While the internment of the Japanese Canadians was unfortunate it does a disservice to the victims of real concentration camps (Japanese Imperial Army, Nazi, Pol Pots, Castro and Stalin’s) to compare the two. While this event was a back mark on Canada lets not go over the top by comparing this to real inhumanity. The Japanese Canadians were subject to theft and an unjust incarceration but they were not put into concentration camps.

Dirtmeister, Rafe's article isn't really the suffering of the Japanese within the concentration camps. It's more about the public's attitudes that allowed the Japanese to be singled out in the first place. And in that regard, it's perfectly reasonable to compare the internment camps to the Nazi concentration camps - the German public didn't actually know what was going on in those camps. And the Canadian public acted in much the same way - it allowed, or even encouraged, the government's racist actions. That Canadians didn't happen to have our own Hitler secretly turning internment camps into death camps is beside the real point, which is that when a great injustice was being perpetrated, the public at large did nothing to intervene. Kinda like how the public isn't really doing anything about all these rumours of secret American prisons of torture sprinkled around the former Soviet Union. And that kind of makes me wonder if Rafe is right about how much things have changed.

Well, Rafe, I'll add one more thought to what you remember.

Although the Americans and Canadians of Japanese descent living on the North American continent were interned, those living on Hawaii, where they made up so large a segment of the population that the islands economy couldn't do without them, were not interned, and did not have their property confiscated. Needless to say, citizens of these two countries of German and Italian descent also did not suffer any such depredations.

I am sure that your family subsequently compensated the former owner for the 90% loss he suffered....?

Now you know the difference between CCF/NDP and Social Credit/Conservative/Liberal.

R. Smiley

Kory, many Germans knew what was going on or cared to ignore it. My parents German-Russian and Ukraine decent knew that the Jews, Gypsies and anyone else they didn’t like were being rounded up in the Ukraine for one reason. That is why they refused to cooperate and were on the run form the Germans (they caught my uncle and shot him). This despite their suffering they suffered under the Soviet regime (I had many relatives perish the Soviet Gulag). To say that the Japanese Canadians were put in concentration camps is over the top. Saying that demeans real inhumanity.

I don't quite understand this passage in Rafe's story...

But it was wrong - terribly wrong. It was mob rule with nearly all the white citizens as part of that mob.

It was not mob rule that decided that natives should not vote. It was the elites of Canadian society. It was Canada's first poet, Duncan Campbell Scott who while writing despairing poems about the demise of indians in Canada, was at the same time the very federal minister responsible for writing repressive laws in the Indian Act, such as the ban on traditional fishing techniques and on the use of outboard motors. (There never was a ban against Japanese using outboard motors though)

40 years later, Rafe himself would be part of that elite which would continue the legacy of anti-aboriginal racism when he wrote the Foreword to the anti-aboriginal guide "Our Home or Native Land?"

And when the Fraser River fishery opens up again this year, he will be back at it.

If he can feel for the interned Japanese fishers on the Fraser being discriminated against, why he can't he feel the same for the Sto:lo being forced into reserves? What's the difference?

One of the things Rafe did bring up was the people who overcame the BULL$H!T that was forced upon them.
And that they are considered TEACHERS/ICONS to the future echelons of DECENT CITIZENS in our society...

the ORDER OF CANADA,looked very good around Dr.David Suzuki's neck...but i did not hear an APOLOGY from the GG .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Suzuki

We have national treasures amongst us and we must learn to put our past behind us...WHO KNEW ?

Asher, Dirtmeister:
I can't believe your attitude, either one of you. The man publicly declares how he feels about a certain shame he's lived with all his life and you take to nitpicking. Give your heads a shake. How many of the rest of us would stand up and admit that our father took advantage of some one else's misfortune in similar cvircumstances?

I'd shake Rafe Mair's hand and clap him on the back and consider the pleasure was all mine if I had the good fortune to meet him on the street. And I'd point him out to my kids because he's a man. There aren't that many around these days. You'd be wise to do the same or hang your heads in shame.

Dirtmeister,
To suggest that Japanese Canadians forced into labour camps with deplorable living conditions were not interned in Canadian concentration camps seems more indicative of ethnocentrism and semantic quibbling than anything else.

Have you read any of Joy Kogawa's writings, based on her memories of her internment? While it is true that there are reels of NFB propaganda showing Japanese Canadians seemingly happy and healthy in Slocan Valley, Kogawa's perspective would seem to indicate otherwise. In fact, Kogawa has provided a necessary and poetic counterpoint to the Canadian propagandists, who for decades went unchallenged.

Concentration is concentration...that is, isolation and subsequent slavery to the state of the day. While the atrocities committed in Canadian concentration camps may pale in comparison to those undertaken in places like Dachau and Tuol Sleng, I can assure you that this linguistic quibble matters little to the survivors of our nation's wartime policies. A concentration camp by any other name...still reeks.

Interesting story Rafe.

You know, don't feel bad. You had nothing to do with it.

Ethnic guilt is as stupid as ethnic pride, and vice versa.

That reminds me of a funny story. Being of Japanese extraction, I was invited on a CBC radio program with some others and asked to talk about the effect of racism on a cultural group (this in wake of 9/11 and the rebound effect against Muslim-Americans).

In my contrarial way, I mused that the internment, while clearly wrong (and not at the behest of the army or police; it was purely a political move) didn't seem to have any given us any permanent hurt, given that we had since gone way ahead of the curve of most, perhaps all other ethnic groups in education and employment, and likewise are proportionally underrepresented in the prisons.

The cost seemed to be ethnic identity, since most kids of my generation (b. 1960s) were not taught the language and were never discouraged from outmarriage, hence are rapidly breeding ourselves out of existence as a racially pure group.

In sum: assimilation into the mainstream works, playing the victim card is for losers!

Oddly, they haven't asked me back...

Rafe,

You said it very well, and accurately. It's a worthwhile reminder of some of the details during that period of time. While Yammer above feels there's little effect or consequences resulting from this internment, he was born in 1960, and has no understanding, or likely even recognizes the effect on the generation that were actually interned. I can assure you it has had a lasting effect on many. Dirtmeister compares this internment to the those outside of Canada. If these were not "concentration" camps, what were they? Rafe stated it best - this is a Canadian decision and we should keep it in the Canadian context. I will compare the Canadian decision to the US decision to intern those on the west coast. I agree with Kootowl on this. In the US, they were interned for ~ 2 years, and then released. Their properties were never confiscated. Canada followed suit with passing the legislation to remove them (Canadian), but as Rafe pointed out, had their properties sold off and the resulting monies used to pay for their own keep - much like what the Germans did to the Jews. Images of the interned Canadians (of Japanese descent) were often during the summer - try living in the mountains of BC during the winter without insulation and 3 h of sunlight.
I agree with Alcibiades above.

Well, obviously I recognize the cost -- you could say it is "our" identity.

I should also say that the reparations, while bit of a joke to some ($20,000 wouldn't come close to buying a fishing boat), were pretty welcome as a gesture of respect for those Japanese-Canadians whose properties were stolen and whose lives were greatly proscribed.

The point I am making is that Rafe never made the decision to victimize any of my relatives. So, while it is nice of him to feel badly, because it was a bad thing, he need not feel responsible. Similarly, it would be difficult for people my age to make the case that we are victims.

Rafe
How nice of you to share these touching thoughts with us. Its a shame some need to vent about this instead of seeing it for the thoughtful insight you have given to us. Bigotry and racism are an unfortunate part of our past. ANd in these times we have on occasion come very close to repeating them. We need these reminders of these things so as to not ever repeat the horrors of the past. Thank you for sharing.

Rafe,

Not one person on this earth has not blood on their ansestors hands, if not their own... Many lesson learned, and being learned.

I tell my children, that to understand the "mistakes" of the past will promote the truths of the future.

Rafe,to work towards the good health of the Earth, and a higher conscience towards her and other living things, in a day...trumps the human stains of the past. You do this in spades dude...!

Thank you for your story...

Peace

RTB

I wonder, if the war had gone badly for the allies, how long it would take the politicians in Canada to give the order to 'kill' the Japanese in the consentration camps. And how many loyal Canadians would be willing to do it?

A chilling question, but in light of events of the day, a most apt one!

Good one, Rafe. I had a good friend whose family "owned" such stolen property for many years in Maple Ridge and who included much similar history in her Masters thesis.

Only Rafe knows his motives for doing this story and if it is valid to ask how much of this stuff did he divulge while he was a minister in the social credit government in B.C.

Certainly this was a crime, and of course it pales in comparison to the treatment meted out to the Chinese in the Japanese wars of aggression, but history is largely an accounting of such crimes.

What we now call Canada was basically stolen from people who lived here before the Europeans bullied them into submission and confiscated their land.

West coast natives had slaving expeditions during which they would go as far afield as what is now California to bring slaves back to work for free. Many of the chiefs insisted on killing their slaves when their own deaths approached, so as to take their property with them.

This is what we do. We're basically a criminal species.

So, do I read this correctly:

As long as what we do can be classified as part of the normal mores of the day, what 'everyone' does, and what is not wrong in the heads of the most vocal gurus of the times, the trendsetters, the haves, what will you, then we don't have to have this niggling little device called a conscience bothering us and kicking in at the most inconvenient times?? We are not personally responsible for a darn thing, as long as we run with a pack?
These notions are nothing less than revolutionary. It will give my life an entirely new direction from now on. Jeez, here I thought I actually had to examine my actions on my own and so on, but now things will be simpler, easier, and much more of the good things in life will be coming my way!

Thanks, Rafe, You have turned things around for me in ways you can't even imagine...

Perfect Dorothy. I was thinking this too as I read the article. I really thought Rafe's article was an attempt to resist responsibility, but even I wasn't cynical enough to mention it. We're all responsible for crime as long as we enjoy the fruits of it. And this crap of Rafe's: "We must be careful not to substitute the mores of today with those of l942" is perhaps the cardinal message of the piece--not salvation by grace or faith, but salvation by the passage of time. All of it sheer nonsense.

Your father WAS a criminal, Rafe, even if "he didn't do anything wrong by the standards of that day."

Our only hope may be the new discoveries in single polymorphic nucleotide progressions. It seems scientists will one day be able to get this kind of rationalizing out of the human genome.

My grandfather was a railway yard man in Germany, making sure the trains (including those carrying people to concentration camps) stayed on schedule. He was a Nazi.

I was born in Canada. I do not feel guilt or shame-I was not alive at the time. It does not surprise me that I learned little about my grand parents-Germans of my parents age rarely discuss the time of Hitler.

Learning history is important to ensure the same horrors and wqrongs do not happen again, but the world apparently needs more lessons.

Good for you Rafe to no longer shy away from your families past.

The internment happened because it was “Politically correct” for the day, just as it was for the Ukrainians to be interned in WWI. This is why I worry about people that are “political correct” because if you don’t fit into the “box dejour” you will be the target. I much prefer people that stick to their beliefs rather than following whatever happens to be the “right way of thinking”

tru and dot, i think you have missed the point.

i get that rafe feels a resposibilty for actions that he could not have avoided, even if he understood them as he does now. a candid and courageous revelation to be sure.

i also get the gist that injustice should be taken to task at the first instance, as once done it cannot be undone.

yammer, you have a fine attitude, most of us could use a transfusion.

History (and the medias) is written by the majority or those that have "won". The scars that this leaves amongst all are nonetheless real in our collective psyche. Call it guilt.

We are often told nowadays not to look in the past and the schooling system tends to stay away from its embarassing moments. But how can we understand the present or plan for a better future if we do not understand the past? The same human nature is still at work although its evil aspects are far more subtle nowadays but are still nonetheless present. What will the future "guilt" be like in regards to our contemporary shortcomings? Stay "tuned" I would say.

