Merry Christmas, Mr. Harper!
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Just for the record: Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada, doesn’t know me. And I don’t know him personally, either. The reason I am writing this post is because I watched his TV interview last night on CTV and I read this morning about his Christmas card in the Winnipeg Free Press. You might not like him or his party but you have to admit - he stands up for what he believes in.
There was a section of the interview about the Middle East. According to the transcript:
Harper said he’s prepared to help Palestinians through channels like non-governmental organizations [... and] “But I think all of the civilized world is agreed — and it’s not just Canada — we can’t deal with organizations whose principle and only objective is the eradication of the other side.”
Now I have been on both ends of humanitarian aid. First, while living under a Communist dictatorship we got food and medicine to be able to survive and, information. Yes, information, like books, magazine - to keep our sanity. I can’t be grateful enough for all that was done for us by unknown people and organizations. Everything was brought (read: smuggled) and distributed to individuals, churches, nothing through the government. Reminder: for me, a dictatorship is just that, regardless of its colour: be it on the left or right or established by religious fanatics!
Later on, when it became possible, I went to work with NGOs in war-torn countries like Bosnia and Chechnya. We also distributed our aid directly to the persons and families in need, avoiding governmental involvement, if possible. Once in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, a government official tried to “convince” me - with several armed soldiers in his escort - to store the four trucks of food in their “safe” storehouse instead of taking directly to the four districts of the city for distribution. Luckily, my helpers and armed bodyguards surrounded me and one of them whispered: Don’t let him do it! We’ll protect you… Fortunately, they gave up and we succeeded to do our job as it has been planned. My point is: Keep helping the people, not armed terrorists and the image of Canada will be something that we can be proud of it… unlike the wishy-washy “honest broker”.
The second episode, the article in today’s newspaper telling about the “Merry Christmas” line on the prime minister’s greeting card is also heartwarming. The politically correct frenzy of the liberal ruling era wanted us to forget that is not a “general” holiday or a non-defined winter-non-working-days season but Christmas. (Just as a footnote: did you know that the bolsheviks in the former Soviet Union also tried to eradicate the Christmas: the Christmas tree became a “winter tree” and it was set up on the New Year’s Eve instead of December 24; all the religious elements have been removed and even forbidden to mention publicly; the presents were brought not by any kind of “santa” but a lookalike called Ded Moroz… and so on.)
This prime minister dared to put on his card the words Merry Christmas - at Christmas. It is sad that one needs courage and bravery to do it if in a public office, nevertheless I am happy that our PM did it.
So, once again: Merry Christmas Mr. Harper and Merry Christmas to all of you reading this!
You are right, distributing humanitarian aid can be a tricky and even dangerous activity. And the official, government channels are mostly to be avoided - if possible. Sometimes you have to negotiate and even make some concessions. We did this in the Ukraine after a flood back in 1995: the Hungarian government asked the Hungarian Maltese Charity Service to ditributing the aids. The Ukranian Government wanted to take over everything. After tough negotiations we gave them the medicine but even that not dirtectly but via Central Hospital in Munkachevo. The rest we distributed through the Franciscan monks, through orthodox priests and local school directors.
Resisting armed pressure is not an easy job, either:-) In Bosnia I had no bodyguards to protect me, so I had to give one part of the aid to the side it was not destined to go to. How big or small this share should be, is again a matter to be negotiated and I conceded less than the average and far less than the big NGOs.
So I think that your government - like any other government - should take a very careful look at which NGOs they work with and the NGOs should take a very close look at whom they send out to do the field work. And train those people properly.
I am glad others came to the same conclusions after similar experiences. (I didn’t have bodyguards in Bosnia, either :)