Tsunami, Humanity and the Saga of Canadian Documentary on "Terrorism" Myth

With massive deaths and destruction caused by the recent tsunami in South Asia, pain and anguish rekindled the perceptual mind setting of the humanity all over the globe to a horizon of new thinking. Human generosity in Canada, America and elsewhere complementing the enlightened sense of moral beings and spirituality, rushed to offer help and support to the victims, irrespective of ethnicity and political divide. Upon seeing the human miseries and displacement, spontaneous tears and heartfelt reactions glared throughout the world. As if once again, the humanity was mourning Princess Diana’s tragic death –” a newly evolved human culture of THINKING, feelings and being ONE on the earth. Contrary to what the proponents of the dominant materialistic culture would dislike and stop the humanity leaning towards moral and spiritual renaissance. Consequently, it could upset the daily listings of stock exchanges and disturb other moneymaking market places. Obsessed with power and indifference, they love to see the humanity divided and disillusioned in order to control the human mind and drain out all its creative thinking and positive attributes for moral progress and balanced spiritual and material life styles. They pursue one cherishable goal to consider the humanity just composed of economic man, economic woman and economic child devoid of moral thinking and spiritual values. Economically powerful elite uses the mass media to inflict the human mind with fear and folly of the unknown. But the tsunami impacts provided a rediscovery window of hope and human values, often hidden from the eyes of materialistically beleaguered humanity, that the influential political forces of the industrialized societies had stolen a precious world of human FEELINGS, LOVE and REALITY. The mass media turns to funfair to keep the human mind occupied with material needs and survival. The forthcoming Presidential inauguration ceremony in Washington, D.C. needed political mind setting to fully exploit the merits of good time rather than the originality of thinking for one humanity.

In view of the circumstances, what else could have been more attractive and sensational than the George Bush’s ‘War on Terrorism’? After all, the international media remained faithful to the aggressive dictates of Mr. Bush and Co., – the ruling neoconservative elite, envisioning a New Century of American domination all over the world. Even if the history and geography lodge a protest for unfair treatment, Canada cannot opt out of the powerful US sphere of influence. Earlier, President Bush made a hurriedly scheduled friendly visit to Canada to thank the Government of Canada. But the people – heartland of liberal democracy, kept at distance, shouted anti Iraq war slogans, and painted funny cartoons to remind the Texas Rancher Boy that the masses have living conscience against the ‘War on Terrorism’, not lost memory like George Bush himself, who could not remember the name of previous Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), a subsidiary of the federal government, complemented the Bush visit by putting on air a newly produced documentary ‘The Canadian-Momin Khawaja’, first one to be charged with the Terrorist Act, currently under revision in Canadian Parliament.

Documentary: The Canadian: MOMIN KHAWAJACBC Fifth Estate, aired on the national network, January 12, 2005, 9.00 PM

The movie is a hypothetical construct, combining the conspiracy theories and the fear of the unknown as a punch line to argue, what led him to become part of the listed theories and that Momin Khawaja is guilty of something they are not sure about at this time. The movie tries to make the viewer think that being the first targeted Canadian; he should be punished under the revised Terrorist legislation when and if it is finalized by the Parliament. That Momin and his family are the victims of the politically geared ferocious ‘war on terrorism’ is not mentioned in the script. Disinformation complements the opinions and propaganda notion. Under the Canadian liberal democratic values, Momin as a responsible law abiding citizen of Canada, is not part of the screen drama but his studio and school photos are used for intriguing images to facilitate the scripted forum for discussion. The actors performing the characters are not named, nor defined to hide information by using technological animation and imagery, making the viewer to believe that it is a real time drama on stage – a willing suspicion of the disbelief. Often rhetoric replaces reality and individual opinions are used to speculate judgment and share convenient sense of justice, commonly rendered to the Muslim citizens and traveler suspects in American justice system. The net outcome is media sponsored propaganda stunt to entertain the audience that humanity should remain split as a private matter of religion, not associated with the collective aspirations of human beings as one living body enjoining peace, understanding and harmony. Recognizably, Muslims appear to be the much haunted object to enhance the New World Order scheme under President Bush and his counterpart British PM Blair. The irresistible media’s urge to buildup the momentum is on track with another documentary on terrorism ” Humberg Cell”, soon to be aired by the CBC during this week, perhaps as a goodwill gesture to celebrate the second inauguration of President Bush and to justify his strategic ideals for ‘War on Terrorism’ that Robert Fisk calls it a ‘fraud.’

