Jason Kenney
Its estimated that at least 200,000 political prisoners are in North Korean Gulag concentration camps, some 50,000 for being Christians.
Although we've come close, I've not yet had the pleasure to chat with the Honourable Minister Kenney as of yet. What's meant to be, will be, etc.
Kenney's pretty good about getting out of the Ottawa safety zone and putting himself in the line of fire. The fact that he's so liberal about using his Twitter account is a great thing; it makes him feel more accessible to the common Canadian social media user. In fact, it was a recent tweet back-and-forth about this 2012 story about Kenney referencing "foreign gangsters" and gun violence in Toronto that led me to looking at his stream and landing on the entry posted above.
Yes, Kenney's an ambitious political animal and his public presence is designed to enhance his profile - you can't hold that against him, because that's what someone with his goals is supposed to do. But consider this - there are no votes in North Korea. The vast majority of Canadians have no idea nor in-depth interest in how bad things are there. There are a growing number of Korean-Canadians, many of whom will harbour some concerns about their kin in the Hermit State, but it'd be hard to argue this is a topic he can truly milk for political advantage.
So - out of all the topics, demographics and communications stratagems he could be dedicating his tweets to, why this?
And what does some 50,000 for being Christians have to do with foreign gangsters?
Today's crop of leading Conservatives have a habit of using "with us or against us" rhetoric; not just in terms of partisan or urban/rural divides, but in terms of who they see as real Canadians/real people and those they don't. In this world, there are people like us, there are threats, there are marks and then people who simply don't matter.
With us or with the child pornographers.
Don't fall in line with our demands? You don't get a choice, pilgrim.
And who can forget the Opposition wants to destroy our country?
Some of this is wedge-politics, certainly, designed to engage some voters, dismay others. But when you consistently push the "fear The Other" button, a pattern of underlying beliefs starts to emerge.
When Jason Kenney - or Rob Ford, for that matter - assumes that the people committing gun crimes in Toronto are foreign-born, it's for the same reason that Birthers have such trouble accepting that Barack Obama is a real American; real Americans aren't supposed to behave (or look) like that.
Yes, it's discrimination, but discrimination doesn't come out of the blue; there's a cognitive basis for stigma that serves a purpose in some cases, but leads to false assumptions in others. As with his colleague Vic Toews, the ambitious, driven and True Conservative Kenney doesn't feel the value in committing sociology; not when his gut instinct provides such clear and emotionally resonant answers.
All people are created equal, start from the same playing field and therefore, have the chance to achieve success if they pull up their bootstraps and work hard. Poverty, racism, postal-code stigma and societal nurture don't, in fact, exist - they're constructs of lazy people (or non-people) who need to either be kicked in the ass or somehow removed. When they're out, there somebody else's problem.
It's like marginalized Canadians, be they youth or "special interest" groups - they keep whining like their lot in life is someone else's problem, right? If they can't get their own act together, why should we help them? Should they get to a point where they threaten the rest of us, well, that's why we're serious about getting tough on crime.
North Korea is about as far "out" as you can get - there's zero public anywhere in the West to actively do something to stop the human tragedy that plays out there, daily. But when you hear stories from real, live human beings that humanize these atrocities, you begin to feel their pain and realize that, by doing nothing, you are complicit in their pain.
Then the cognitive dissonance sets in. If they're like us, then we have to act. Do unto others, etc. But acting is not in our best interests; it's actually better if we leave 'em dehumanized. It's very hard to remain indifferent when it's your own people being harmed.
I don't imagine this is a conscious effort, but when Kenney, the practicing Christian focuses on the Christian component of North Korea's gulags, he's actually working to convince himself that they are like him. Because part of him knows that indifference is not acceptable.
Like I always say - everyone can be reached.
Individually, we're lost, but together - there is hope for all of us.
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