Paige MacPherson, Opinions Contributor
On Nov. 18th, former British politician George Galloway came to Halifax, as part of a national speaking tour. The tour was organized and/or sponsored by Halifax ‘peace groups,’ including our very own Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group (NSPIRG). It was also oddly organized and/or sponsored by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), from which members cannot opt out, and the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). He spoke in a United Church hall.
Galloway is known in Canada mostly for his recent interactions with the federal government. In 2009, Canada’s Immigration Minister warned Galloway he may not be let in the country for a speaking tour, because he broke Canadian law by giving money to an internationally-recognized terrorist organization, Hamas. A Federal Court judge later determined the warning too political, and Galloway came to Canada with ease.
Galloway has reached levels of infamy for praising Saddam Hussein, blaming Americans for 9/11, and denying both the genocide in Darfur and the massacre at Tiananmen Square.
BBC News reported that in 1994, Galloway said to Saddam Hussein, “Sir, I salute your courage.”
To the Sunday Times in New York he made clear whose fault he believes 9/11 to be: “Some believe that those aeroplanes on September 11 came out of a clear blue sky. I believe they came out of a swamp of hatred created by us.”
On Iranian Press TV, he said, “There is a conflict in Darfur, of course. It’s not genocide. It’s one of the big lies.”
Obviously, he’s a natural choice for anyone who opposes violence.
To be clear, I do not wish to challenge Galloway’s freedom of speech. I am 100% in favour of Galloway’s right to spew his hateful, factually incorrect conspiracy theories to whoever wants to pay to listen.
Rather, this is about how the organizations we support use our dollars. It is important that Canadian taxpayers andDalhousietuitionpayersknowwhere their money is going. If you pay taxes, you pay for CUPW or PSAC. If you’re a Dalhousie student who hasn’t opted out of NSPIRG, you pay for NSPIRG. In this case, that means you helped finance the organization of Galloway’s public trip to
Halifax. Why would a group which claims to support nonviolence get involved and sponsor a public forum for the views of a genocide denier? It would seem that any group organizing or sponsoring this event is actually in the business of supporting those who fuel terrorist activity and publicly deny documented genocide.
The following are a few of Galloway’s choice quotes:
In March 2009, Al Jazeera reported Galloway publicly giving money to the terrorist organization Hamas. He said, “I personally am about to break the sanctions. We carried a lot of cash here…and we make no apology.” He then handed bundles of money to Ismail Haniyeh, the senior political leader of Hamas. “This is not charity. This is politics.” Referring to the Jews in Israel, he said, “We can drive them away.”
Regarding the internationally- recognized terrorist organization Hezbollah, he said to Sky News on a televised debate in 2006, “They are not a terrorist organization! One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. You are totally wrong in saying that in most people’s eyes Hezbollah are terrorists.”
On his own radio show in 2009, he denied that anyone was killed in the Tiananmen Square massacre. “It is a remarkable thing that something we’ve been told for twenty years was a massacre, that not a single photograph of a single dead person adduced.”
These are all Galloway’s own words.
You make the call. Would anyone legitimately ‘promoting peace’ sponsor the divisive George Galloway’s trip to your city?
Recent Comments