...Part of this post edited out for possible libel... -- Tyee editor

I suppose feeling bad about it many years later makes it OK. I don't think Wiesenthal would agree though, dead though he may be.

burner, so what "point" did we miss? If Rafe truly feels a "responsibility" for what his father did, he can easily figure out how much the property would be worth in today's money, look up the children of his family's victims and give the money back.

Otherwise, the word "responsibility" has little meaning.

My friend, about whom I wrote, actually tried to do something like this, meeting with some of the people from whom her family's land was stolen. For all I know Rafe has already done this. It may be unfair of me to assume that he hasn't. But surely, it would be more convincing than writing a facile article in a paper which will likely accept anything he has to submit.

I think "gaulois" makes a great point. I happen to see crime everytime I see a $50,000 car going down the highway when I think of how many people are living on $1.00 a day, and the wasteful, stupid big homes they're putting up all over Surrey. Wealth, afterall is a zero-sum proposition on the planet.

I agree, that Yammer has a "fine attitude" but of course there's always more to be said.

So Rafe complains and gets any contrarian view pulled. Figures.

For the record, my post contained no accusation at all.

Morality sometimes has to be judged in the context and culture of the times. Rafe's parents made their decisions in that context, and Rafe (and many many others) have made theirs in the past.

That current morality would judge such decisions differently is irrelevant to decisions past that cannot be undone.

Why would Rafe return money? He can simply apologize in public and hope for an outpouring of sympathy.

Oscar Wilde's definition of a cynic was:

"A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."

No more comment is required, imo.

I do agree that the Japanese should have been fairly compensated. As for the Japanese being sent to camps, just think it you were living in those times. A surprise attack on Pearl Harbour and if the carriers were sunk, there may have been a full attack on the West Coast. There were attacks on the Coast and a few people killed and don't forget the Forgotten War, the invasion of the Aleutians. Do a search on the web, lots of information there.

Let's remember the people interned were Canadians, not Japanese. We interned our own.

I'm just glad we weren't fighting the Scots.

My great-uncle was killed on the Fraser River about 70 or 80 years ago. Rammed while fishing by another fishing boat which belonged to Japanese-Canadians.

I recall his brother, my grandfather, being quite happy with the internment.

Well put,willy.It is so easy to second guess!Family members of those allied prisoners so brutally treated by the infamous 'Kamloops kid' in captivity would have wished he had been interned !!
Of course innocents are always caught up in a war situation.
I lost two uncles ,one 19 the other 21 and my fathers life was cut short by the deprivations when taking part in the Burma campaign.
My grandmother recieved NO compensation and my father was given a suit and 40 pounds !!

I am a little confused - and I will say up-front that I am a white male in his 30s.

I don't see why we (or you) should feel bad about this. The 40's and 50's are an entirely different place with entirely different people.

We have since created a country where immigrants of all ethnic backgrounds have an opportunity to succeed - where there is (for the most part) ethnic tolerance and celebration.

Why should we apologize for our past? I think we should celebrate our past. Canada has become a country rich in diversity and tolerance.

The real black-eye is the continued anguish of some of our aboriginal people. We still have problems and we need to somehow do more. Even now, I see the attitude that many Canadians have(White, Asian, East Indian, European) towards native canadians. There is a perception that needs to change.

Kory, that's little more than mindless equivocation. It doesn't MATTER what the German public knew about "their" camps. What matters is what the term "concentration camp" has come to mean ever since Auschwitz and Treblinka and all the others came to light.

There were two categories in BC - internment centres and relocation centres. In BC there were no concentration camps, which by definition were where Jews and others were "concentrated"; stripped of their dignity, made to sleep eight to a bunk, not fed, enslaved, brutally raped, killed and experimented on.[/I] There were no firing squads, no mass graves, no guard towers bristling with machine guns. Tashme was pretty bad, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as even Theresienstadt (Terezin). My brother's godmother - an "aunt" to us - was Malay Dutch and spent her childhood under the tender mercies of Japanese rule in Indonesia; she would be horrified to see the use of "concentration camp" to refer to the internment/relocation centres in BC.

Equating the Nazi and Imperial Japanese with what was done here is sophomoric poppycock; encouraged by "radical" thinkers and academics on agendas, it has nothing to do with the truth. It has to do with ethnic brow-beating, and trying to blow things out of proportion. WAY out of proportion.

Show me the mass graves, the ovens, the lampshades, the "comfort women", the human-experimentation laboratories, and I'll accept the use of "concentration camp". But if you can't show me that, then start using different language.

Dr. Miyazaki, an Order of Canada winner who served the town of Lillooet as coroner and doctor during his relocation, very explicitly uses the terms "relocation centre" and "internment centres" to distinguish between the better-off relocation centres around Lillooet - three of which were semi-abandoned towns with good-quality housing; the East Lillooet camp a tarpaper ghetto; but so were a lot of native and white homes in the same area, he notes. (My Sixty Years In Canada, type-published, probably in VPL, definitely in SFU and UBC libraries).

I repeat: "concentration camp" has a very specific meaning, or should have. It does not serve as a proper description for what went on here.......

On man's racist times is another's ignorant one.

The difference is, now expect people to know better. People who look Chinese are no longer called Chinks; people who have dark skin are no longer called Niggers (or blacks, for that matter, Rafe).

At the same time it strikes me that people who to me are obviously Japanese by appearance don't get offended when someone assume they're chinese, and most Chinese-Canadians don't get offended when people start speaking to them in Chinese, even when they don't speak it.

Ignorance abounds, it's only the ignorance we're will to accept that has changed.

Truman Green

You say your friend "tried" to make reparations. Why didn't she succeed?

Rafe's FATHER was the one who made the deal. I don't subscribe to some notion right out of Greek tragedy that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons.

It was a societal decision to do this. Apologies have been made and money has been returned. I would only quibble with the amount: $20,000 seems like a paltry sum.

I am glad that Mair had the courage to talk about something this shameful.

Skookum
You are quite correct, the camps that were set up here are nothing like the Axis concentration camps and served far different purposes. My friend was interned by the Japanese in Manila, he almost did not make it through, living on rice water. Anyone that doubts the difference should read this about Japan’s infamous Unit 731

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

What Canada has to be ashamed about is that they locked up Canadian citizens and then used to opportunity to redistribute their assets without fair compensation. Matsamoto of N. Vancouver boat building fame was one of these people that suffered.

While I understand that there was a need for taking security precautions, they went to far and the lack of compensation is a very bitter pill.

Why make anything more of this than what the writer actually says?

It is a personal and I think heartfelt reflection upon a part of this man's background about which he has thought (and perhaps avoided thinking) for most of his life.

Spilling one's guts in public is never easy; that it provides some relief and respite is not hard to understand, nor is it necessary to decry that fact.

Put in the proper context, this is a meaningful and honest piece of writing, it deserves credit, not quibbles.

There was no imperative to write this except the self-imposed need to come clean in a public way. Other questions and cavils are unseemly, in my opinion.

This ought to be saluted…. No matter whom it comes from. How many other public figures do you know who’d be so honest?

Skookum, you are wrong.

Kory does not say that Canada's Japanese internment camps ARE concentration camps. He defines a narrow scope, and states that within that scope it is reasonable to compare Canada's internment camps to Nazi concentration camps. He's talking about the dangers of a citizenry eager to follow blindly, not comparing the levels of suffering within prison walls.

Kory doesn't even call them concentration camps, he just notes some similarities in how they may have been perceived at the time.

For some reason, Skookum goes on and on about how Canada's camps aren't concentration camps.

What was done to the Japanese Canadians was wrong and terrible.

This in no way diminishes the wrongs committed against Jews, Malays, POWs in Burma, rape victims in Nanking, and millions of others. When I say that Japanese Canadians suffered injustice, I'm not belittling the plight of Natives forced into residential schools or Africans stolen into slavery. And I'm certainly not (wait - let me emphasize NOT) trying to justify or turn a blind eye towards the actions of the Japanese Imperial Army.

It's still wrong. And unlike the Nazi or Stalinist concentration camps, it occurred here and is a part of Canada's history.

G.West, I'm so familiar with your fawning gullibility that I could have written your piece for you, and was waiting for it to show up. In fact, I've concocted a word for your particular brand of childish obsequiesnesss: G.Westism. Only that the world and its people were as transparent and forthright as you pretend you think it is!

When the Canadian government paid reparations to internment camp survivors, my grandfather had already died.

My father's cousin, who was born in a camp, gave my brothers and I each $500 out of respect for my deceased Ojiichan. I was 10 or 12 years old.

For years, I felt a little guilty about this money. Why should I receive money for the suffering of my grandfather?

Later, my views changed. When I saw people around me receiving money and inheritances that they didn't especially deserve, I thought about how hard my grandfather must have worked. He had just bought a new fishing boat as a young man when the Canadian government stole his life away. And after the war, it took him years to rebuild his life and pay for a new boat.

There are many injustices in this world, and especially during the war many suffered greatly. Certainly my family was robbed by its own government.

Rafe, thanks for raising this important topic. As Canadians, we can't forget about the shames of our past.

And Rafe, your family was not the only one that profited from the wholesale theft of Japanese-Canadian possessions and businesses. Perhaps you might consider a donation to the National Association of Japanese Canadians? I'm sure it would be much appreciated (http://www.najc.ca/).

Peace.

Truman Green
You don't read very well then. I don't have any time for such facile nonsense.

I'm with Yammer - thank you for your insight.

Rafe's mea culpa on behalf of his family history, while appreciated and courageous, should not have been necessary. Humankind, over many, many centuries, has done things to be ashamed of and, while that does not excuse the actions, it is a recognition that, as a society, we are in a continual evolutionary process. Rafe is no more responsible for the decisions of his parents than the rest of us. His only responsibility is to make sure that his own behaviour does not perpetuate the ill.

A huge percentage of today's Canadians did not even live in the country when the Japanese were interned, indeed most were not yet born. Yet generations of Canadian society seem to relish flaying themselves on the back for having been 'aggressors by association'.

The imminent monetary 'compensation' to Chinese Canadians is another example - what never seems to be stressed is that the people who came to Canada from China had a choice - they knew what was required if they wished to come to Canada, and made a business or family decision to pay the head-tax because it was worth it to get into the country. Would that the government would repay me for some of the decisions I've made over the years - including the money I had to pay when I immigrated!

The other, ongoing, self-flagellation is over compensation for over a century of Canada's relationship with its aboriginal peoples - this, despite the fact that billions upon billions of dollars have been dispensed to aboriginal bands over the years. So how far back do we go before someone decides that we have gone far back enough? Surely, Julius Caesar must have done me some - monetary - ill!

While no money can compensate for loss of a culture, it appears that no conditions have ever been attached to the billions paid over the years, so that band chiefs and their families would know that it was THEIR responsibility to use part of those billions to maintain whatever parts of their culture they felt to be important to them - AND to protect the wellbeing of their peoples.

Is it my fault if much of that largesse was deployed to family members, or on alcohol? Examination suggests the answer is "No" - I had/have little to no control over government decisions. Indeed, in countless elections, I have voted in hope of achieving a government that could be called to account for its actions in our name. I have dutifully paid taxes, and treat everyone I meet with respect -including those whose ancestors spent their time dropping bombs all over my childhood. That is more than most politicians can say - and it's a good deal more than some of today's victims have received - Mr. and Mrs. Alba, for example.

