On the 13th, I learned that a good friend had passed away, of stomach cancer.  It had come suddenly, took all unawares … he went quickly, leaving much unsaid.  We had last spoken together on the November before; we were going to have dinner, but work intervened; we postponed it to February, when he would be back in Geneva.  The day before Christmas he was given the news of his cancer: terminal; three weeks later he was gone.  It was, and remains, a terrible shock.

 

A few days later I had coffee with a close friend.  He seemed out of sorts … the wife of a mutual friend had been diagnosed with cancer.  I didn't, and don't yet, know of the prognosis; if I could pray to unseen gods, she would be in my prayers; she is in my thoughts and not a day goes by that I do not wish her well and her husband and children strength.

 

I finished the course on the 20th of January and came back home on the 22nd.  A week later, a very good friend of mine was hit with acute leukemia and confined to the hospital.  The prognosis is good, but the treatment is hard.  She is in isolation for fear of infections; and the Chemo and the follow-up are going to take close to two years … she is too weak most days to even take calls.  But, when she has been let out on furlough from her confinement, she has been in good spirits.  The story of her daily torture is harrowing and I shall not put you through it … the only good thing that can be said is that it was caught, and caught just in time, and there is a good chance that she will come through it ….

This was in response to an Article in the Globe and Mail, in which the author, Ann Birch, suggested that attention to food preparation somehow “gets in the way of living”, or that cuisine interrupts conversation.

I sincerely hope Ms. Birch’s paean to chips-and-dip and macaroni-and-cheese was written with a tongue firmly tucked away in the cheek.  After all, how could any sane person suggest that the Italian or the French or the Spanish or the Belgian devotion to food gets in the way of their lives and – even more incredibly – conversation?  Is it at all tenable to argue that cultures that thrive on prepared food and/or simple fare – boiled kidneys and mash, sausages and potatoes – somehow have a better grasp on life than those that insist on at least four courses at dinner, with good wine, all prepared with natural and fresh ingredients?

But if she was even remotely serious, there are at least two objections to her line of thinking: first, good food (in the sense of well-prepared food from good and varied ingredients) has value in and of itself; second, the preparation and enjoyment of food is the very epitome of a healthy social activity.

I confess I’ve never been a fan of chips-and-dip as a proper way to introduce a dinner, not for business contacts, and certainly not for friends.  In this I am a creature – perhaps, a prisoner – of my background.  I grew up in a country where the average meal takes about four hours to prepare.  A typical Iranian dish overflows with herbs, fruit, tastes and colour.  There are the “starters”: eggplants, garlic, tomatoes and eggs, topped with fried mints and onions; yoghurt mixed with walnuts, cucumbers, raisins and rubbed mint.  There are the rice dishes: one mixed with dill, coriander, parsley and shallots, served with fish or a shank of lamb (which takes four hours to cook properly); or another mixed with sweetened orange zest, almond and pistachio halves, dried berries, served with saffron-lime chicken and topped with saffron rice.  There are the stews (sun-dried plums, spinach, celery and sun-dried lime; or pan-fried eggplants, split peas, sour grapes, potatoes and tomatoes).  And then there is dessert: Baklava (filo pastry filled with crushed almonds, or pistachios and topped with syrup) is the simplest fare; then there is the saffron-rosewater ice cream, with chunks of frozen cream, which can only be savoured to be believed.

And so on.  What this taught me – and that, early on – was that to insist on fresh, tasty and varied ingredients was not food snobbery.  Far from it: it was an acknowledgement, an affirmation, that even “normal” people have taste buds that could be teased and titillated, that it does not take the palate of a food critic or a jet-set gourmet to be able to tell the difference between refined food and that which is merely (and often barely) nourishment. 

Of course, this also taught me one of the most dangerous lessons of being an epicurean: once you’ve experienced arugula salad (say, with dried cranberries, pomegranate vinaigrette and pine nuts), it is next to impossible to go back to the iceberg lettuce, the Model-T of greens.

But what of the charge – and grave it is – that cuisine gets in the way of life and of conversation?

It is a curious thing, the Dinner Conversation.  It is even curiouser (to borrow from Alice), how societies with lively dinner conversations tend also to be those that pay a great deal of attention to food preparation.  This is not idle musing by an armchair connoisseur; there is an entire continent across the pond that has served as something of a controlled experiment in these matters over the past thousand years, give or take a century.

