Published by: World Tibet Network News Saturday, November 29, 1997

28 November 1997

SUSAN RILEY, Columnists

We deeply value freedom of expression in this country, as long as no one is rude.

What constitutes rudeness? Some gowned academics deliberately walk out of a Toronto ceremony honouring former U.S. President George Bush last week. That, editorials tell us, was rude. Protesters heckle the foreign leaders gathered in Vancouver for this week's Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation summit, reminding the world that some of our honoured guests are murderers and tyrants. Very rude. In Calgary, pro-Tibet activists and postal workers turn their backs as Chinese president Jiang Zemin's 21-car motorcade and its police escort speeds along a downtown street. Inhospitable, in the extreme.

All these protests do is embarrass our prime minister, who, like all Canadian prime ministers -- even Pierre Trudeau, who once apologized to a visiting Ronald Reagan for acid rain protests on Parliament Hill -- is pathologically afraid of offending any foreign guest, however infamous. Leaving aside arguments that trading with despotic regimes is one way to foster democratic reforms, the deference that has always marked our foreign policy, and is still part of our national character, was strikingly obvious this week.

We are a democracy so, notionally, we believe people have a right to express their views by any means short of violence. But, as police and official reaction to the demonstrations that have dogged visiting President Jiang prove, you can easily carry free speech too far in Canada. (In a Citizen photo caption, we said that protesters "marred" the Chinese leader's visit, presumably by decrying, among other things, the murder of more than 1,000 unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989.)

We get confused about who the enemy is; we sympathize with our foreign trading partners, with their neat suits and small wives, and are eager to overlook the most horrendous human rights violations. We are more comfortable condemning the idealistic students, professional trouble-makers and ordinary citizens who gather on the other side of the police barricades to make their dissent known, to exercise freedom of expression.

On the TV news, we watch yellow-coated police officers douse Vancouver demonstrators with pepper spray. Inside a posh hall nearby, Prime Minister Chretien raises a laugh when asked about the incident: "For me, pepper is what I put on my plate," says the prime minister, no stranger to shoving matches himself.

The remark is tantamount to the raised finger Pierre Trudeau waved all those years ago at protesters in British Columbia. It marginalizes dissenters, reassures Chretien's new golfing buddies and, some might say, betrays Canadian values. What it really betrays is hypocrisy in Canadian foreign policy: popular uprisings, spontaneous democratic outbursts, orderly street demonstrations are fine, as long as they happen in some other country.

To be sure, street demos are often an awkward way of expressing dissent. They are rarely spontaneous; most Canadians are too diffident to work up a convincing rage and resort to chanting limp slogans imported from the United States. And these events invariably attract freelance extremists spoiling for confrontation. But they remain a legitimate avenue of protest when all else fails, and, as recent rallies in support of striking Ontario teachers prove, they can raise morale if not change policy.

At the same time, police should not be accused of overreacting every time a protest gets out of hand. Some forces have learned to handle political demonstrations with sophistication and tact, rather than with the dumb violence of earlier years. According to news reports, the Vancouver police treated the largely peaceful anti-APEC demonstrations with restraint and even provided water to protesters who were hit with pepper spray.

Ultimately, the problem doesn't rest with police or with demonstrators but with our political leaders, with Chretien himself, whose aide yanked press credentials from a reporter when she dared ask a question of some foreign dignitary at a Vancouver photo op. When the prime minister dragged his pal Bill Clinton out to golf despite a cold rain, it was hard not to recall Brian Mulroney's desperate, almost craven, eagerness to please any passing American president.

When it comes to our dealings with the world, with countries that are admittedly larger and richer than we are, there is a fine line between discretion, intelligent self-interest and necessary guile -- the posture we should adopt --and the complete surrender of principle on display at the APEC summit. But then it would be rude to say so.