As a society, we cannot come even close to undoing the sins of our fathers, so we'd be a sight better off if we stopped living in the past and covering ourselves in the cloaks of hypocritical gestures to victims. Instead, as a society, we would have shown a whole lot more sincerity had we demanded that government and bands alike actually care for some of today's innocent aboriginal citizens that both parties consistently ignored while they piously sat at the treaty negotiation tables - kids like Sherry Charlie and her brother, for example.

None of this is meant to diminish the value of Rafe's sincere mea culpa which is a refreshing change. As individuals in a society, though, it is up to each one of us to recognize that apologies in the absence of real changes in attitude, are nothing but useless platitudes.

Everyone needs to take personal responsibility for change, and to recognize that true contrition goes way beyond any dollar amount can achieve, toward persuading others of our lasting sincerity.....a sincerity that needs to cut both ways.

I think Kano gets the award for clear-mindedness.

While a donation, as Kano suggests, to the National Association of Japanese Canadians might be appropriate, I would also suggest that those concerned about making sure the story of the Japanese internment and disposession stays alive consider a donation to the campaign to preserve Joy Kogawa's childhood home in Marpole. (http://www.kogawahouse.com/)

1. Concentration camps so named were established by the British to hold Boer Prisoners in the Boer War. The expression is an apt one for 1942.

2. Neither my introduction to it nor Mel Smith's book in the slightest anti aboriginal ... what they were was a different opinion from the establishment as to how to deal with the issues

3. I didn't write the article to make me feel better ... I have written half a dozen similar articles and editorials over the years with the same message. Willy obviously didn't read the article - I was very much amongst the living at the time.
Kano had it right ... "And Rafe, your family was not the only one that profited from the wholesale theft of Japanese-Canadian possessions and businesses ..."

That was the main message - we alll profited whether we bought a box company for 10 cents on the dollar, caught fish that internees might have caught or did jobs now made available. We were all at fault not because of internment or taking advantage monetarily ... we were all at fault because of what we had permitted our society to become. It wasn't as if we didn't know better because we did. It indeed was "mob rule"

The fear we all had doesn't excuse our behaviour but it does act as an explanation and to a certain degree mitigation.

I refrained from giving the personal side until now for purely selfish reasons ... my Dad and Mom and almost all of their friends are gone now ... what they thought of all this as they grew older and died, I don't know because no one ever wanted to talk about it.

I really just wanted to show how easily civilized people can become uncivilized and the message applied to many other societies in existence at that time.

Actually, this spins off The Tyee's caption to the picture of the Lemon Creek schoolkids, and included an exchange via email earlier with David Beers over it. Mr. Beers brought up the usual coterie of academic-index titles to "prove" that the term "concentration camp" is acceptable and valid.

Well, just because academics and tub-thumpers have decided that the language can be re-jiggered to suit their own judgements (and bedamned the rest of us) still doesn't make it right. These same academics and tub-thumpers will always crow that white/anglo culture is not sensitive to the feelings of others; but I submit that the use of this obviously pejorative and highly-charged term is insensitive to those who do not agree that it is apt. It is equivocation, pure and simple. If it's not such a nasty word, as Mr. Beers and no doubt others would maintain, then why use it in a condemnatory sense when "interment centre" and "relocation centres" both exist as terms and are the historically-accurate contemporary words.

Mr. Beers suggested that because the Japanese were "concentrated" to locations in the Interior, that makes "concentration camp" an acceptable term. That's the same logic-by-iexification the Nazis themselves used, before their camps were exposed for what they were.

Ever since then, or at least until the politically-correct brow-beaters started playing jiggery-pokery with the language, the phrase "concentration camp" had VERY specific connotations of death, torture, dehumanization and more. Its casual use for the internment and relocation centres - its SMUG use - is not casual at all, but meant to have a propagandistic tone because of its assocation with the Nazi and Imperial Japanese deathcamps. Otherwise why not be content with the original, historically-in-use terms?

Apparently because you can just never thump an ideological tub hard enough, that's why. And when you get called on it, you can point at citations from others who share your bowdlerization of the language as if their use of the term made it OK. It's not OK.

As I told him via email, my Aunt Nellie would be in David Beers' office banging her cane on his desk and screaming at him for daring to compare the Japanese internment here to her own childhood internment by the Japanese in Java. I daresay she wouldn't have had the nice little dresses and happy smiles visible on the picture of the Lemon Creek kids.

Rafe I did read the article, you were quite young. I don't believe it was mob rule, there was a lot of fear in place at the time. The biggest injustice was done by politicians and busnessmen who made the laws to rip Japanese Canadians off. I am pissed about the British taking over my ancestral lands in Scotland and am waiting for a settlement.

Well put Skookum,your last sentence says it all.............Some ' concentration camp '!

Hey willy , I think you mean English ( Scots are British !) I have English , Scots and Irish ancestors so maybe my historic debts and obligations cancel themselves out !

The is the best piece I have ever seen on the Tyee and one of the best articles I have ever read.

Rafe claims, "I really just wanted to show how easily civilized people can become uncivilized and the message applied to many other societies in existence at that time."

Uh, I really doubt that there's a single commentor on this thread who doesn't already know this--or reader of Tyee, for that matter, Rafe, so I must assume your motivation was a bit more complex than that.

Also, I think that Skookum1 makes a valid point regarding the use of the term, "concentration camp." Obviously the term could technically apply to any place that has a "concentration" of people and to go ad nauseum even a concentration of cattle or dandelions. But words get their meaning from usage, as I learned in linguistics class long ago. The words "concentration camp" usually conjure in the minds of listeners something far more evil than the place developed for the imprisonment of Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry during the second war. Most of us think of "concentration camps" as places of mass starvation, brutality, mengelian medical research, places of zyclon B poisonings, death ovens and other forms of genocide and murder.

As nasty as the interment camps in interior were, they were NOT the concentration camps embedded deeply in the psyches of those of us familiar with the places of death built by Japanese and German killers in the thirties and forties.

Internment camps are not just an element in Japanese, German and British history: In fact, Andersonville, Georgia (also known as Camp Sumpter) was one of the largest prison camps established during the American Civil War. It was built early in 1864 when Confederate officials decided to move Union prisoners from Richmond, Virginia. During the 14 months it operated more than 45,000 Union Solders were kept there. In this time some 13,000 died as a result of disease, poor sanitation, malnutrition, overcrowding, and/or exposure.

As the wife of an Arab Canadian in a post-911 world I can assure you that racism is alive and well in 2006. We live in a country that can hold someone without charge on a security certificate and doesn't have to tell anyone, even the accused the reason why they are being held. Even before 911 my husband sent out three hundred resumes and didn't get a single call, we anglocized his name just to see what would happen and sent out 25 "anglo" resumes. We got 22 calls. How do you fight an enemy you can't see?

I can understand some of Mr. Mair's sentiments. But it troubles me that, to air them, he feels he has to call his father a thief. That is very unfair, and it is not a term that fits, except by extreme hyperbole. His father neither interned nor expropriated anyone. He was no morally different, I suppose, than any one who buys a foreclosed property, or a repossessed car (all of which certainly have tales of misery behind them). Since he was guilty only in the sense that we are all guilty, it seems a shame to do this to his memory.

Isabella2, you make a great error when you put the second world war treatment of Japanese Canadians with that subjected to our Aboriginal communities for centuries.

And frankly, part of the problem with the continued demands for native redress is the fact that many, especially in BC are not yet covered by any treaty, a rather pathetic legal situation for a country that claims to honour justice.

I'm also surprised you would use the death of an Aboriginal child to try to lessen the impact all Aboriginals suffered due to their treatment by mainstream Canada.

I could easily suggest that girl died because her culture was torn apart in previous generations due to what the white community did to her ancestors.

Broken cultures create a lot of broken people.

I guess until we legally conquer them, Canada has an overdue issue to address, because it's not like the things that happened to Aboriginals by government and others were not known of by our leaders then or now.

Wouldn't it be lovely if we could just eleminate entire races and cultures by just denying they exist or have rights until it doesn't matter any more.

Try it with your phone bill.

Rafe, I too read the exerpts from Suzuki's book and can appreaciate why you might want to step forward.

Debts like this are owed collectively, but it takes individuals to stand up and acknowledge them.

I too salute you.

marta, my friend was in no position to make any financial reparations. She gave a token gift of some kind and a personal acknowledgement of what had happened.

You speak of Rafe's courage in speaking out. Marta, I think of "courage" as an aspect of behaviour for which an individual puts himself in some kind of danger or jeopardy to their person or at least reputation. Like speaking out against the Hells Angels or criticizing the theft of Japanese lands while you are a member of a provincial government, or criticizing your employer or peer group for which you jeopardize your career. Rafe knew perfectly well when he wrote this that the most likely response would be, "good on you, Rafe for having the courage to speak out."

Courage implies a reasonable expectation of harm.

"Good on you" doesn't qualify.

A good place to start regarding courage would be for all you chickshits to start writing under your real names, especially you, Yammer. Why'd you start hiding--a gifted writer and pretty good thinker like you. It just boggles my mind.

Allan I guess its time once again to remind you, first, if your bud Pierre Trudeau had allowed property rights into the charter of rights, the Aboriginals (Natives) would likely have had their land issued resolved by now, secondly what occurred to the Japanese Canadian, is again possible since 911, particularly without the inclusion of property rights in the charter.

For historical information on this situation read:

"The Thousand-Mile War" Brian Garfield.
"War on our Doorstep" Brendon Coyle. (Canadian writer)
"Flyboys" James Bradley
The Bradley book is interesting from the point of view of American racism as well as Japanese racism.
(There is even some interesting comments on George Bush Sr.s war service. )

For all the arm-chair quarterbacks read your history and stop picking sides.

Rafe has writen a pretty good piece as always.
As usual the wingnuts such as dirtmeister have attempted to obfuscate his point.Man's exploitation of man is one of the species greatest deterrents from reaching any status of civility beyond jungle creatures.This exploitation is most devastatingly manifested in in the lust of psychopaths for greed and power.

PS to Truman: Excellent point in using ones real name.It should considered as a rule for posting. I would settle for initials, however. I would not want such a policy to chase off elliot, ron, jim, or whoever he/she is. He /she provides some farcical and bitter comic relief from the sobriety of most of the commentators.
Your view of Mr.G West is "blurred perception at best". I believe that I may have the privilege of knowing him in person. A more candid, to the point individual does not emerge from the crowd very often. You might benefit from, and even enjoy meeting him.

My name is Sarah Blyth,

I think you are right Truman, we should say our real names. It shows balls. I am just afraid of sounding un-intelegent sometimes.

I could imagine it would be very dificult for someone to admit their family members did wrong. But I think it's brave. Keep writing about it Rafe. People need to know about these things.

Woody, you seem not to understand. It is despite private property rights that some lands are being returned to natives in Canada.

Property rights are really just more legislated protection for the wealthiest of society at the expense of the majority.

Actually Pierre had a little too much of the petite facist about him at times to be my friend, but he certainly did the right thing in ignoring the real estate industry's bleatings for an Ayn Rand style solution to wha the rich want.

Frankly, if you think property rights would have stopped the Japanese internment during WW2, you are wrong.

It was primarily hatred, ignorance and fear that drove that sad episode. Such sentiments, openly expressed, fit poorly with an atmosphere conducive to pursuing liberties.

Allan: Quote: "Wouldn't it be lovely if we could just eleminate entire races and cultures by just denying they exist or have rights until it doesn't matter any more."

I find it strange that my statements that "I treat everyone I meet with respect"....and that, "As individuals in a society ..... it is up to each one of us to recognize that apologies in the absence of real changes in attitude, are nothing but useless platitudes" somehow get translated as a desire on my part to eliminate or deny the existence of entire cultures.....

