Mr. Speaker, I rise to join with my colleagues this evening with a profound sense of concern, a profound sense of shared feeling with the victims of Boko Haram, and a sense of apprehension because of the history of Boko Haram, a group that has emerged as a prototype of hostis humani generis, of enemies of humanity and of the litany and pattern of its atrocity crimes.
And so I join my fellow parliamentarians from all sides of the House not only in condemning the Boko Haram kidnapping of 300 schoolgirls and its threat to sell them into slavery and acts of forced conversion but to express our solidarity with the people of Nigeria, with those affected by this act, and extend our sympathies to the families who seek nothing more than the return of their loved ones safe and sound.
Let there be no mistake about it: this is not the first criminal assault by Boko Haram, and unless we effectively combat its criminality, its crimes against humanity, this terror will not end and this will not be its last terrorist assault.
I note that yesterday was Mother's Day, a time to celebrate and reflect upon the contribution of women in all our lives. I cannot help but feel terribly saddened to think of the mothers and fathers of these abducted women and those who were killed or harmed in earlier assaults by this same Boko Haram cruelty. I cannot help but feel saddened to think of what these families must be thinking in this moment of despair. Indeed, we must think not only of the schoolgirls, but of their families and their communities, and even other schoolgirls who, because of this, may be even more afraid to attend school and receive an education.
As my colleague, the member for Etobicoke North, said it so eloquently this evening in her compelling remarks, “Enough is enough, these abductions must stop”.
As she put it and reminded us, let us not forget that Nigeria has 10 million schoolchildren who are out of school, more than any other country in Africa, more than any other country in the world, a backdrop to that which we are discussing this evening.
Indeed, it is important to stress that those kidnapped were young girls. Boko Haram, whose name means roughly, and it has been mentioned this evening, “western education is a sin”, is really a manifestation of its extremist Islamist ideology. I concur with my colleague, the member for Jeanne-Le Ber, as he put it, this is not an expression of Islam; it is in fact a repudiation of it.
I was pleased to note Muslim leaders have spoken out in repudiation of the Boko Haram because this is a group that thrives on the marginalization, on the exclusion, on the oppression of young women and girls.
As Nicholas Kristof put it recently in The New York Times:
Why are fanatics so terrified of girls’ education? Because there’s no force more powerful to transform a society. The greatest threat to extremism isn’t drones firing missiles, but girls reading books.
That is why we must seek to empower women and girls to provide them the knowledge, the skills, the resources, and the protection which they need to succeed and to fight back against oppression, against punitive patriarchy, against early forced marriage, against enslavement and sexual violence, against forced conversion, against all these manifestations of terrorism that have been visited upon them, and to make their own choices without fear.
Canada's most recent honorary citizen, Malala Yousafzai, who has been quoted this evening, and appropriately so, and I will quote her again, supports that which has been said by my colleague. As she put it:
Education is education. We should learn everything and then choose which path to follow.
Education is neither Eastern nor Western, it is human.
As should be evident, empowering women and girls is a question of fundamental human rights, of the promotion and protection of human dignity, in the most profound sense of the word. As I have often said in this House, but it does bear repeating again, women's rights are human rights, and there are no human rights which do not include the rights of women.
We must see the fight for women's rights as the fight for the rights of us all, beginning with the most vulnerable of the vulnerable, defenceless children abducted from what should have been a protected space, a school dorm, and regrettably with an attendant sense of impunity, nurtured by the inaction of both the Nigerian government and the indifference of the international community. This did not just begin now. It has been going on for years, and the tormented have only their victimization to bear witness.
This sentiment about the importance of promoting the dignity and the well-being of young girls and women was echoed by the First Lady Michelle Obama, who this week declared:
These girls embody the best hope for the future of our world...and we are committed to standing up for them not just in times of tragedy or crisis, but for the long haul.
We are committed to giving them the opportunities they deserve to fulfill every last bit of their God-given potential.