I lived in Belgium for three years.  Belgium – for those not familiar with the social history of Europe – straddles The Great Beer Divide: the line going through the middle of Europe that separates “beer” cultures from “wine” cultures.  The Divide is, admittedly, a crude measure, but one that is for the most part accurate. 

Simply put, look at a country with large consumption of beer, and the food is likely to be heavy, unrefined and uncomplicated.  Swedish cuisine is an oxymoron; Ms. Birch would feel right at home in a German kitchen and its quasi-religious insistence on efficiency über alles.  But there is more: beer cultures tend also to kill food as a cultural phenomenon.  Babette’s Feast was not far from reality.  A culture that considers the point of food to be simply to stuff one’s mouth to avoid hunger (as opposed to spending time to make something interesting) would also pay little heed to the social aspect of enjoying dinner.  Big Night could not have been set in a German restaurant.

This brings me to wine cultures – the countries to the south of the Great Divide – and their attachment not only to elaborate meals, but to the social production that a proper meal should constitute.  There – in France, Italy, Spain, and Belgium, which was governed by France and Spain for centuries – the food is refined, the ingredients fresh and tasty; and the object of cooking is not to cook all the taste into oblivion, but to preserve it.  Wine is a central aspect of dinner, and not an adjunct. (And, incidentally, is not that expensive.) In those countries, preparing, serving and enjoying food is not an atomistic exercise but a highly social one.  She who thinks Italian cuisine – with all its complexity, and I mean more than simply three-dozen sorts of pasta – “gets in the way of conversation” has never sat at an Italian table.  Similarly, a seven-course meal served à la Provençale is an occasion for boisterous conversation and enjoyment of life.  The cuisine is the conversation and the life: a big gathering of family and friends, around the same table, enjoying the bounty of nature (or the Lord, if you prefer) eating, drinking, talking, living.

Call me a food snob, but I’ll take a linguine alle vongole over chips-and-dip any day.

This was in response to an article of 20 June, 2001, in which Roger Scruton lay the blame for the recent thuggery and wanton destruction caused by anarchists and layabouts in Gothenburg, Prague and Seattle (not to mention Quebec, and before that, Vancouver) at the feet of “unaccountable” decision-makers and “nameless Olympians” of various international organisations such as the World Trade Organisation and the European Commission. 

So Roger Scruton thinks that “violent protest is probably the only instrument through which” the “steadily disenfranchised” can make their opposition felt.

Well bully for him. 

I might agree with him and pick up my own brick to throw at the closest McDonald's or live target (aka the neighbourhood police officer), if I could find even a trace of accurate information in his article – other than that he spent May 1968 in Paris. But, I'm afraid, the premise, the analysis and the conclusions are suffused with such breathtaking ignorance that I am moved to question even whether the man spent any time on the continent.

Let us begin from the “dictatorial commission”. This is not the place for a seminar on the politics and constitutional mechanisms of the European Union, but it is worth noting some basic facts. The Commission is the executive arm of the Union (the same way that the Canadian civil service serves the Government of Canada). It proposes policies and laws, oversees their implementation, and may challenge member states in court when they do not implement EU laws (here it is different from Canada's civil service). The more routine legislation of the EU, though it originates from the Commission, must have the consent of the European Parliament (freely elected in elections every five years) and must ultimately be approved by the Council of the European Union. The Council, in turn, is composed of political representatives of the democratically-elected governments of the member states of the EU.

The same governments are responsible for negotiating the treaties from which the Union, and therefore the Commission, obtain their authority. Once negotiated, these “constitutional” documents of the Union must be ratified by parliaments, or in referenda, in member states to enter into force. Thus, the ultimate legislative power in the Union — including the power to rewrite the very treaties that underlie the authority of the Commission — rests with the political leadership, and the people, of the Union and not the Commission. 

But there is more, for any action taken by the Commission is subject to scrutiny, not just by the Council, but also by the European Parliament. Indeed, only two years ago, all the Commissioners (equivalent to our Ministers) were forced to resign by the Parliament. And, finally, any decision of the Commission that affects the rights of individuals, in particular their property rights (of which Mr. Scruton is especially fond), may be challenged before European courts.