Guess people read and/or hear what they will. However, it should be obvious that what I am calling for is for people to take individual responsibility for their OWN actions - because, if each of us were to do only that, the 'collective' responsibility takes care of itself.

What I am also seeking is sincere and workable reparation - which, to my own knowledge, well over 50 years have proven does not equate to 'throwing billions at the problem'. Nor have vapid and vacuous apologies which, though comforting to politicians and unbelievably expensive, are not worth the paper they are written on.

Injustices are all the same when it comes down to where the rubber hit the road for people like Mr. Kano and his grandfather, for Sherry Charlie and the Albas, nor yet for Chief Joe Capilano. What is most distressing is that, for all the tangible technological advances made by mankind, our ability to peacefully co-exist escapes us.

In the year I was born, Richmond's delightful, and later self-described, "Chung Chuck, Potato Grower", was spurned by the Superior Court in his dispute with 'local farmers'. Was he asking for apologies, reparations, or for money? No -- he was merely asking for the right to pursue the hard work begun years before by his father.

Racism and hatreds are not the 'talent' of any one race or people. They are rife throughout all societies and, one would think that, after more than two thousand years of warfare, death and destruction, we would have realized that they that they are not easily routed. That discrimination is alive and well today is clearly described by RedhandJill. But it is not all 'home-grown' - as is evidenced by gang fights and by those who are determined to carry their prejudices to the grave, rather than give an inch.

So, Allan, until each one of us accepts responsibility for our own actions and decisions, until we stop looking to someone else to cure our ills, until we stop equating "compensation" with a change in behaviour and outlook, the turf wars will continue long after people like Rafe and I are cold in our graves.

And, just to close with a small illustration about homo sapiens determination to fight about something - anything. A subject that will be dear to Rafe's heart: Let's all fight to the death, why don't we, for our "rights" to fish --- fight until there are no more fish "left" to fight over.

Now how stupid is that - but do you think we'll ever stop it? Not likely. Why doesn't somebody [else] DO something about it?

Well, in 1995 Rafe wrote in "Our Home of Native Land?" about the NDP initiated treaty process...

and then he says this in the comments section ...

Racist fear mongering a la WWII "Yellow Peril" is not anti-aboriginal? You and the Reform Party were pushing fear of aboriginals like it has never been done before. With borrowed jingoisms from David Duke and the KKK to boot (e.g. "equal rights for all" and "one law for all"). And you spewed this on CKNW for countless hours!

I would agree with Truman Green. How is this piece courageous? The demagogue has learned nothing. There was no self-reflection nor self-improvement in writing this latest piece.

I think demagogues are very sad people; they really do not know who they are. No center. Just another one of TS Elliot's hollow men.

Isabella2, are you Rafe's wife?

Skookum, Dirtmeister and all the rest of you who are getting caught up in treatment of prisoners of Nazi, Soviet, or Japanese torture camps, consider this from a perspective OTHER than personal suffering of prisoners. My argument was clearly that the crime committed by the Canadian public was abhorable, not so much because of the direct torture of the Canadians of Japanese descent, but more because it was a complete and utter lack of responsibility to fellow citizens. By allowing an elite to gain complete power over a specific portion of the citizenship without rising up in protest, the Canadian public perpetrated the exact same crime that the German public did - they allowed their democratic represenation to hold absolute power over their fellow countrymen. You are getting hung up on what was actually done with that power; I'm merely reiterating that the Canadian Public of the time was guilty of the same crime that the German Public committed. That the Japanese were treated much less poorly than the Jews is indicative only of the fact that the Nazi Elite was a lot more brutal than the Canadian Elite - it has no relation to what the public at large was guilty of.

Rafe, I'm forced to wonder how much you personally benefitted from your father's purchase of this paper company. Did you enjoy, perhaps, opportunities that my Japanese father was denied? You are a very successful man and I often notice that successful men are so often born into successful families. Kano suggested above that you should make a donation to the National Association of Japanese Canadians.

The solution to injustice is never just. When the government decides that it's time to make up for the internment camps, they made an apology and cut some cheques. Whether the sum of $20,000 was appropriate or not, it all seems a little meaningless when the government continues to treat different groups injustly. So we've all (federal government, Rafe, all the posters above) admitted that internment camps were unjust and we want to make amends, but there IS still an outstanding issue of unsettled land claims, mexican workers being brought in to work our berry crops at a couple bucks an hour, not to mention the BC Government's abandonment of the mentally ill, seniors, and drug addicts. You see, injustice is very much alive and well today.

Rafe, my (Japanese) family suffered a lot because people like your father were content to adhere only to the mores of the day, and to not second-guess the mainstream opinion. And people like you benefitted from our suffering. You could easily make the same mistake of your father - you could adhere to the mores of today and claim that this article and others like it are all you need to clear your conscience. In fact, it IS a substantial contribution, as it keeps the lesson alive and well. But a lesson such as this is nothing but hot air if you're unwilling to back it up with action - I'm sure there were a great many who quietly opposed the internment camps but didn't actually DO anything. I challenge you to use some of the wealth you undoubtedly inherited (directly or indirectly) at the expense of my family and others to help out those who are currently suffering injustice.

Or call for an end to the internment of aboriginal people to reserves.

Hmm...

Well, I don't think it's an issue of personal responsibility, but one of collective responsibility. As a Japanese-Canadian, I certainly don't feel like I've been underprivileged - quite the opposite.

The lesson for us to learn is that protecting minority rights is what keeps us human.

Quote "Well, I don't think it's an issue of personal responsibility, but one of collective responsibility"

The problem with collective responsibility is, that when you make 'everyone' responsible for something, you essentially make no one responsible.

Responsibility can only be attached to the individual decision and choice of action or non-action. If we are not willing to examine our motives, aims and goals, choice of means, on a personal basis, we are behaving like children. There is no such thing as following the law simply because it is the law. This is a pragmatic decision. The law could be bad, and you may have to work to see it changed, etc. But whatever you do can never be wrapped up with what the next guy does. You have your own turf, your own soul, your own choices.

I believe what got me in Rafe's piece was, that he did not stop at sharing his feelings of unease; but he then started to try to dictate, how we should react to it, a gross overstepping of boundaries. We will think what we will think, Rafe, and if you cannot accept that, you should never have spoken. That was your choice. This is why this verse was written:

"Let no man glory in the greatness of his mind,
but rather keep watch o'er his wits.
Cautious and silent let him enter a dwelling;
to the heedful comes seldom harm,
for none can find a more faithful friend
than the wealth of mother wit."

(Verse 6 of the Havamal)

I believe, as survivers till today, we all rest on past brutal deeds of our ancestors, if we were to go far enough back. It is pointless to try to assume or deny 'guilt' for this. What counts is how we weave these dangling threads from the past into the web of our lives today. If Rafe is Catholic, this 'catharsis' is probably needed for him. But he will have to do something at least symbolic, to deal with his cognitive dissonance in the rightfulness of his own good fortune, partly dependent as it may be on dishonorable conduct within the memory of man. I would agree, that a donation to those who are down and out today as part of the collateral damage of our greed-driven society, would go a long way.

Try to figure it out, Rafe, we feel your pain and will follow your struggle with compassionate hearts!

Isabelle2, you didn't address the issues I raised with you.

Perhaps I have to be more specific.

Do you expect that native peoples in BC should simply accept the past, toss off what's left of their culture and try to become good little near-white folk?

That, unfortunately is what I get from your lengthy, but nonspecific arguments.

Yes, every one should take responsibility for their lives. No one would dispute that, especially since it is drilled into our heads pretty much from kindergarten onward.

In fact, I'd call it "elementary", as Holmes used to tell Watson. Others call it the early dog-eat-dog lessons so crucial in a capitalist society.

Now, are you saying it is too late, unfair or wrong that natives who ancestors never ceded an inch of land, signed one treaty nor surrendered in battle, still seek compensation?

If your culture and your family are broken and the norms that society plays by aren't the norms in your life, how is it that a person ought to come to this calm rational (dare I say) comfortable middle-class view that everyone has to pitch in to keep the economy humming?

Obviously you didn't read my post because I stated clearly I support Rafe's feelings. You were the one trying to lump all past history into one basket to be buried and forgotten while I tried to explain, as I think Rafe also did, that there are differences, even if they are too subtle for those who refuse to look.

And lastly, perhaps you could state why you would suggest there is a collective responsibility among native people in BC for the unfortunate and sad death of Sherry Charlie.

I am not native, but do find it a bit insulting, especially as you imply there is no continuing culpability by our larger community for the unaddressed wrongs of the past.

Your suggestion that the larger community should have scolded natives at the negotiating table for ignoring their own children is a bit much Isabelle2.

In fact, if a native negotiator got up and scolded the government team, which in theory represents the collective that allowed the exploitation and abuse of natives for the past 200 years in this province, it would ring with much greater honesty.

In fact, I still find your use of that child's death as an unfair comment which betrays an impatience with others.

I imagine Rafe knew what he was getting into while writing this peice. That is why this fourum so great. You get way more than just the news you get opinion.

Now Rafe and everyone else should take what they have learned and put it in to action.

From my point of view if you have money beyond what you need, you should be helping others. Or else you should feel guilt. You have blood on your hands.

In this spirit, you are invited to Remember the Disappeared Children of Canada. Where are They Buried? Who are their Killers? When Will Justice Be Done? Demand this of their Murderers at:The Second Annual Aboriginal Holocaust Remembrance Day Good Friday, April 14, 2006 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/

Hi Truman.

Going way OT here but I'll respond.

Why did I start using Yammer? Lots of reasons. First is continuity. All of my web yammering (e.g. in boards for hockey, parenting, and now the Tyee) is as Yammer. It is a nickname given to me by my beer league hockey team so I cherish it.

I wanted a nickname initially because there is a tradition of anonymity in Usenet. That is beneficial: we are here to throw out ideas for one another's consumption, reflection, debate. Let the idea stand on its own, free of any personal attributes of the author such as can be discerned from a "true" name. We're not here to get personal with one another, or to get an ego-boost. You might call that "hiding," but as long as I am not abusing the anonymity -- e.g. by making malicious comments from under cover -- then I can't see the harm in it.

Now, there are people who do abuse the anonymity. Some boards are unreadable messes of trolling and personal beefs. That's why one selects boards like the Tyee which are principally used by intelligent posters who, even in extremities of disagreement, keep themselves pretty civil, with a bit of help from judicious moderation.

Yammer
I agree with all your reasons, but I'd add another. Posting anonymously can, if handled carefully, also take gender out of the mix. I think you know what I mean. It takes an effort, but it is possible. So often gender is just another drum stick in an argument. Anonymity, at its best, can get past that too.

Everyone read some history to get a feel for the times. The free world was under attack! Most of Europe was rolled over by the Germans then here come the Japanese. Get a feel for the families who lost members in these wars. I'll bet not one person on this forum has looked at anyone with Arab ties quite the same since 9/11. How do you feel getting off the skytrain at Metrotown at night? Feeling a little nervous. Do you feel a little anxious when a group of rowdy teenagers gets on your bus. Hey get a feel for the times. I get a little tired of all this apology go around. But there is one thing, be glad you live in a part of the world where one can have can have the chance of being apologetic and say thanks to the ones that allowed that to happen.

willy
Have you seen the movie "Crash"?
If Canada had had a different attiutude toward the Jews before and during the second world war I might agree you have a point. It didn't and you don't. Google Frederick Charles Blair.

When you speak of "remember the feel of the times", it must also be remembered that racism was rampant. In the l935 federal election there were ads in the Vancouver Scum "A vote for the CCF is a vote to give the Chinaman and the Jap a vote" and "When a CCF canvasser shows up at your door, look over his shoulder and you will see a Chinaman leering at your wife and daughter." I have copies of these ads.

