The silence of Mark Carney’s Liberal government is deafening

As news emerges of the inhumane treatment of international humanitarian teams kidnapped by Israel from the Global Sumud Flotilla, another flotilla is heading toward likely interception. This latest Freedom Flotilla has Canadians aboard, including three Newfoundlanders.

As their boats approach the zone where Israeli military forces have attacked other vessels, a growing number of onlookers in Canada and around the world have been glued to the flotilla tracking site. As The Independent has reported, a growing chorus of voices are calling for the Canadian government to take action, not just to protect Canadians aboard the boats but to stand up for the principles of international law and human decency which Israel’s ongoing genocide has made a tragic mockery of. 

Other countries are mobilizing, slowly but surely. Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey have all contributed varying levels of naval support or protection at various points. Last week, Colombia expelled all remaining Israeli diplomats from their country and cancelled their free trade agreement with Israel, after Colombian citizens were abducted from the Global Sumud Flotilla by Israeli forces. 

Two Canadians were also abducted by Israeli soldiers on the Global Sumud Flotilla. Six more, including the three Newfoundlanders, are on the latest flotilla, according to Nikita Stapleton, one of the St. John’s residents aboard the Conscience vessel. But the silence from Canada on the rights of its citizens is deafening.

Carney government silent as Newfoundland activists headed for Gaza face likely interception by Israel

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians ought to have a special investment in this struggle, not just because there are people from our province on the boats, and not just because genocides always ought to be opposed. Israel’s actions effectively amount to high seas piracy: boarding and seizing boats in international waters, taking crews hostage, and imprisoning and torturing them, barring a maritime nation like Palestine from access to the ocean. These are international crimes. As a seagoing people who have relied on the ocean for our livelihoods for centuries, we should be outspoken in our defense of the rights of other seafarers and fishing nations, and in our condemnation of acts of piracy and criminality on the high seas. 

The cod moratorium of the 1990s is nothing remotely like the experience of being bombed, invaded and occupied, as Palestinians have experienced, but the experience of a maritime nation deprived of its livelihood—and all the dignity, self-respect and self-reliance it provides—is something that should resonate with us. So, why the silence from politicians who should be among those with the most to say?

Why the silence matters

There are many reasons to be concerned about our politicians’ silence. Right now dozens of candidates are vying for office in our provincial election. A candidate who’s capable of being silent in the face of genocide, who’s willing to look the other way as tens of thousands of innocent people are slaughtered with Canadian corporate and political complicity, is a politician who would look the other way when similar woes are visited upon any one of us.

A politician who would shirk their basic human duty to stand up against the sort of depravity we’ve witnessed from Israel, is a politician who would shirk their responsibilities to their constituents, too. We already see the outcome of that silence from St. John’s East MP Joanne Thompson, who has ignored not only a genocide she could play an important role in stemming, but is now ignoring her own constituents at a moment when their very lives are in peril for doing the work she isn’t. 

In a recent news article, I interviewed a local doctor who said repeated calls and emails to Cape Spear MP Tom Osborne around this issue have also gone unanswered. It’s difficult to understand what strange form of fear has gripped so many of our country’s politicians and kept them from speaking out against a truly gruesome genocide, but if it’s enough to silence a Newfoundland politician, it must be a potent fear indeed. 

No one expects a politician to single-handedly solve things. But we should expect them to do the least they can, which is to speak out. A politician who would fail that most basic test of decency—speaking out on behalf of those they represent, on behalf of those who are suffering, on behalf of the laws and ideals upon which our political order is based—is unworthy of the position they hold. Or as we might say in Newfoundland: what’s the use of you?

Memorial University, our province’s only public university, is presently celebrating its centennial, reflecting on its activity over the past 100 years. There are so many lessons in the past century of history, lessons that a university, of all institutions, ought to be poised to learn from. Yet MUNL is actively investing in the ongoing Palestinian genocide. The university has millions of dollars still invested in companies complicit with Israel’s war crimes or occupation, including direct investments in arms manufacturers.

When Memorial’s investments were identified and revealed, its governing body made a conscious decision to maintain those investments—to make money off them, even if they’re used for mass murder—rather than do the right thing and stop funding and profiting off of the slaughter of innocent people. MUNL’s own students and alumni are standing up where the institution isn’t, and putting their own lives at risk to try to break the siege on Gaza. Yet Memorial, an institution that eagerly seizes any opportunity to promote the accomplishments of its students and alumni, remains silent. Meanwhile, over 150 faculty have signed an open letter calling on Prime Minister Carney to take action. When MUNL celebrates its next centennial, how will we judge those presently governing the institution, not only for their failure to speak up against genocide, but for their deliberate, unrepentant decision to profit off of it? 

Organized labour needs to step up

Witnessing who’s speaking out, and who isn’t, is revealing. Labour organizations are becoming vocal. On Oct. 4 the NL Federation of Labour issued a statement and set of demands to the federal government, calling on it to protect the Newfoundlanders and other Canadians aboard the flotilla, and to support principles of international law. On Oct. 6, the Ontario Federation of Labour followed their lead and issued a similar statement. Following a tense internal debate, Canada’s largest union, CUPE, has emerged on the right side of this struggle, and is now making up for lost time by providing vocal and logistical support to anti-genocide work. “SIlence is complicity!” CUPE National President Mark Hancock proclaimed at CUPE’s national convention in Toronto on Monday, calling on the federal government to implement a two-way arms embargo against Israel. 

Other unions are taking longer to take a stand, which is surprising from institutions that have historically been among the first to stand up against injustice and support the oppressed. Stapleton, one of the Newfoundlanders on the flotilla, is a teacher, but we have yet to hear anything from the NL Teachers’ Association around either the flotilla in which she’s participating, or the genocide more broadly. Our teachers are the ones we rely on to teach lessons in moral courage and human dignity to our children, to the next generation of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Where is the union that’s supposed to support them as they do so? 

Where’s the FFAW, which has for decades protected the rights of Newfoundland and Labrador seafarers?

I recently spoke with a professor at Memorial University, who expressed her dismay at the prevalence of “nihilism and despair” among students in her classes these days. I don’t think it’s surprising. Our technology provides us with ever more clear and accurate coverage of the suffering and violence that exists in the world, and at the same time our brains register growing examples of how those with the power and position to speak out remain silent instead. This surely is a recipe for despair. In the face of this double-whammy, examples of courage and basic human decency serve as lifelines for us all, reminding us that we each have the power to speak and to act — yet another reason why it’s so important to rally around the courage of the Newfoundlanders and others aboard the flotilla. 

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Flotilla participants have been careful to remind us that this struggle isn’t about them, it’s about the Palestinian people, and that we should keep our focus on that bigger picture. This is true, but if we are to push past the nihilism and despair that increasingly affects us all, it helps to have reminders from everyday people that it is possible to put decency, morality, and care for others first, no matter how much we might fear the consequences from our employers, our neighbours, our bank accounts. The volunteers aboard the flotilla have demonstrated that lesson.

When will the institutions and politicians who claim to represent them, and us, have the integrity and self-respect to do the same?