Unless one operates on the premise that all bureaucracies are “dictatorial”, it is impossible to credit Scruton's characterisation of the European Commission as such with any degree of accuracy.

He is even more off-base – if that were possible – with the World Trade Organisation. 

He argues that the WTO “has put in place the mechanism whereby the United States can penalize any country that tries to protect its local agriculture from U.S. agribusiness.” He goes on to state that “every treaty signed by governments is a diminution of sovereignty, and an erosion of the democratic franchise.”

He is wrong; terribly wrong.

Let us examine the facts. How does the US “penalise” such countries? Does it send the Stealth bombers? Does it attempt assassination by poison darts? No. It denies access to its market. That's right. The US imposes import restrictions in the form of high tariffs on products from countries that are (according to Mr. Scruton) trying to protect their domestic markets.

Wait a second, you might ask. Imposition of tariffs: is that not a basic exercise of sovereignty? The US does not need the WTO to impose high tariffs for any reason. It is not the WTO that sets up the “mechanism” for such “penalties”. Rather, the imposition of tariffs is the basic operation of the sovereign right of nations to give access when they feel like it, for whatever reason they would like to. And so we see that Mr. Scruton's whole premise is wrong: the “penalties” (the high tariffs, protectionist measures, quotas, sanctions) are the norm; they are the aspects of unfettered sovereignty, of democratic franchise unbound by international treaties. The WTO is the legal and institutional framework within which the use of unilateral penalties, including wanton increases in tariffs, is outlawed; the rights and obligations of members negotiated freely and defined; their recourse to economic force as an instrument of national policy curtailed; and their disputes channelled through logical, legal processes, including an instance of appeals. In the WTO, you negotiate away your right to “protect” (up to a point), in return for unfettered access to rich markets such as that of the US. If a country reneges on its end of the bargain, is it the fault of the WTO if the US decides not to continue to give access? If a country breaks a treaty, should its people march into the streets, burn stores and blame “Olympian” bureaucrats for the loss of the benefits they got under that treaty?

Let us remember that, above all, it is the members of the WTO who are ultimately responsible for the negotiation of the treaties that bind them to one another and that define their legal rights. In the course of the last fifty years, the WTO and the GATT before it have gone through eight rounds of negotiations and another round might well be around the corner. In each of these rounds, the members have examined and re-examined their commitments under the treaties and reaffirmed – and indeed expanded – them. Why? For the same reason identified above. Each gives up a little; all benefit in the end. That's how contracts are negotiated; that what the rule of law implies.

At the core of Mr. Scruton's angry diatribe against “international organisations” and his unhealthy praise for street-ripping, store-destroying anarchists and hooligans lies a fundamental misconception of “sovereignty” in an age of ever-increasing international interdependence and co-operation. Sovereignty is not about doing as one pleases (“protect local agriculture”) while demanding that others do as we please (give unfettered access to such “protected” produce). It is about negotiating access rights and the laws within which those rights might be exercised. And this is no more and no less than what the WTO is all about. And sovereignty is not about passing laws in disregard of what our neighbours are doing. It is about working together to arrive at policies of common interests and common benefits. And this is no more and no less than what the European Union is all about.

Now, it is one thing to argue and protest against all this – we are entitled to disagree – but let us at least know what we are talking about. And, to try to undermine international organisations by looting and destroying disinterested local stores does nothing to advance either democracy or sovereignty.

A Canadian Member of Parialment discovered that a WWII veteran had not voted for him; the MP, Tom Wappel, wrote to the Veteran to berate him.  This was my reply.

Almost fourteen years ago I called the constituency office of my MP, then a Mr. Paul McCrossan, to ask if he could help me with my citizenship application.  I opened my query, rather sheepishly I recall, by saying that I was not even a citizen yet, and so I could not have supported the MP in the past.  Mr. McCrossan's assistant chuckled and told me, “Oh dear, it doesn't matter if you're a citizen or not, much less if you supported him.  If you're living in this riding, he's your MP.  Send us a letter and let's see if we can help you.”

