When first coming to university and researching about Canada, the first thing had all on their websites is about “Peacekeeping”. All these websites and I got an instant awareness of Canadian troops to help in most peacekeeping events and has participated in more of these missions than anywhere else in the world. Winning awards and earning respect from the rest of the world for all their contribution in keeping the peace. I was wondering how come not one negative thing was said in any of these websites?
Well I must have not been looking deep enough because the October 25th class was a big shocker when I became aware of the Violence of Canadian “Peacekeepers” in Somalia. Canada sent out troops from Ontario in the early 90s and instead of causing the peace, women were raped, prisoners were beaten badly and other Somalias had been shot. Why were these racist acts taking place? Are Somalias less of a people than Canadian military participants, Just to show the authority of whiteness or were the troops a bit depressed and carried out their anger on others? Practicing racism in such a manner is reproducing back the whole notion of colonizers. That’s what they must have felt like to depict such violence on the Somalians. What the Canadians did in Somalia is the exact incident that happened when the Europeans were settling throughout the world and dominating the black population into their own good use. Does this mean that the attitudes of radicalization and colonialism would still happen if it wasn’t somewhat against the law? If Somalis were not colored people, would this have happened? That’s doubtful because one can assume that the troops probably expressed this harsh racism because colored people are not seen as one of them. This incident in Somalia is a perfect incident to the simple everyday racism people from other cultures face in Canada and predominantly white societies. Personally, after seeing the video in class I felt as if whites take pleasure in the power of their race where humiliating another brings them great achievement.
Well I must have not been looking deep enough because the October 25th class was a big shocker when I became aware of the Violence of Canadian “Peacekeepers” in Somalia. Canada sent out troops from Ontario in the early 90s and instead of causing the peace, women were raped, prisoners were beaten badly and other Somalias had been shot. Why were these racist acts taking place? Are Somalias less of a people than Canadian military participants, Just to show the authority of whiteness or were the troops a bit depressed and carried out their anger on others? Practicing racism in such a manner is reproducing back the whole notion of colonizers. That’s what they must have felt like to depict such violence on the Somalians. What the Canadians did in Somalia is the exact incident that happened when the Europeans were settling throughout the world and dominating the black population into their own good use. Does this mean that the attitudes of radicalization and colonialism would still happen if it wasn’t somewhat against the law? If Somalis were not colored people, would this have happened? That’s doubtful because one can assume that the troops probably expressed this harsh racism because colored people are not seen as one of them. This incident in Somalia is a perfect incident to the simple everyday racism people from other cultures face in Canada and predominantly white societies. Personally, after seeing the video in class I felt as if whites take pleasure in the power of their race where humiliating another brings them great achievement.
Canada being known as the most “tolerant” nations in the world and we have all accepted that to be a great thing. Have we really looked into the word “tolerant”? According to the Oxford Dictionary; tolerant means to allow the existence of. This means Canadians has just adapted an attitude that they will accept the other cultures but they will never be “us”, not because they want to. To me it’s an attitude of “feeling sorry of” other races and not giving them the full humanity right to become whatever they desire to be. Peacekeeping can be said to be filled with contradictions because of this incident in Somalia. We can almost be certain that violence towards other races during the military travel is happening on a regular basis. Would they report all these crimes on television? No, because white people also own the media so they can preserve themselves and Canadian Media can only protect their Canadian citizens. Proving your manhood in a racialized manner and taking advantage of a people who lives in a place where survival is a major achievement is beyond distasteful.
How do we solve this? How do we become aware of the unknown that’s happening? Will there ever be an end to the media playing the racialized card? Peacekeeping being a contradiction to what it actually is? Rape being somewhat acceptable because it is done from a dominant race with the most privileges? People with colonial attitudes like the troops will forever pass on their attitudes to another generation and teach them that hostility is ok to one race and places where people do not have much.
This was definitely an enlightened topic for me and it shows that we cannot take the world or anybody at the face value given to us because Racism and Colonial attitudes
This article is very well done, however Canada like any country has done wrongs but shouldn't be associated with the country, but the men who took part in it. By this I mean Canada didn't rape the women or abuse and commit racialized crimes, but the men who took part in the army or peacekeepers were the ones responsible. In the news we hear a lot about somalian pirates and their violent ways, we can't associate Somalia and there population as a bunch of pirates. We can only tell people what to do, how to think or how we should act but at the end of the day it's their decision. The Canadian troops were wrong to do this and it will negatively affect Canada but unless they were ordered to do this by the government I don't think that Canada or it's face value should go up or down. Unfortunately the news portrays more negative stories or interests pieces because they get more attention stories of lesser importance.
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