Angry in the Great White North

Yet again, Sid Ryan is play-acting as a politician instead of doing his real job of representing the members of CUPE Ontario in labour negotiations.  This time, Sid Ryan is out to get Israelis:

Ontario's largest university workers union is proposing a ban on Israeli academics teaching in the province's universities, in a move that echoes previous attempts to boycott goods and services from the Jewish state.

The resolution, proposed by CUPE's Ontario University Workers Coordinating Committee, is in protest of a Dec. 29 bombing that damaged the Islamic University in Gaza.

Janice Folk-Dawson, who chairs the workers committee for the unionized university employees, is cheering the idea.

Now you might think this is about putting some sort of pressure on Israel.  It is, of course, but it's much more subtle than that.  Ryan and Folk-Dawson are each demanding that Israelis are vetted for the correctness of their opinion.  If they do not publicly agree with Ryan and Folk-Dawson's opinion about world politics (at least inasmuch as Israel is concerned) then they are not welcome in Ontario:

"In response to an appeal from the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, we are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general," said Sid Ryan, president of CUPE Ontario.

Ms. Folk-Dawson said the resolution will protect the quality of education by preventing Israeli academics from professing biased views.

So let me get this straight.  Denouncing Israel and demanding that Israel pull out of Gaza and so return to the previous situation in which rockets and mortars were fired indiscriminately into Israeli towns is not biased.

I can understand each side being biased - two sides of a coin and all that.  And I can understand that Ryan and Folk-Dawson are trying to muzzle one side of the debate.  That's what people with power but little or no intellectual capacity try to do.

Ryan and Folk-Dawson might both be very intelligent, mind you.  They are just acting like people who are not interested in the rigour of intelligent debate.

But Ryan and Folk-Dawson aren't actually saying that.  What they want is to define only one correct point of view.  Moreover, if you are from Israel, you are immediately assumed to not share that point of view, and are obligated to publicly prove otherwise.  The purpose is to sanitize the mindspace in Ontario universities that might otherwise suffer in a decrease in the quality of education.

To be clear, if I'm a professor from Israel, Ryan and Folk-Dawson want me to publicly declare that Israel is wrong.  That way, should I later express an opinion that perhaps Israel is exercising the right of any sovereign nation to defend its citizens against those who would kill them, my earlier denunciation can be used to embarrass me, or to justify my expulsion.

Why?  Because the ability of students to learn would be compromised if they heard something that Syd Ryan and Janice Folk-Dawson disagreed with, or so says Janice Folk-Dawson.

But why is it that a biased view of an Israeli matters, while the biased view of a Canadian does not?  If I'm a professor who happens to have family in Israel, I might agree with Israel's actions.  Does my approval not hurt the education of the students just as seriously should I declare my opinions out loud?

Heck, any Jew is suspect, even if he or she has no ties to Israel.  Indeed, anyone can have an opinion, but to make the problem manageable, just those people with strong opinions and who might confuse people with their strong personal connection with the debate ("I'm from Israel", "I have family in Israel", "I'm a Jew") ought to be compelled to submit a denunciation of Israel for Sid Ryan's records.

Otherwise we'd be forcing every professor to make declarations in front of Sid Ryan.  That's just doesn't seem practical.  Focus ought to be applied to the likely troublemakers.  As Sid Ryan has already indicated, he's only interested in targeting Israelis, and Janice Folk-Dawson confirms that she thinks their opinions are the most dangerous and so need to be suppressed.

How do you organize an effort like this?  Thankfully, when it comes to organizing, unions do it all the time.  Janice Folk-Dawson can organize her workers committee membership to root out those who are biased based on a profile (Israeli citizenship, religious affiliation, membership in suspect political organizations, and so on), and then Sid Ryan would know who needs to be forced to make an unbiased statement condemning Israel, on the record, to be used quell future discussion and preserve the quality of education.

I mean, they're already going to be busy checking over personnel records for any professors who are from Israel so that they can be tracked down and then dragged in front of Sid Ryan so that their condemnation of Israel can be duly recorded.  So while they're at it, they can track down anyone else who might harbour bad thoughts that might be voiced in front of students.

We can call the teams looking for biased views the Dawson-Volk (a play on Folk-Dawson), and those discovered to be suspect can participate in the Sid Ryan Show.  Sort of like a show trial, but without the allegation of a real crime, just a thought crime.  Nothing like a compelled public declaration to appease the cheering mob. 

Did I say mob?  I meant the students whose education was so damaged when someone suggested that Israel might be in the right on this one.

By the way, has anyone asked the students if they felt that the quality of their education has been affected by people with opinions different from Sid Ryan and Janice Folk-Dawson?  But then, that's the great thing about policing thoughts and opinions.  When you've decided that you're the Thought Police, you know that the only opinion that matters is yours.

Heil Sid!

Heil Janice!