I was a student of political science at the time, but those simple words were my first real life lesson in Civics — the words still ring fresh in my ears.  Four weeks after I mailed the letter to “my” MP, I got a reply, this time from the Secretary of State, then David Crombie, telling me that the matter had been brought to his attention and the issue had been resolved. 

I fell in love with Canada then.  Not simply because of the help – a simple question of timing that, though necessary and much appreciated at the time, ended up not being all that crucial after all – but because of the attention.  Here I was, an immigrant, a recent arrival; my adopted home owed me nothing, so far as I could reasonably expect, except a minimum standard of treatment as a human being.  And yet – my MP and his office had clearly gone through the trouble of making representations on my behalf; the office of the Secretary of State had made the necessary calls; and here I was, a newly-minted citizen, entitled to a passport and, more important, to vote.  As if to drive the point of the lesson home to me, Mr. McCrossan or his office was never solicited me for support because of that help; nor was there ever a letter especially addressed to me, saying, “Remember your citizenship application.”

A country that so treats its people, I said to myself then, deserves not just respect and gratitude, but my love and devotion.

In the past fourteen years, as I have learned more about my country and its history, my respect for and devotion to Canada have only deepened.  It is with pride that I speak to my non-Canadian friends of all that we, as Canadians, have achieved in the 134 years of our history.  Building and maintaining a country so vast geographically and diverse demographically is not easy; to do so while taking part in the great struggles for freedom and survival this century must have taken a heroic effort.  It is with awe that I think of all those who risked, and gave, their lives in those struggles, so that the country of which I am now a citizen can hold its head high in the community of nations with a just sense of its place in the world.  Whether standing before Soldiers' Tower at the University of Toronto, or the Vimy Monument in France, it has been an honour for me to present my respects, officially and personally, to the dead and the alive, who made my being here possible.

I have spent the last six years in the service of my country, in Canada and abroad (as a diplomat).  I am often asked why I do what I do (the financial sacrifice, truth be told, is considerable).  Well, you can trace this all to that first lesson in Civics, those two simple sentences uttered by the assistant to my then MP, fourteen years ago.

It is a lesson that Tom Wappel, a current MP, has yet to learn.

My dismay, indeed grief, about the episode is profound.  If it were possible, in Canada, to construct an antithesis of democratic behaviour by a public official, this would be it.  It would be difficult to find greater contempt for the electorate or indeed the Parliament short of promoting the dismantling of parliamentary democracy itself.  Forget Burke; this is Tammany Hall.  The Rotten Boroughs could not have produced a more rotten fruit.

Am I exaggerating? 

The secret ballot, lest we forget, is one of the most important principles of democratic government.  And I know something about this: my first voting experience was in Iran, when I was fifteen (which used to the voting age in Iran).  I still recall having to run from one corner of the voting room to another, trying to hide my ballot (without much success) from the curious eyes of the spies sprinkled around the place.  I had intended to spoil my ballot, truth be told (not voting was not an option, really), but ended up having to vote for the least offensive candidates. 

That, Mr. Wappel, is one reason I left my homeland and settled in Canada.

(In fact, the “secrecy” of the vote is so sacred a rule of political behaviour in Canada that it has become axiomatic in polite society: my best friend does not ask me how I vote.  It is simply rude to do so.  But I guess manners are not a prime consideration for the sarcastic pen of the Honourable Member.)

But if asking about someone's voting habits is rude, it is outright obnoxious for a public official, on public payroll, to refuse help to the public on the grounds of that vote – or, even more egregious, of the expressed desire to vote one way or another in the future.  Mr. Wappel is an elected representative and I merely a junior official; but we both are servants of the same master.  What would he say if, let us say, a consular officer refused to help a Canadian in distress abroad because of that person's anti-abortion or pro-capital punishment views?  Or, more to the point, if a female officer refused to help someone who, as did Mr. Wappel a decade ago, appeared to question the value of women's work?  Unthinkable; we serve all Canadians.  Well, I guess not unthinkable for the good MP.

All of this, of course, begs the question of the lack of judgement of a man who puts his contempt for the Canadian democratic tradition in writing, sarcastically, in a letter to an 81 year old veteran.  A politician this dense is on a political suicide mission.  The Liberal caucus should seriously consider giving him a helping hand by pushing him out into the wilderness, where he belongs.