The highly opinionated documentary disregards the facts of life only to pursue one-sided preconceived notion aimed at propaganda stuff, readily available from the stockpiles of North American and European intelligence police establishments alleging the Muslims as being “terrorist.” It is a political drama full of pretensions, fake representation of characters and biased religious assumption implied to portray a fantasy, not facts. Last week, British scholar Adam Curtis (“The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear”, BBC documentary challenging the American version of ‘War on Terrorism’), said it well: ” international terrorism is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services and the international media.”

In an age of knowledge, wisdom and human respect, we are the latest victims of this ‘dark illusion’; a political fraud intended to glue the Muslims to terrorism myth. The moderator did not mention that the cut and paste allegations against Momin Khawaja were also labeled on other member of the family. Therefore, the core of accusations against Momin is nothing other than a political charge sheet without real substance. Along with Momin, we were targeted and tortured. There are hundreds of rational human beings available to testify that Momin is not a bomb maker but a well-educated computer professional with fullest sense of civic responsibility, honesty and professional integrity. All the participants in the presentation have said it in unambiguous terms that he is not a criminal person. But the documentary rests on an intriguing insight approach to link him up with Junaid Babar, the person or his al-Qeda, if there is such a thing, are unknown to us. Could the Canadian PM Paul Martin be linked to Tamil Tigers of SriLanka by attending their gathering? The CBC had some implicit motives before when its website (May 03, 2004), noted, “the onus is on khawaja to prove that he should be granted the bail.” The statement defied conventional wisdom and laws of the land. The CBC was requested to correct the statement to read: “the onus is on the prosecution to prove the guilt of the accused (Momin)”, otherwise, he is innocent. But the website did not correct the original statement. To support a politically engineered doctrine of the few ruling elite in America and Europe for their self-preservation and survival, is to promote generational conflicts and disharmony. That does not appear to be in the national interest of Canada because it is not involved in global politics and there is no known terrorism problem as such. The British and American ruling elite has invested heavily to institutionalize animosity towards Muslims. The new 21st century colonial masters view the humanity just in numbers and digits, not as living moral beings with rights and dignity. The CBC efforts to supplement the official line of foreign opinions on “terrorism” are a mark of intellectual decadence, extreme narrowness and oppression.

Logic seeks truth and opinions cherish propaganda. If the CBC was serious to represent the truth, it could have arranged a meeting with Momin at the Detention Center rather than crossing over the North Atlantic channel to ask people who had no knowledge of Momin, nor of the issues raised in the officially mandated inquiry, probably paid out of the budgeted 10 billion sanctioned to the National Safety and Security Services. The allegations against Momin Khawaja are pending for a trial in Canada, whereas, the moderator seems to have already reached the judgment that ” if convicted, he could get up to 25 years in jail.” The statement complements word by word the repeated proclamation made by the intelligence agencies. While the Canadian intelligence agencies will adore the speculatory convenient justice as a stimulus for progress towards investigative journalism, it could distort the image of a professional man and seriously harm the integrity of a law-abiding citizen who claims innocence and has no criminal background. The ultimate goal of the ‘war on terrorism’ remains intact that all the Muslims should be projected as terrorists, and should be disabled socially making the masses to view them as crazy, uncivilized and undesirable people. It is unthinkable that Canadian softhearted and unbiased people would ever favor such a preposterous policy aim of the neo-conservatives in America. Unlike the draconian age laws, Canada has a credible system of legal justice. Justice presupposes the existence of injustice. Given the trust, one hopes that justice will prevail over the false accusations of terrorism against Momin. Obviously, judges deliver justice based on tangible facts of human life, not on opinions dramatized in stage performance.

While in short terms, the American perpetuated ‘War on Terrorism’ helped President Bush to get re-elected for the second term of the White House occupancy, its long terms goals explore new conflicts and strategies promote ‘dark illusions’ like the CBC presentation, to divide and discard the humanity from embracing sustainable moral and spiritual emancipation and UNITY.