Bravery and principals were portrayed in those CCF canvassers and candidates who stood up to what was wrong. The "times" is no excuse .

How could Rafe live his whole life knowing his sustenance came from stolen property. How does one acquire pride and honour and respect for others? A true Socred! Then comes a pretense at caring. Come of it, Rafe!

Allan come on, get off the pot ( not the smoking type) will you, you know dam well that PROPERTY RIGHTS does not in its self refer only to land.
Property as defined in a dictionary states very clear,(1) that which person owns(2)ownership; right of possession (3) an essential or distinctive attribute or quality of a thing (4) land or real estate.
If Property Rights were enshrined in the charter, what had occurred to the Japanese Canadians would never occur again,not without proper and full redress.
Ill give a short example of what property rights would do or rather could have accomplished for a young fella. A few weeks back ( this story was on the news) a young fella, who is a musician with long hair, wore some jewelry, had on black clothes along with a black leather jacket, was returning to Canada (his home) at the Vancouver Airport, apparently his dress code caught the attention of the custom officers, they performed a full strip search on him (which they are entitled to carry out) they went through all his personal articles, again this is also allowed under the law, in the process they damaged his luggage (searching for what ever), they cut open the lining of his leather jacket, found absolutely nothing, nothing on his person ( nor in his person) nothing in his luggage, found nothing, period,.When he received back his messed up and damaged luggage along with his cut up jacket he was informed that he was free to leave, when he inquired about his damaged articles he received only a shrug of the custom agents shoulders ,in other words tough, your sh!t out luck buddy.
If we were protected by property rights, then this young fella would have received compensation, instead of just being shown to the custom agents door.
One further point Allan not only in this thread ,but also previous ones , you make it abundantly clear that persons who have or appear to have wealth or perceived wealth, deserve no further protection in regards to the charter.
Myself Im probably about 30 seconds away from poverty,but I sure don’t agree with your logic.

Vera Kristiansen
damn right, Vera, and it shouldn't be forgotten - that's why when someone like Rafe Mair actually admits how mob rule works and how it works to the advantage of some and not others that it is such a strange and rare day.

I am very confused maybe someone can enlighten me? I have just re-read David Suzuki's piece in the Globe and Mail . He refers to being in 'paradise ' during his stay in what is being described some people on this forum as a " concentration camp " with all that conjures up. How the only ill -treatment he received came from fellow detainees who also ' reduced to tears' a child of mixed parentage calling her a "half breed " and at the conclusion of the war an old "Japanese man "( his words )exclaiming "we had lost".
Despite by then knowing what had occurred in the Japanese controlled territories ,95 percent of his camp decided to return to Japan.
Is it really too far fetched to believe there may have been some justification for the detentions whilst not condoning the seizure and sale of property ?
Historians have us believe that fifth columnists greatly assisted the bombing of Pearl Harbour( American citizens or not).
We have had a recent incident were ,I believe ,a Kuwaiti company wanted to take over the running of U.S. ports . How would we suggest this should be handled ?? Is stereo typing or racism involved or just plain old common sense ?

P.S. Another Suzuki quote " It took a long time for me to overcome my mistrust and resentment of Japanese Canadians as a result of the way I was treated in those days".
Gets a bit complicated.................

woodcarver
Children's memories are very different from adult memories. You should read Obasan as well.
How could detention be justified in Canada and in the continental US and yet not necessary in Hawaii? Just ask yourself that simple question.

The Kuwaiti company contracting to manage US Ports, not such a big deal. Check it out, I think you'll find that same corporate entity manages port operations all over the world to no obvious detriment.

All these situations: irrational, unthinking and fearful behavior and an attempt to find a scapegoat for whatever can't be explained any other way....and, as always, trying to make a dollar or two into the bargain.

G West.
Thank you for the tip .I will indeed read Obasan as soon as I can pick it up.
I did check it out on the web and found a precis of her recollection of the evacuation ,which she says was exciting and she was treated very kindly by two Vancouver ladies . As you say chidlhood memories can be misleading. The bad treatment was something she 'heard' not experienced . However I do need to read the book to get a more complete picture

Hi Rafe,

I applaud you for your frankness.

Your father and mine were on opposite sides of the fence. One of my earliest recollections was my father's extreme frustration when he came home one night from a meeting where he defended our Japanese neighbours. "They called me a "White Jap", he said. Our next door neighbour was one of the first three to be incarcerated because he was a community leader and school principal. His wife and daughter, my playmate, soon followed. Our family walked to the train with them when we said our last good-byes. I was shocked to see my playmate taken away and I am sure that she was even more shocked to be taken. I did not understand the psychology of the mob until years later.

You are right to use the term "concentration camp". Some Japanese-Canadian citizens went to internment camps. Others went to concentration camps where they were assigned clothing with a red circle on the back. At first some thought it was a Japanese flag but in reality it was a target.

One of my uncles, Hubie Smith, was a Six Nations native Indian. John Smith, better known as Jay Silverheels or "Tonto", was his cousin. Tonto was university educated but the only English he seemed to know in the movies were the words "Ugh, keemo sabe".

My uncle fought for Canada in WWII and was one of the job superintendants when the Oak Street Bridge was built. He got me my first construction job there,but he had no rights. He was on the "Indian List". He wasn't allowed to drive a car and my aunt had to drive him to and from work.

As the CCF/NDP waa the only political party to oppose racism most af the returning Japanese-Canadians suported that party and my own family as well.

We have come a long way since then, but the underlying mob psychology is stiil there, not far beneath the surface. We only need to look at the world around us, from George Bush to Hamas.

Thank you, Harold, for the personal touch of those years. I cannot understand people who have no pride, no honour, no shame. How can anyone say Rafe Mair is "brave" in acknowledging his family benefited from this shameful past.

But I look at Sam Sullivan and wonder how he can hold his head up when everyone knows his part in subverting democracy with "James" Green. Immediately after that, Vancouver gets Emerson's exploits.

And what about the people who voted for these questionable, honourless men? I suppose their comments are "that's politicians for you". But there have been and are honourable people in politics. It's a shame to lose them in such muck.

brain, you're now one of my big heros, or should I say heroines--right on, Sarah Blyth!

Yammer I don't accept your explanation (your nickname, so what?)and certainly the one agreeing with you (Alcibiades) about blurring the gender identities was silly. (Why not just wear Burkas with slits for eyes--male and female--everywhere we go)

To respond as honestly as brain about being afraid to seem unintelligent... (CERTAINLY BRAIN'S RESPONSE IS MORE BELIEVABLE) I must admit that I don't understand how anyone could write an anonymous comment. If I did it would mean the end of any sense of pride and it would truly be time for me to climb up to the top of the Patullo bridge and wait for the Surryites to yell, "jump, you goof, you're holding up traffic." It's a mystery to me, and I think there's a certain allegorical affinity to one of the subjects at hand: running with the crowd, like Rafe's father. It's just a massive privelege to live at this time in history, in this place on earth and to be able to express our feelings and ideas so openly on this wonderful site. It just runs so deep into any sense that I have of common decency and gratitude for living in a society that is at least in a lull from degeneracy, that I can't figure out why everyone doesn't agree with me.

So, Yammer if your reasons are valid why shouldn't the writers and journalists on Tyee write their articles under pen names too?

Truemen says

So who cares if Tyee writers,journalist,use pen names,or for that matter if any one else so wishes,sounds to me that you have to much time on your hands, maybe go wash the dishes or something, you know the old saying idle hands ,idle minds

Vera Kristiansen
Some may have said "brave"; what I said, I think, was that Rafe Mair was facing his demons and, further, that what he'd posted was an interesting and sobering reflection on mob rule. I think his original essay does indicate some 'shame' on his part and I think it took some courage to write what he has written. Does that make him brave? You decide.
From his own comment, up post, he doesn't see it quite that way himself.

I would say that the actions of the CCF in the 1930s - when they alone were speaking out against the unspeakable - which you mentioned in your original post - probably does qualify as brave.

dorothy I just reread your last post. Yes, that's EXACTLY what "got" me too. Rafe, not only wallowing in shame (which is fine if that's what he wants to do), but preaching to us that his father didn't do anything wrong given the morality of the times, and we can't judge the past by the morals of the present--something like that--which, I think, is not a particularly enlightening message--even that stealing the land of others might have been "mitigated" (Rafe's word) by the circumstances.

Rafe, my ancestors worked for free all over America and the Caribbean for hundreds of years. Was that wrong? or is it "mitigated" because that's what was going on in those days.

What's the lesson, then, in this morality play?

Like Dorothy explains, the lesson should be that as individuals we have to stand up and be counted for what's right, and if we don't we're thieves, fakes, pretenders, liars and cheats.

Truman
You don't agree with my observations about poster's anonymity as a way to avoid the pitfalls of gender. I take it, then, you're not a woman. Had you been, you might have felt the kind of dismissive attitude that accompanies the reactions of certain male colleagues who suffer from a somewhat sexist approach to the world.

Under such circumstances, it seems reasonable that ‘not posting’ as a woman might be advantageous for someone used to that kind of discrimination.

As for your other contention about the use of a nom de plume as being somehow shameful, I can see no objection to the practice - along with George Orwell and Mark Twain - to name just two authors who might tend to agree with me.

As for Yammer, I find his reasons for posting anonymously are equally valid to my own. Respectfully, that we know nothing about each other’s personal lives has no effect, in my opinion, upon the relevance or value of any discussion about events and ideas that we might engage in.

Alcibiades, Vera Kristiansen expressed her strong views, I think, without being targeted becomes she's a woman, as did Dorothy. Have you ever read BC Mary or Lynn's stuff? I pity anyone who tried to bully them because of their gender. (Actually, it might be fun to watch).

No, Al, we gotta live with each other around here. I not only use my real name but make it a point to say I'm black once in awhile. I've never been targeted and if I am I think I could still live a happy life.

Hiding from potential misogyny, racism and sexism is not a particularly good lesson to learn--not one I'd wish to pass on to the next generation, at any rate.

But I do agree with you on one thing: Yammer's reasons for posting anonymously ARE "equally valid" as your own. Not very!

Incidentally, Al, if you supply me with 6 billion names of writers who are using pen names it still doesn't further your argument that it's a good and moral thing to do. Whether Rafe intended it or not, I think that the lesson that should come out of his story is that the individual is supreme AND responsible.

Dear Woodcarver,
I am sorry I missed David Suzuki's Globe and Mail story. When did it appear?
To answer your question about his reference to "paradise", he is simply being honest.
Slocan, the relocation camp where he and his family were sent, is where I, also, spent my teen-aged years as an "enemy alien". Of course this was a racially motivated injustice, but nonetheless, it felt more like a 4 year picnic. Slocan was incredibly beautiful, a Shangri-la with four gorgeous seasons.
We enjoyed hiking in the mountains, swimming and picnicking by the lake or the river, with its clear, clear water. There was skating and dancing, and even the pleasure of visiting friends in other camps, such as New Denver and Kaslo.There was never a lack of wholesome, fun activities for young and old to engage in.
For young people, it was a completely carefree time. Although our parents may have worried about the future, while they were in these camps, all their needs were looked after, so it was a kind of respite from the real world and its worries. Don't forget, in the REAL world, men were going off to war--people were getting killed. Other Canadian kids were losing fathers.
Who suffered the greater loss? We who lost a few years of rights and freedom, or those who lost loved ones forever?

As for Joy Kogawa's autobiographical nove, "Obasan", when you read it, read chapter eleven with special attention, and ask yourself what, in the author's life, was the greatest injustice, the most tragic betrayal?
You will have to reply that the need for healing that Joy Kogawa talks about endlessly,as she desperately seeks to "save" her childhood house, has nothing to do with the WWII internment.