I emphasize her words “for the long haul”. It is a tragedy and shame that far too often for women and girls that inherent God-given potential is stifled, and far too often by lack of access to education.
As Malala Yousafzai writes so movingly in her book I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban:
Let us pick up our books and our pens.... They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world. [...]
To sit down on a chair and read my books with all my friends at school is my right. To see each and every human being with a smile of happiness is my wish.
I do not wish to recount the terrifying details of this terrorist act of kidnapping that forms the subject of tonight's debate, as I believe colleagues have recounted the situation in detail and have expressed quite eloquently the need for action. Indeed, it was the absence of action, and this bears mentioning again, the absence of outrage, not just at this latest Boko Haram profanity, but at the earlier assaults and profanity, over all of these years, which has nurtured an attendant sense of impunity that led to the pattern of criminality.
My colleague from Ottawa—Vanier has contrasted the sustained preoccupation of the international community with the missing Malaysian airline. We need and still need to be concerned by what happened, but there has been sustained CNN 24/7 preoccupation, to the exclusion of everything else, including the exclusion of what has been happening through the assault by Boko Haram, whose atrocities have gone unaddressed, let alone unredressed.
As I prepared my remarks today, the latest development indicated that the leader of the Boko Haram terrorists announced that he would release more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by his forces in exchange for prisoners held by the Nigerian authorities.
It is this issue I wish to address by recounting a story I have yet to tell in the Commons these 14 years that I have been here, though I wrote about it earlier this year. It is the story of my niece, Hagit Zabitsky.
I like to remember Hagit as a thoughtful 22-year-old, both shy and introspective. Born in Jerusalem into a family of five children, she travelled abroad and spent the 1996-1997 winter with my family in Montreal. We had many conversations that winter, including conversations about her future plans when she would return home in the spring of 1997. She planned to attend university, study humanities, work with the disadvantaged, and eventually become an artist reflective of her artistic sensibility. Tragically, she never had the chance.
Hagit lived in Kafr Adumim, a community in the Judean desert outside Jerusalem. A nature lover, Hagit loved to hike and explore nature in the Judean hills outside her backyard. She was hiking with a friend in the hills when she was abducted and bludgeoned to death. As was later established, her attacker was a terrorist who set out to kill a Jew, any Jew. My niece was not personally targeted; she was simply a Jew on the nature trail. Today there is an annual hike in Hagit's memory, where friends and family gather by a plaque in her honour not far from her home.
I am remembering this because I could not help but think of Hagit and her family when I thought about the abducted Nigerian girls. I think not only of the suffering of these young Nigerian girls but how they may be forever changed, and their families transformed as well. I think of how my family would have done anything to have Hagit return safe and sound if only they could have had that chance. The murderer of my niece is now in jail, but that does not bring her back. It does not stop the suffering that the family endures to this day. Indeed, my family tells me that they remain fearful that her killer may yet be released as part of a terrorist prisoner release to further Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
There is a certain universality of terrorism in its murderous assault, as in the terrorist Boko Haram killing and enslaving of these young girls or in its murderous slaughter of innocents over the years or in the many innocents killed and injured and lives destroyed, in the pain of victims and their families, in the impact on their communities and beyond.
Again, and let there be no mistake about it, Boko Haram views these young girls, those that they have abducted and others, as prospective sex slaves, as human beings to be trafficked as if they were cattle to be bartered, as recruits for child soldiers, the whole as yet another link in the chain of assaults on young women, be it through early forced marriage or violence against women in conflict zones.
Once one is touched by this kind of assault, it is impossible to return to normal. As one of the escaped Nigerian girls told CNN, while her school remains closed after the attack, even if it were open, she would not go back. The fear is too great.
We are reminded, as I said earlier when quoting my colleague, that there are 10 million young Nigerians out of school. Fear is there among the targeted and their families and, as we know, people on every continent can be targeted simply for their gender, race, religion, beliefs, and the like. Indeed, as in the case of the abducted young Nigerian girls, they were targeted simply for being who they were.
