THE PRIME MINISTER'S CHILDREN
It has been observed by those who look for these kinds of portents that the recent killings of soldiers, deemed as “terror” acts, serve well the agenda of our prime minister. Patriotism and opposing “bad guys” have easy appeal across demographics. For a prime minister who has made his political career cutting taxes, invoking law and order, and being stingy even with our brave war veterans, this is a natural occasion to ramp up the anti-terrorist rhetoric and match it with draconian new surveillance initiatives and infringements on our civil liberties.
Lacking any taste for social policy initiatives that might help distraught young men like the soldier shooters a couple of weeks ago and the Mountie shooter of earlier this year, there is a general expectation that Prime Minister Harper is going to come down hard with tough new legislation of some kind. Having a majority in Parliament, he can do this as he has proven numerous times before.
If the prime minister does as expected however, he will miss out on a great leadership opportunity. This could be an opportunity for genuine creativity, the kind of creative engagement demonstrated by the family of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent when they extended their sympathy to the parents of his killer. Truer human sentiment one could hardly find anywhere.
If Harper is, in fact a prime minister of all of us, he might think of Justin Bourque, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, and Martin Couture-Rouleau as his own children for he is symbolically the father of our country. And when the young are lost or afflicted in some way, a good parent does well to examine the social environs as well as their own heart.
Bruce K. Alexander, psychologist and professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University has coined the term “psychosocial disintegration” to describe exactly the kind of social and psychological dislocation experienced and acted out in similar ways by the three young men we have read so much about in recent days. There is the weakening of family ties, the lack of social support, the drugs to try to regain a feeling of wholeness where wholeness no longer exists.
Alexander points out that as motherless corporations play an ever larger place in our daily lives and new technologies increasingly reshape our experience of communication, values, belonging, intimacy and a good deal else - old ways of doing, being, and surviving are quickly becoming outmoded. The family, our womb of social nurture for untold generations, is increasingly pushed aside by the glitz and dissociation of corporate culture, with incalculable consequences especially for our country's most fragile and vulnerable citizens.
Rather than targeting and objectifying these three lost men under the convenient rubric of “domestic terrorist,” Stephen Harper who as a young man apparently had his own issues of social disengagement - which I cannot elaborate on in detail except to say I refuse to believe anyone whose favourite band was AC-DC (“Highway to Hell,” etc.) is as well-adjusted as they might like others to believe - might try hard to identify the larger societal issues underlying their profound and violent malaise. As prime minister, he would be ideally situated to call together a round table including Dr. Alexander and the best and brightest minds in social sciences, law and medicine, to attempt to craft for all of us a more humane and holistic tomorrow.
It is much easier to cut taxes and serve the interests of business than to attempt to create a thoughtful blueprint for the future for Canada's citizens, bearing in mind their greatest needs and vulnerabilities. In the short term, it is going to cost money. But to merely snoop and impugn and imprison with ever greater vigour will, I fear, set us on vicious track of increasing violence and alienation, an endless war where one day the government itself will emerge the most ruthless agent of terror. 02.11.2014
Lacking any taste for social policy initiatives that might help distraught young men like the soldier shooters a couple of weeks ago and the Mountie shooter of earlier this year, there is a general expectation that Prime Minister Harper is going to come down hard with tough new legislation of some kind. Having a majority in Parliament, he can do this as he has proven numerous times before.
If the prime minister does as expected however, he will miss out on a great leadership opportunity. This could be an opportunity for genuine creativity, the kind of creative engagement demonstrated by the family of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent when they extended their sympathy to the parents of his killer. Truer human sentiment one could hardly find anywhere.
If Harper is, in fact a prime minister of all of us, he might think of Justin Bourque, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, and Martin Couture-Rouleau as his own children for he is symbolically the father of our country. And when the young are lost or afflicted in some way, a good parent does well to examine the social environs as well as their own heart.
Bruce K. Alexander, psychologist and professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University has coined the term “psychosocial disintegration” to describe exactly the kind of social and psychological dislocation experienced and acted out in similar ways by the three young men we have read so much about in recent days. There is the weakening of family ties, the lack of social support, the drugs to try to regain a feeling of wholeness where wholeness no longer exists.
Alexander points out that as motherless corporations play an ever larger place in our daily lives and new technologies increasingly reshape our experience of communication, values, belonging, intimacy and a good deal else - old ways of doing, being, and surviving are quickly becoming outmoded. The family, our womb of social nurture for untold generations, is increasingly pushed aside by the glitz and dissociation of corporate culture, with incalculable consequences especially for our country's most fragile and vulnerable citizens.
Rather than targeting and objectifying these three lost men under the convenient rubric of “domestic terrorist,” Stephen Harper who as a young man apparently had his own issues of social disengagement - which I cannot elaborate on in detail except to say I refuse to believe anyone whose favourite band was AC-DC (“Highway to Hell,” etc.) is as well-adjusted as they might like others to believe - might try hard to identify the larger societal issues underlying their profound and violent malaise. As prime minister, he would be ideally situated to call together a round table including Dr. Alexander and the best and brightest minds in social sciences, law and medicine, to attempt to craft for all of us a more humane and holistic tomorrow.
It is much easier to cut taxes and serve the interests of business than to attempt to create a thoughtful blueprint for the future for Canada's citizens, bearing in mind their greatest needs and vulnerabilities. In the short term, it is going to cost money. But to merely snoop and impugn and imprison with ever greater vigour will, I fear, set us on vicious track of increasing violence and alienation, an endless war where one day the government itself will emerge the most ruthless agent of terror. 02.11.2014