Believe David Suzuki; take Joy Kogawa with heaping grains of salt.
I am delighted that someone of David Suzuki's stature has finally spoken out.

Truman
George Orwell, Mark Twain , John Le Carre. Are they any less great because they used a nom de plume?
I'll stick with my point of view. As a matter of fact, Truman, I've seen you type some personal and offensive things about various posters right here on this very thread. Maybe you should scroll back up and refresh your own memory.

I'm very happy using an anonymous label and I don't think it has once taken the edge off what I have to say. A rose after all, my friend.

What I find truly amazing in the ignorant comments comparing the various terms for "camps" in this post. Talk about major nit picking. So many posts are really so trivial as to be laughable. Canada did not have Brown Shirts and Nazis terrorizing our country as Germany did. Give your heads a shake folks. In a little town in the Black Forest, Rotweil, there is a graveyard/memorial with dates from 1935 to 1944 where there are mass graves of postmen, priests, telephone operators, doctors, nurses, school teachers, professors etc. Each marker has the NUMBER of bodies buried in the common graves. Dachau is another one with similar graves and there are many others. So, just where in Canada are there similar sites? I've been there and read the memorials. Read your history.

First sentence should have 'is'

Okay, Alcibiades you don't feel it as a moral issue. I do. I didn't insult "various" posters. Just one. Hey, Burgess just called posters "ignorant" and "trivial" eh. Don't forget to chastise him. I hereby apologize to G.West for calling him obsequious, fawning and childish.

Burgess, I think Wasabi hinted that at least SOME of the camps may have not been what we think of as "concentration" camps, even though they were a place of concentration of supposed sabateurs and terrorists.

Burgess
Help me understand what you're getting at,
you say:

Does this mean you assert that there was no need to have camps for Japanese Canadians? Or are you merely saying that the camp experience was somehow less demeaning because it wasn't staffed by members of the Waffen SS?

I'd like to know if you think the camps were justified in Canada. I think Rafe Mair is suggesting that they weren't and that mob rule is a bad thing, whether it happens in Germany, Japan or Canada.

I think he's right and I'm very glad things didn't get any worse than they did. I don't think that permits us, from the vantage point of a new century, to pretend that what our fathers and grandfathers did, in respect of our Japanese neighbours and countrymen, was anything but misguided. The fact that it was motivated by fear and irrationality ought to make us more aware about how we behave today.

But Truman,
You're the one on a campaign to induce everyone to drop his or her label and step out in the open. It's not up to me to make the case for you.

I'm just trying to illustrate that your actions may be inconsistent with your beliefs.

In addition, I'd argue that, even in respect of your own behavior, a poster who (for whatever reason known only to him or her) could be perfectly justified and much more comfortable not revealing himself or herself to someone like, for instance, you. Someone who is a perfectly nice person with a very even disposition who can, under mild duress, say things he'd later feel he had to apologize for.

People, in public and semi-public circumstances like this can have all sorts of good reasons for wishing to be anonymous - it has nothing, I'd suggest, to do with their morality.

I think you need to reconsider.

Thanks Rafe! I really appreciate your story. All of you that have responded to Rafe's personal story with derision and righteousness should beware how close in your hearts you are to the same sins his parent's generation committed.

The first step towards committing outrages against others is to assure yourself of your own superiority over them.

Hi Wasabi, Thankyou so much for your thoughtful and interesting reply. I will surely take note of your comments when reading Obasan.
Dr David Suzuki's article was in this weekends Globe and Mail. I believe you can access it on their web site.
In contrast to your teenage years ,I spent the first few years of my life accross the water from Liverpool U.K. being bombed and spending nights in air raid shelters and not having a father for 5 years .( I did not know who he was when he eventually came home)
I thank you for your understanding of the losses families suffered who had members conscripted to fight in a war not of their making .
I feel bad that Canadian citizens where confined but ,as you say I feel worse for the families who lost loved ones .
Thanks again for your input.........

I've heard others who react angrily to suggestions that Canada should feel remorse over how we treated our own Japanese-Canadian Citizens. Most of those reacting angrily counter that the way Canada treated it's "Enemy Aliens" was very humane and understandable, and nothing at all compared to the way the Japanese treated Westerners captured during the war.

The difference was that Japan was a xenophobic aggressive militarist authoritarian dictatorship.

We were supposed to be the "good guys". We were supposed to benefit from rule of law and strong social justice guarantees dating back to the magna carta. The fact is that our cherished civil society could be turned against visible minorities due to an outbreak of officially sanctioned hysteria.

This was not an isolated event. The Padlock Acts were used in Quebec to jail Jehovah's witnesses and communists. The war measures act has been invoked in the past. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms has a Notwithstanding clause.

An official apology for internment and confiscation might seem inappropriate or inadequate or unnecessary from today's perspective. Tomorrow, however, the precedent of that apology may be the thin line that prevents a repetition.

Note: my post above was not in response to woodcarver, but was a continuation of my earlier post.

I am a writer, I have written for different publications around town (Vancouver.)

For me it would be much easier to use someone else's name. If something goes wrong, I could easily just hide behind it!

If you really believe in what you say you should be proud to attach your name to it.

I do understand the gender thing though, at times I feel like people listen and respect men more than woman. It's a sad reality!

brain
I think that's correct and in terms of marketing and publishing your work it makes sense not to be anonymous - for journalism at least. Books, I don't think there's anything wrong with a pen name so long as it is consistent. Ethical behavior, honesty and responsibility don't have, to my way of thinking, any connection to the names we use....as long as we stand behind them. Jason Blair would have been a disaster no matter what name he signed to his 'journalism.'

Posting to a place like this seems to me to be a little different. I mean, it's ok if you do and equally ok if you don't. For my part, the quality of the discourse often seems to suffer when people get personal. Have you noticed that too? It may just be the internet thing but I can see that some might find a persona is a useful way to engage with others - something in the 'relationship' might suffer if anyone could look up your phone number after an hour of posting. In an ideal world, Truman is right, of course. Nevertheless, that's not the world we live in.

As to the gender thing, I think someone up post made the same point you have about the reality of some people's attitudes toward women. It's clearly better now than it was in 'George Eliot's and George Sand's' time, so I guess things are getting better little by little. I wonder if there are many men writing as women?

Alcibiades, could you get a simpler phony name please. I apologized not because I don't believe what I said was true but because I don't like to hurt peoples' feelings and I think I was being childish expressing beliefs that I should really keep to myself--as well as not paying proper respect to the Tyee.

That said, if I was out of line, I'm paying the price as a loss of respect from people whose respect I cherish. See how it works?There's no free ride, and neither should we expect there to be.

So how are my actions inconsistent with my beliefs? I think there's just a massive amount of wimpery going on on this blog and to be as truthful as brain in her admission about why she has remained anonymous, I have no respect for people who hide behind phony names. But that's me. You have no problem with anonymity. So by all means, cherish your secrecy! Stay under cover as a "moral imperative" as you and Yammer try to pretend that you believe you are--to build a better blog, as you imply.

I didn't say anonymouse (sic) people couldn't be "nice" under nice conditions. I just said they are wimps and I doubt if I could trust them to step up to the plate and talk back to power if the situation arose.

I think Rafe does tell a very good tale, and I admire him not as a thinker, but as a writer. It's a tale of rationalization (his own) and as I said, whether we as individuals want to stand up and be counted or not. It's not a simple story, and maybe Rafe did tell it to stand up and be counted. Only he knows. Notice he didn't start the story as, "This friend of mine's dad..."

I'd still like to see Yammer commenting under his old name. It's a very good name. He should be proud. Our names are very good possessions.

But Truman, Alcibiades is a very good name. It has ancient roots and a strong connection to the concept of dialogue. Anyway, some quick points:

1. I don't think this thing about names is a moral matter. That's why I objected to you putting it that way. I think someone posting to this forum can be perfectly moral whether they post their real name or not. It is just not that kind of exercise.

2. I don't believe that we can judge anyone's character on such slim evidence either. I may be the only person posting here tonight who'd stand up for you if push came to shove but your knowing my real name wouldn't make you any surer of that than thinking I am an obscure Greek. You'd be throwing the dice to count on me because you don't really know me - you just have an image of what my ideas are and that's not enough, in my opinion, for anyone to make that kind of judgment.

3. I am proud of my ideas. I hope there's something of the real and not just the evanescent about them and I hope they will go on long after I'm gone. Those ideas are far more important than my name, or me for that matter, my name is, I'd suggest, only the label my friends and family apply to me. Fame and labels are pretty fleeting.

As to your low opinion of Rafe's little essay: I think you're mistaken about that, at least partly. It's true he may be rationalizing a bit and his post to the comments thread seems to indicate he doesn't want to be seen as having done anything special by this kind of public confession. However, that first sentence convinced me. I think he's lived with a certain ambivalence about his life of relative privilege. A life founded upon taking advantage of someone's misfortune. The fact that others did it too doesn't let him off the hook and I think his opening sentence indicates he knows that.

I think he’s in the process of examining that life – something all of us start to do, it we’re thoughtful people, as we age.

I think he's taking stock. Maybe this is part of that effort. I'm willing to give him that and say well done. And no, he hasn't been my favourite person over the years, so I'd have no ideological reason to cut him any slack.

Well then, Al, I'll look forward to seeing you post under your real name, then "seeing as how" it's no big deal.

Rafe's a very complicated person. He really did make me sit up and take notice a few months ago on the show, "The Standard" I think it was. (a fairly Christian-based outlet) Here I was remote at the ready when there's Rafe going on about how he's decided that the divinity and resurrection of Christ was basically a pile of crap, at least as gleefully as Lewis Lapham mocking the lusty and virgin-seeking Mohammad (yeah the prophet)in this month's Harper's. (I just remembered my own caveat that to be courageous one has to have something to lose.) For sure Lampham had something to lose. (what with the prospect of fatwaisation and all) Rafe's apostasy--not so much--unless Omni 10 has secretly taken up stoning people to death.

Wasabi and Woodcutter sure muddied the waters, eh. And now I wonder if Rafe and Suzuki weren't at least a bit TARDY with their confessions, although Rafe says he's written similar stuff before.

Funny thing, I was going to speculate myself if some of the camps were not actually kinda fun places to be as Wasabi and apparently Suzuki admit, but even I couldn't have stood the amount of abuse from other posters that would have answered such speculation.

Al, find the sentence, "And that's a key point." Here's what comes before: "It must be clearly understood that my dad didn't do anything wrong by the standards of the day. Indeed, this sort of thing was seen as a form of patriotism since it got even with the Japs and kept people working." Then: AND THAT'S A KEY POINT."

I'm just taking Rafe at his word as my friend G.West says I should. THAT'S THE KEY POINT.
Hardly a Freudian slip, I think, Alcibiades.

Truman
I think Rafe's anxious to excuse his Dad and your quote is central to that idea, but he's even of two minds about that because he admits, twice really, that he didn't really want to deal with the issue until after his parents were dead. Even that is conflicted.

However, that's getting analytical. I prefer to look at his first sentence that indicates to me that the whole affair - despite the rationalizations (which I certainly acknowledge are there) - is a matter of some shame and embarrassment for him. I think he's trying to be a better man. Despite the fuzziness around the edges and a couple of backhanded qualifiers, I think he knows damn well this is a black eye for him and every other family who took advantage of the situation in a similar fashion.

