Effective next week, Canada's
embassy will be closed in Iran and all Iranian diplomats has been kicked out
from the land of opportunities and the relationship between the two countries goes
to a hibernate mode. It all started with a redundant comment from Nazanin
Afshin-Jam (Wife of Minister of National Defense) regarding Iran being involved
with espionage activities against Canada through Iranian-Canadians in key
governmental/non-governmental positions in Canada which by itself was a
significant accusation ! But you wouldn't really need for an evidence as long
as a delusional country such as Iran who believes the whole world is united
against them doesn't give a damn about the aftermath of comments as such !
There are couple of issues I
can't stop thinking about:
·
Canada has had such a
neutral, honest approach in most of the conflicts in the middle east. Specially
in Afghanistan and Iraq. So what happens that all of a sudden, they turn more
aggressive in compare to their peers such as France, Germany, Japan, and even England
itself. I mean if the whole argument about "England's embassy was the
first that got occupied and we're next" thing, being considered as an honest statement (Which
I highly doubt), only shows me how poor Canada's knowledge has been about the
history of conflicts between Iran and England and the grudge Iran had held
against England since the 1953 coup in Iran when the first democratic election
in Iran was oppressed.
·
If Canada considers Iran as
a potential threat for global peace, how come they close their eyes to the
massacre Israel has raised for past decades against Palestine. I know I may
sound like Ahmadinejad now but honestly let's face it. This country was the epicenter
of turmoil and constantly in a very one-sided conflict against pretty much all
the Arab countries namely Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine
of course and sometimes hand-in-hand with Iran during the previous regime.
Everyone knew that during the 8 years war of Iran against Iraq during 1979 to
1986 that lead to near a million casualties
from both sides despite their hostile gesture against Iran, they were
constantly providing military aid to both countries! I mean I can go on and on
about numerous occasions at which Israel evidently has been violating the human
rights if that's what Canada really
cares about !
·
Canada accuses Iran for
supporting Assad's regime in Syria which I tend to believe this one is very
true. I wanted to ask what Canada has to do with this but then I thought if
cutting relations with Iran would help condensing the turmoil in the region,
then why not? But what makes me wonder is how something like that would prevent
Iran from supporting Assad's regime ? I mean one should think that which of the
two countries is actually benefiting
from each other? Thanks to my previous work experience, I learned that most of
the small-midsized companies in Canada stopped exporting their services to Iran
after 2008 because of the trade embargos. So in economical point of view, if we
disregard the near 50 million dollars that Iranians pay to Canada as part of
their immigration requirements every year (which has been a gain for Canada and
loss for Iran both in financial and resource point of view) the rest is almost
negligible. In political point of view, Canada has always been accusing Iran
for developing nuclear warfare and never seemed interested in finding a resolution
like what France, Germany, Turkey, Brazil and even US tried. In social point of
view, BBC Persian Service reported that some 150,000-180,000 highly educated
Iranians emigrate from Iran annually, or about 450 daily. Although the stats
kind of seem exaggerated but considering the fact that almost all of the
immigrants are either highly educated students, skilled workers or successful
businessmen in Iran, this shows which country is actually benefiting for that
matter.
·
So to put it in a nutshell,
when I gather all my conclusions together, I see no point in Canada's latest
aggression toward Iran. But that's not
all of the story. Because if you think about the decision's impact on
Iranian-Canadian citizens here in Canada, you would notice how absurd this
decision is from Canadian government. Fluctuations as such lead to the most
recent decision of TD Bank regarding blocking Iranian accounts in Canada! It
gets even funnier when TD Bank avoids to apologize on a very, very obvious
statement that repeats its claim and gives Iranian clients some time to provide
explanations about major transactions in their accounts which I do find
humiliating ! I don't even want to bring up the few incidents that I had for
the past year with lower-class Canadians insulting me for my race or calling me
terrorist or stuff like that.
Unfortunately what people do not see is that Canadian
government has a reputation in making decisions to put itself against its own
citizens. I can think of examples of how they treated Japanese citizens during
the world war, Chinese citizens after the head tax in 1885 and Chinese exclusion
act in 1923, and last but not least many examples about aboriginal citizens. So
is this where Canada wants to go again? Or does the Canadian government thinks
that 300'000 citizens with Iranian background and near 50'000 Iranian International
students in Canada are not yet minor enough to be seen? I do hope that the
government realizes the social impact of controversial decisions like this.