There is, of course—and one must never forget this—the counter to fear, namely courage. Here I think of the heroic young escapees who fled their abductors to be reunited with their families and who, as we meet this evening, have been bearing witness to these calumnies. I know I speak for everyone in the House when I say we hope that all these schoolgirls will have the same chance to reunite with their families, to live and attend school in peace, to be free from any violence or threat of violence.
All this leads to the question of combatting terrorism, of protecting women and children, and what can and ought to be done.
Let me be clear on this. I view the acts of which we are speaking today as acts of terrorism, as patterned acts of terrorism over a period of time. They are acts of wanton terrorist criminality designed to intimidate those girls who seek an education in addition to afflicting harm upon those abducted. However, that does not mean that our addressing the situation must come only in the ways that one typically, albeit necessarily, associates with the combatting of terrorism rather than through a more comprehensive and inclusive set of principles and policies.
As Nicholas Kristof put it recently in the The New York Times:
To fight militancy, we invest overwhelmingly in the military toolbox but not so much in the education toolbox that has a far better record at defeating militancy.
He goes on:
Educating girls and empowering women are also tasks that are, by global standards, relatively doable. We spend billions of dollars on intelligence collection, counterterrorism and military interventions, even though they have quite a mixed record. By comparison, educating girls is an underfunded cause even though it's more straightforward.
As well, it would reap untold benefits.
This must be our lessons learned, our action to be taken. While we hope and pray these young women are returned, we must redouble our commitment to the protection and education of women and girls regardless. We must seek a principled foreign policy that will ensure that aid goes toward programs and initiatives that seek to empower women and provide them with the knowledge and skills they need for life. We must help in the development of the rule of law in civil society abroad, in countries such as Nigeria, to help others benefit from Canadian expertise and experience in these matters while at the same time furthering the cause of human rights for all. We must continue to combat early and forced marriages, trafficking in persons, and sexual violence in armed conflict, as has been mentioned this evening.
We must always appreciate that with respect to developing a principled set of policies, there are three foundational principles and policies we must bear in mind.
First, we must reaffirm the responsibility to protect principle, which, regrettably, the government from time to time neglects or marginalizes, though it is our international admission card in the family of nations. That is because what this principle, unanimously adopted by 192 nations in 2005, says simply but clearly is that if there is ever a situation of war crimes or crimes against humanity or ethnic cleansing or, God forbid, genocide in any country, and that country is unable or unwilling to do anything about it, then there is a responsibility on the part of the international community to protect.
That does not mean military intervention. It means a whole range of protective initiatives that can be taken. Reference has been made to them this evening. There was reference to an investment in the Global Fund for Education, to humanitarian assistance, to empowering young women and girls with the necessary resources and making sure that education is the crucial bedrock for what we do in that regard.
Second, we must make the protection of the vulnerable and the protection of children a priority. I have often quoted in the House that my daughter taught me the most important lesson I have ever learned. It is that if we want to know how to protect children and protect human rights, we should always ask ourselves at any time, in any situation, in any part of the world, such as what is happening in Nigeria, “Is it good for children?” That should inform our foreign policy, just as the protection of women must inform our foreign policy.
Therefore, as I draw to a close, I would like to quote a passage from the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in the Suresh case, which I quote as follows:
One the one hand stands the manifest evil of terrorism and the random and arbitrary taking of innocent lives, rippling out in an ever-widening spiral of loss and fear. Governments, expressing the will of the governed, need the legal tools to effectively meet this challenge.
The court goes on to talk about the importance of that, and I will not cite it, for reasons of time.
I will close on this point. We have to see terrorism as being fundamentally an assault on the security of democracies like Canada or Nigeria and a fundamental assault, as we have seen with regard to the young girls, on the right to the life, liberty, and security of their inhabitants.
Therefore, anti-terrorism law and policy is the promotion and protection of the security of a democracy and of the human rights of its inhabitants in the most foundational sense, but always in accordance with the rule of law--