And Harold Steves' post is proof that there were some at the time who stood up to the bullies and the fear mongers...and Rafe's father wasn't among them – he was there to make a profit at someone else’s expense. I think Rafe is trying to come to grips with it but he's not there yet. I saw him just the other day on the Standard and he was busy pointing out the hypocrisy of his own Anglican Church over issues like the treatment of aboriginals and gay rights. He was making the point that the church was learning from its mistakes, funnily enough.

I think he is in the middle of a major reassessment of his whole life - be interesting to see whom he ends up being in the end. Still, I think he deserves some credit. How many others would be so honest under similar non-demanding circumstances?

As for those who say there's no personal responsibility for anyone because the relocations and the camps were government policy; well that's just nonsense: Exactly the same kinds of arguments that failed for the Nazi satraps at Nuremberg. Only difference is, we were on the winning side so our morality isn't put under the same scrutiny as it would otherwise have been - and that's why it's important for people not to forget their own responsibility as moral agents.

Truman:

Jesus! You're really taking this real name thing seriously. To be quite honest, my pseudonym is largely a habit at this point. It amuses me as much as anything else.

How do we know that you are really "Truman Green"? What corroborative documentary evidence have you submitted that that is your actual name? May we have your picture and thumbprint as well?

p.s. I've outed myself a bunch of times here too, so I don't think it is a huge secret who I am.

Yours,
Ed Deak
just kidding
Ron Yamauchi

Hi Ron Yamauchi. Welcome outside into the fresh air. Thanks for defending me when that person tried to claim that I'm not really James Green's brother (the guy who interfered in the Vancouver election and who will look you straight in the eye and tell you that the name identicality had nothing to do with his entering the race), which I am.

It WAS a "huge" secret to me who you were until you mentioned that you are of Japanese ancestry and I noticed the similarity beteen the first syllables of your real and "nicknames."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcibiades

Hmmm, interesting story

He may have learned that in his youth; but, if you look a little more closely you'll also find:

ALC. For how could that not be?

SO. And could anyone impart something one does not have?

ALC. And how could one?

SO. Then first you must gain goodness for yourself,
and for anyone else who intends to rule and take care of
oneself and one's belongings not in private only
but also a state and the business of the state.

ALC. You speak the truth.

SO. Then it is not power nor rule
that you must provide for yourself
to do what you want for you and the state,
but justice and discretion.

ALC. It appears so.

SO. For acting justly and sensibly
you and the state will be acting friendly to God.

I wonder why this thread has been hi-jacked by someone determined to push his /her agenda regarding the pro's and con's of anonymity?
Begins to sound like the steam roller mentality that reasonable people wish to avoid, when it is the content of the message that interests not the source .

G.West what is objectionable about some of the postings is the comparing of camps with the insinuations made that Canada's are somehow just as bad as the others. And reserves equal concentration camps? Ask the Dutch about the Japanese camps in Sumatra. Canada had camps, no argument. Were they justified? Your call not mine. T. Green just who is the more culpable the sellers or buyers? To both, did you live through the '30s and 40s or are you 'armchair' critics of a very traumatic part of Canadian history. By the way Rafe's article is an excellent one could either of you produce one as good?

Hi Burgess
Thanks for taking the time. Relativism is a slippery slope. Still, I think you'd have a hard time making the case that the way Europeans have treated (by design or accident) the native peoples of this continent has been anything other than genocide. So let's get that out of the way to start with. That's at least partly, where I'm coming from.

On the other hand, the fact that I'm in complete agreement with your assessment of the 'camps' of one kind or another in Europe and the Far East between say 1930 and 1945 doesn't give me the right to ignore what I think my father's generation did relative to (a) Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry; and (b) Jewish refugees who tried to flee Nazi Germany and central Europe and were turned back by Canadian administration officials at the time.

I agree that Rafe's article is good. I've posted that opinion more than once if you read back over the material above. I've even contacted someone in the media in Toronto to suggest it should be reprinted in the mainstream press. I don't know if that'll happen, but I think it should.

Finally, I don't think the camps that Japanese Canadians (who, with other 'Asians' didn't even have the right to vote in this country at that time) were sent to were as bad as the Nazi camps, obviously. However, in my opinion that's irrelevant: They were unjustified and unnecessary and they are a blot on the record of members of the brave generation of Canadians who were willing to risk their lives to put an end to the Fascist empires of the first half of the 20th century. I think Rafe's article emphasizes this point - as well as the obvious one that difficult decisions are always, well, difficult. He may make too much of the effect of the emotionalism and tenor of the times, but it’s a small quibble in my view.

I don't know if I'd behave the same way if I were confronted with a similar dilemma today. If I did react differently, I'd give all the credit to my father for having taught me that lesson from the experience he gained in Europe during his 'grand tour' from 1940 - 1945.

Cheers.

Burgess, I don't know why you're putting me into the same camp as G. West on this issue. I tried to make the point that as nasty as the internment camps were, they were nothing like the real "concentration" camps that I first learned about as a 12 year old snitcher (1957) of my mom's books--namely "The Pattern of Soviet Power" by American journalist, Edgar Snow. Snow accompanied American troops into the real concentration camps in Eastern Europe and for a 12 year old learning about the Nazi's "final solution" was almost more than I could handle.

In fact, I kind of mourned about what I had read in that book for many years, and in a way still am.

As for being an "armchair critic" I don't get your point. Are we not supposed to comment on something through which we didn't live?

I think I've done a lot of stories better than this one. Google my name and read one here on Tyee if you like. But then, of course, I'm slightly biased.

As far as who was more culpable--buyers or sellers. It doesn't matter. They were all a bunch of bloody thieves and war criminals. In fact, the only reason they weren't held accountable is that our side won the war.

I think Rafe's dad should have been charged as a war criminal along with everyone else who stole property that belonged to innocent Canadians who happened to look like members of one of the nations with whom we were at war.

G. West, what the hell's "difficult" about deciding whether to steal somebody's property. Who ARE you, anyway!

Did you guys ever hear about the Nuremberg trials? Did you learn any lessons? Rafe didn't.

maybe google, "presentism" and think about whether good and evil should be viewed as universally applicable considerations--or rationalized out of existence--or not--or contingent upon the whims of time and cultural and military ascendency.

Panicking and rounding up innocent people among whom your worst enemies may be hiding as sabateurs and fifth columnist and sending them to internment camps may be racist, but it's not evil. Stealing their land and KEEPING it even after the crisis has passed IS.

Truman says

I agree, yes,wrong should have been made right.

Truman

The difficult decision, as if it weren't obvious, is Rafe's decision to write about his father's and his culpability...did you actually read the essay?

I'm tired of your relativist garbage. The fact that the camps the Canadian Japanese were herded into - after they'd been collected in the agricultural barns at the PNE - may not have been a on a scale with the horrors of Belsen doesn't mean they were a picnic. There was no more need to move those people away from the coast than there was to intern US Japanese citizens in Hawaii. I'm sick and tired of people making excuses for what we did because it didn't measure up to the standards of evil set by the Nazis.
I'm ashamed of the way we behaved and I'm ashamed of the people who are still trying to rationalize it to this day, period.

If you could read, you wouldn't be accusing me of rationalizing anything. Next thing you know someone will be recommending we all read Michelle Malkin’s apologist claptrap about the American deportation of their Japanese ‘citizens’.

If I wasn't clear in my post above, GWest says what I intended.

tcahill
tip of the hat :-)

I have no problem commenting on something through which I didn't live. The settlement of North and South America is an evil story of butchery and sadism. Historical records show that. Sunday slaugter of natives by good "Christian" church goers from NewFoundland to California prove that along with the Spanish 'rape' of their conquests. But what has all this to do with the fear of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast? Oregon was bombed by a float plane flown from a Japanese submarine. Ships were torpedoed and sunk off of Vancouver Island. The Alutians were invaded. Just how much guilt does one have to have re internment camps? Read Bradley's book 'Flyboys' to get a perspective on this debate. It is a must read on systemic racism and its affects on societies. Winners in warfare may write the history but they can't cover up the barbarism. It is still a travesty for posters to compare the internment camps in Canada with others. It was wrong to inter those Canadians plain and simple but then it was a different era and different times.

Burgess
I didn't do that. But just because the action didn't rise quite as high on the revulsion scale is no reason to pretend it was justified or right - that's my only point.

I answered your concerns directly, of course it was a different time and a different era but there were individuals who tried to stand up for what was right - just as there were individuals who tried to stop the decimation of native Americans. That's the whole point. Neither action was excusable. If American Japanese had been such a threat why weren't they interned on Hawaii? Surely the potential (I'd say imagined) danger was a lot greater there than here. Most of our fathers' generation ought to be ashamed of that. They can be very proud of other things, as I acknowledged, but they're far from perfect...to pretend anything else is no service to their memory, in my opinion.

During the first world war the Colonel Blimps on the home front decided to change Berlin Ontario's name to Kitchener and Prussia Saskatchewan's name to Leader as part of the war effort and they also put Ukrainian Canadians into camps in Banff National Park. Was that sensible, was that understandable? In my opinion, it was stupid and misguided - just like interning Japanese CANADIANS was.

Tcahill - thx!

The Americans didn't have to worry about Hawaii, it was one big internment camp.

Hand-ringing achieves nothing. History repeats itself. Here we are debating the past when the problem is still with the world today and we waste energy on things that can't be changed instead of working to change what is happening today. From 'Gitmo' to Sino. Sigh!

Burgess
I'm all for change and progress. But I'm not afraid to face the past, that's all. I'm not your enemy - believe me - I just think we have to learn from what we can't change.
Cheers man.

G. West, what "relativist garbage" are you talking about? I said those who stole the property and land and businesses were war criminals who should have been prosecuted. I'm saying that very little that happened to Japanese Canadians during the war that can compare to what happened in European concentration camps. Suzuki and Wasabi, both more familiar with the situation than any of us, made the same point.

This theft would have very easy to fix by giving the land back after the war.

And G, you sure gave Rafe a pass on his Ignatieffian rationalizing, which of course, is what you do.

"And this is a key point. My dad did nothing wrong according to the standards of the day."

Truman,
It’s relativist garbage to say that because the camps for the Japanese didn't compare on the revulsion scale with Nazi concentration camps that they are somehow okay, less culpable, not as deserving of condemnation – that’s relativist garbage.

Being overjoyed by how 'well' our fathers treated people unjustifiably held against their will is damning with faint praise. The fact things turned out so well for the Japanese is wonderful – but don't ask me to pretend the idea behind the incarceration was very different from what the Germans did - especially in the beginning and especially prior to the refusal of the rest of the world to permit the Jews to emigrate. There’s lots of shame to go around - we shouldn't try to soft pedal it, my friend.

And G, you know very well that my entire rant has been against "relativist garbage" which I think is a pretty good description for Rafe's story and the "key" (as he says) message that he's trying to shovel off on readers, in spite of feigning responsibility.

Truman,
this is what I said:

Could that be any clearer.

Just because I gave Rafe Mair some credit for finally starting to come to grips with his own past doesn't mean I excuse him entirely. I know there are hundreds of other Canadians who profited from the extortion of their fellow citizens who haven't come forward to say a thing. Why should I condemn the odd one, like Rafe Mair who has come forward just because he's still rationalizing the role his father played with weasel terms like 'legal'.

The good and the perfect shouldn't be enemies.

And neither, my friend, should you and I be enemies.

Okay, truce, G. now that you seem to understand that Rafe is still rationalizing what his father did, I think behind the facade of culpability. I think it's an evil message. You're giving him the benefit of the doubt and trying to get this obvious pretense republished elsewhere. That's why I compared it to Ignatieff's uniquely disgusting treatise on the evils of torture, in which, he too, pretends to be condemning torture when what he's really doing is saying that it might not be a bad way to go for America to protect itself from terrorists.

