consequences.
One of those being that I as a Shia Muslim in Canada do not feel safe mourning the death of a leader of my faith. Only a few days after the 86 year old Ali Khamenei was murdered by the United States of America in his home along with four members of his family including his three year old granddaughter Zahra. The mosque that I attend regularly was harassed by a right wing news organization calling the place where my community gathers a 'tea-o-ist' mosque and us '7th century savages'.4
This is of course also enabled by the Prime Minister of the country 'Mark Carney' saying the war on Iran was 'worth it' for no good reason.5 The demonization comes from many directions.
And so what is the reason for this deranged level of villification. It can't be because Iran is very socially conservative. Canada and the West are allied with many incredibly socially conservative countries, I grew up in one of them, Saudia Arabia, which was so conservative in the 80s and 90s that my mother and my sister were not allowed to even go outside the compound without my father. It can't be because they are an oppressive tyranny, as, again there are plenty of countries in that region that are repressive tyrranies that Canada has no problem with. Saudi Arabia is one again, and Canada had no problem attending state funerals for their King Fahd in 2005.6
The only reason that makes sense is that unlike those other countries, Iran does not go along with Western imperialist desires. That's really it.
And we as Canadians really need to grapple with the fact that we've been affected by American propaganda, and are siding with their imperialism. Until we accept that, and work to change it, our Canadian values will remain worthless.
And stop deflecting our evil as a nation onto Iran and onto my religious community.
Sources on my blog. Please check my profile for a link to a Palestinian family that I'm raising funds for, if you feel like supporting me, please check out my novel, "Under The Full and Crescent Moon", All opinions my own, in the end only God knows Best.