The world's full of fakes and pretenders, G. I guess we just have a different opinion of who they are.

We're never going to agree on what's going on but you're right, we shouldn't be enemies because of it.

Truman
We remake the world one step at a time. Many small victories for truth and honesty will win out in the end. My approach is to take comfort and reward the little things. Reacting too negatively because one doesn't get the whole cake all at once doesn't mean we shouldn't enjoy the few crumbs the other side drops from the table from time to time.
It's just a difference in approach - each argument has its merits. I don't believe in hauling out the big guns to shoot squirrels. Let’s say Rafe’s piece does get published elsewhere and a few more people begin to think that there ‘was’ something wrong with the exploitation that their forefathers practiced against a range of ‘others’ over the years. Maybe those readers will, the next time they read some social scientist’s conclusions about why First Nations peoples haven’t been widely ‘successful’ in modern culture, think twice about the reasons for that. Maybe the next time they hear some businessman crow about how he took a failing business and turned it profitable with government help they’ll wonder why that help wasn’t available to the original owner…. Progress, in life and peoples’ attitudes – is seldom a straight line. Maybe some others will question Rafe’s continuing rationalization and wonder, as you do, why he didn’t go farther. That can’t be bad, can it?
Cheers.

Borrowed from Burgess (we waste energy on things that can't be changed instead of working to change what is happening today. From 'Gitmo' to Sino. Sigh!)
Honor our Japanese Canadian brothers and sisters who had their assets taken from them, by using this energy towards having the implementation of Property Rights enshrined into our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which will at the very least, protec our children and grandchildren and all future citizens of Canada .

Well, this HAS been an interesting thread... thanks for throwing the first rock, Rafe. But you can still give monetary compensation, rather than just lip service. The latter is what the Austrian Jorge Haider is giving. He got his country estate for free from the family that stole it from jews and is resisting returning it to the rightful heirs...

To get back to the tenor of the times, it was, for those not of the dominant Anglo-Scots-Irish community, one of institutionalized racism. You literally could not expect to be hired (except for menial jobs) or educated if you weren't one of them. My mother was the first "ethnic" (Swedish Canadian, or bohunks as they were then known) to be hired by the University of Edmonton Hospital, and that only because the war had taken away so many people from the labour force.

As an elderly north country neighbour (now long deceased) remarked to her in the fifties, in a very thick rural accent "Are yeh furrein, then!? Yeh den't look furrein! Ah can't stand furreinners! Ah can't stand the way they taak!" My mother, of course, was born in Canada, and speaks without an accent.... but she was still "furrein".

Similarily, an elderly gentleman once confided to my father that he would never shop at the Bay, because he and his sister had grown up next to Jewish neighbours in Winnipeg, and she had learned Yiddish from them. One day while working in the Bay, a customer (Jewish) had been unable to explain what she wanted.... The man's sister had gone over, said 'excuse me' to the other staffer, translated for her, and then gone back to her job. The next day she was fired because the Bay did not hire Jews.

To all the other posters, I have to agree with the sentiment that there is absolutely no guarantee that this can't happen again here, charter or no charter. Yes, we remember that McKenzie King was 'unwilling to alter the ethnic balance of Canada' by accepting Jewish refugees, and people of South Asian and Middle Eastern origin are in all likelihood here on sufferance as hostages to good economic times.

Who has not heard racist remarks and seen the graffiti?

R. Smiley (my real name).

One grandparent from Russia; the other from Coventry - they couldn't decide who was more 'furrein' between them but the settlers in the surrounding area, who were nearly all Protestant 2nd generation folks from Ontario, let them know in a hurry! No big deal, we all learn from it. The key is, do we pass it on? or not.

ripponfalls says

True,but with he same token,that without Property Rights your pretty well guatanteed no protection, it is simular to haveing house insurance, your safer with it, than without without it, of course in same situations it may fail, but you at least have the option(right)to appeal.

Somebody once said that rights are wants on stilts. Enshrining a right does not guarantee it. All morning I've had Yeat's "The second coming" running through my head. You know,

I've always interpreted this phrase as a call to arms; to defend liberal traditions. ( And I do not mean the Liberal Party Federal or provincial, OK?) We've acknowledged in this thread that public sentiment changes over time.

Without "the best" remaining resolute in their convictions, the worst will always prevail. As I suggested above, an official apology and other public acts of contrition are very important all on their own, as an important bulwark for public resolve.

I think I prefer F R Scott - Yeats was a bit of a racist as I recall.

Lucky for me to have avoided a literary education. I'm free to take what sounds right from where I find it without worrying about any other baggage.
Nevertheless, I've done a quick google search "Yeats racist", and not come up with much. Perhaps you'd exand?

People are free to hate the Volkswagen beatle just because the NAZIs helped come up with it, others can drive it with a clear conscience.

Well, I still haven't found racist, but how about fascist?

http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/

Hmm, an echo of Rafe's story: guilt and recantation.

Not to say that Rafe: a) ever embraced fascism, b) is not a friend of the Left or democracy, or c) was ever involved in eugenics. This thread is complicated enough.

tcahill
keep at it my friend - you're giving yourself a literary education....it's all out there....somewhere.
You're going to find it all on your own.
But who wouldn't love some of his poems:

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

That is truely enlightened.

G. you said Yeats was a bit of a racist. I always loved his stuff. Do you have some sources for his racism?

G, I don't have any strategy of "remaking the world." I just respond to what I see and feel and read, as God gave me the light...just kidding, now I'm quoting General MacArthur.

And maybe throw in a reference or two on your claim of the best way to remake the world when you're doing Yeat's racism. I mean, it could take an unusually extended solar flare, eh. Who knows?

Personally, I've come to the conclusion that serious morality is a matter of nucleotide sequencing, genetic" that is. During crises the mob most often becomes supreme.

As ripponfalls says, it would probably happen all over again--unless there is a real genetic alteration of the human psyche and people stop rationalizing their ancestors and family's crimes.

It is an interesting, and not at all academic question: what determines when and how a mob rules?

Why did Jim Crow rule the US south for so long? Why did the Civil Rights movement "work"?

Why is Canada not as racist as it was just a few decades ago? Has it really changed?

We hear the phrase "rule of law", so often for geopolitical reasons that it can sound meaningless, but it really does describe the extent to which people can live free of the fear of arbitrary actions.

Of course, for people to derive protection under the rule of law, that law must enshrine minority rights and due process.

In this age of "Political (In)correctness, people forget just how incorrect things can get without basic respect for others.

A spirit of public disrespect for institutions and propriety can easily be manipulated for personal gain by populists, who can then, with a democratic mandate, run roughshod over both institutions and propriety.

There is a lot of outrage in public against this and that, which is good, in that people have not gotten apathetic, but bad, in that it has been forgotten that, relative to most times in history and geography, things are pretty good.

All great questions, tcahill. There's other weird things about the internment issue, not least of which is Wabasi's comment that the camps were a lot of fun to a teenager and Suzuki's apparent description of them as a kind of "paradise." (although I haven't personally read his article)

And certainly the entire war experience didn't seem to damage Japanese citizens in the long run. (notwithstanding the suffering of the captives) It might not take a die-hard revisionist to suggest that General MacArthur could be considered the patron saint of the modern Japanese state. (just speculating, everybody!) By all the usual indicators Japanese Canadian citizens are doing extremely well today. In fact, probably better than any so-called "ethnic" group or long time Canadians of European ancestry. I once read a report that claimed that Japanese and Jewish people have, respectively, the highest income status in the country.

Now I'm really confessing, but when I was a teenager I used to think of Japanese people as kind of superhuman, reflecting upon how they seemed to be able to overcome all the odds.

No, I'm not not rationalizing the interment and concentration camps, just commenting on how things turn out sometimes.

As tcahill asks, "Why did the civil rights movement work? Why is Canada less racist than it used to be?"

Maybe as Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, (not to forget the that sixties rock group) there's just a time for everything.

I think Suzuki's deal arose out of the fact that both his parents were born in Canada and English was their language at home. He was picked on and bullied by some of the kids in the camps whose first language was Japanese - which David couldn't speak. SO, in a real way the worst experiences he remembers were not as a result of any treatment that he identified with the people who put his family in that situation. I think that is typical of what often happens when young children are placed in new environments - they often even see the change as an adventure. For the adults and the older kids, I'm sure you'd get a different story.

I think Suzuki said (he wrote a short memoir years ago that I read at the time - I haven't seen his just-published book) that the first time he felt the effects of racism was when he went south with the freedom riders in the 60s.

As to racism in our society today. I'm not sure we have much to crow about. Hang around a small-town cafe in rural Saskatchewan or Alberta and listen to the talk about orientals (they'd call them chinamen) and First Nations people (Indians or braves) or, for that matter, people from Quebec (frogs). Surprisingly, you won’t hear much about blacks - except when the Saskatchewan Roughriders aren't doing well, then you'll hear the team has too many blacks on it.

Regarding: Yeats racism..."Eugene" might be able to help you. ;-)

George Orwell, observant as ever, thought Yeats was, in fact, quite foolishly naive...saying that Yeats failed to see that that future idyllic civilization he imagined would not be one of noble rule but instead one ruled "by anonymous millionaires, shiny bottomed bureaucrats and murdering gangsters". (and right on the money, as usual, Mr. Orwell). :-)

But I can't help but love his poetry, too.

What's more delicious than "And live alone in the bee-loud glade" or... "There midnight's all a glimmer". Thanks G West.

Or the emotional splendour of these lines...

"Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends".

While all of the examples above are ugly. They are much less direct forms of racism than in the past. Racist attacks are now newsworthy, in part due to their unacceptability, and the rarity of such activities.

Well, if Yeats was naive, Orwell was a tad pessimistic. If there is a proper study of the human condition, it must embrace these (and other) contradictions.

Thank you lynn

Fear no more the heat o' the sun
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou they worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

I read that, and the other two verses, at my mother's funeral last summer.

tcahill
You won't be surprised to hear me say I think Orwell was , as usual , dead on!

third line of Fidele, above, should be 'thy', not they - sorry Will

I'm not suprised, and you're not wrong either. It all comes down to the tint in our spectacles.

Some have the balls to record history,while others cower in the corners...

Orwell,was/is an icon because he aired our dirty laundry.

AIR OUT THAT DIRTY LAUNDRY RAFE

A moving tribute to your mother, G West.

These simple lines brim with the dance of life that old Will understood so well...and its end....free of regret.

Yes,some understand,birth,no problem,death no problem...it's the shit in between that causes all the problems...and that's, what Will, was so great about in relating to the simple folk...the ...WHY ARE WE HERE ,QUESTION

to live life as best you can .

I agree...."the in between"... that's the reeaaallly hard part. :-)

And it relates to the issues at the core of Rafe's article , to bring this full circle....so to speak.

And here is Harper's Government(?) apologizing to the Chinese for a head tax that is almost 100,years old .
I don't think anyone has ever apologized to the Japanese who were interned in concentration camps and stripped of everything they owned .
Kinda pales in comparison doesn't it ?
Well done Raif you are the epitome of a gentleman .

You're not actually serious about comparing Rafe to Orwell are you?

I suppose it's somewhat valid -- Orwell penned a brilliant political satire that's remembered for generations, Rafe ived his life as one.

I somehow doubt we'll be remembering Rafe for generations though.

Darcy, you need to slow down....if you care: Orwell was quoted in respect of Yeats, who, it had been suggested - despite his marvelous poetry - had a bit of a reputation as a fascist and someone with racist tendencies. Thomas suggested that Orwell wasn't afraid to write about the 'dirty laundry' of his times and then urged Rafe to go a little further than he had his current apologia and do the same...ok.