Revival from Obscurity

Around this time, blogs and newspapers like to run retrospective features, often lists enumerating what the editorial staff considers to be the most significant developments of the past year. The Guardian did one based on reader nominations, here's one from fox news and finally, to end on an obscure note, here's the CBC's Saskatchewan list of web stories. In Canada, the number one story, according to a news poll, was the death of Jack Layton, which, coming as it did after the NDP's best electoral performance in history, combined human tragedy with political consequence. However, that very real consequence - a leadership scramble within a radically transformed NDP - rapidly vanished from anyone's view, and a lively, bickering horse-race among a surprisingly large and colorful pool of hopefuls is taking place largely out of view. So I step up, gentle reader, to help guide you through the contest, introduce you to the contestants, and hold your hand until the Canadian left has chosen its latest contender for the leadership of Canada.

And to those who doubt that the internal leadership contest of a political party could be fascinating stuff, I refer you here, where you can watch Francis Urquhart make his bid for the Tory leadership.

Multiculturalism and its Enemies - Part 1

If you take a look around North America, the case against multiculturalism seems baffling. The most multicultural cities on the continent - New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles in the US, Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto in Canada - are also the most economically vibrant, the most dynamic and generally considered the most desirable places to live. Crime rates are not particularly low, but they aren't particularly high either, with some more "national" cities much more dangerous, to defuse one of the most common reservations. Also, even in the multicultural world city, no one can force you to get close to those you don't want to get close to, or eat a type of cuisine you dislike, or observe some holiday you disapprove of - you can always decline the invitation, eat elsewhere, opt out.

Multiculturalism just means more flavours of sexy

But the problem that people have with multiculturalism isn't about the present, and can't be found by looking at present conditions. It's about the past - an imagined past - and a future, usually a dreaded one.

Before Multiculturalism

The rational approach to questions of policy is guided by utilitarian considerations, cost-benefit analyses on a grand scale that are meant to capture all the effects that a given policy change may have on the welfare of individuals. Arguments concern the premises for your analysis, or its coherence of its model, or its predictive power, but no one, the recent Onion piece notwithstanding, challenges the utilitarian framework. To argue that policy should be formulated for a purpose other than benefiting the public - or at least some segment of the public, or to remove some injustice being done to the public - would be crazy. And not even bad crazy, but incomprehensible, weird crazy. Imagine trade policy being debated on non-utilitarian grounds. Or environmental policy. Or health policy. But when it comes to multiculturalism - or other issues deemed "cultural" - the frame breaks. Practical considerations are put aside, and support can be mobilized for policies that make no one better off and some people - the multis, to coin a term - much worse off. For committed liberals, libertarians, and conservatives that just care about money, that type of nativism is ugly and confusing, and tends to be chalked up to racism, homophobia, resentment or some generalized repugnant atavism. Once psychologized, the nativist reaction against multiculturalism can be dismissed as an irrational derangement. I think this is a mistake. This thing is deep, and it's smart.

Multi-culturalism week

I'm writing this from the balcony of my apartment in Vancouver. I live in the West End, a neighborhood of low-, mid- and hi-rise apartment buildings, 90% of which consist of rental units. Also, it's right next to the gay village. Like a block away. And the Gay Pride parade is tomorrow. This alone foregrounds the idea of diversity, but when you add in the ethnic and racial mix of Vancouver - a dozen languages on every street corner, improbably ethnic combinations of romantic couples, fusion food that God never intended - you end up with a paradigm multi-cultural city. Drawing inspiration from my new (though likely temporary) home, this week I'll be writing about multiculturalism, diversity, and their enemies. Actually, mostly about their enemies. Enjoy!

Blogging Again...

Readers,

Dear, special, wonderful readers.

I always intended for this blog to be an everyday thing - an exercise in writing, and in thinking through certain issues. After the convention, I fell off the wagon for a while. I offer no excuse, but here I am again. Incidentally, my four followers, blessed be your cyber-hearts, may spam never breach your filters, is there anyway we can get a few more people reading this? I have no aptitude or appetite for self-promotion, which would be my Achilles heel were it not for a dozen other character defects, and so I worry that I'm hiding my light under a bushel, and keeping my wisdom from wisdom-starved, Kuba-deficient readers. So I'm going to incentivize you to do this for me. I'm assuming that if you're following the blog, you appreciate Kuba prose, so here is the deal:

Anyone who brings in two or more followers will receive, from me, a quill-written letter suitable for framing (frame not included) on stolen hotel stationary describing the superhero or villain that I imagine they would be, if they were a superhero or villain. It will include a name, description of powers, origin story, etc. and I'll put like a whole day's worth of thought into it. If you don't like superheros and villains, then I can supply a list of book/movie/music recommendations. Two or more followers!

And with that, I start again...

Conventioneering: Conclusions

Here is a Jack Layton bobblehead, hand-made out of great Canadian plaster in some Quebec riding, available for a limited time for the low introductory price of $20. I did not buy one.

The convention was a fascinating experience - it was my first time seeing one live, and I had no idea of the centrality of Robert's Rules of Order and how much damage a vaguely composed agenda could cause. I also got a lot of insights into the institutional configuration of the NDP as a party - there is no pool of federal members, but instead the party is stitched together from subsidiary organizations, like the riding associations, youth groups, unions, and vulnerable identity representation (for aboriginals, gays, women, the disabled, and visible minorities, though I may be forgetting something). Therefore, if you join the party outside of these constituent groups, you're kind of on your own, which is a tough place to be.

Are the NDP ready for prime time? Smartly dressed Quebecois parliamentary aide wearing hipster glasses and acknowledging the need for compromise says yes, but elderly man in tie-dye handing out leaflets on marijuana legalization says no. The balance is not yet on the side of the former. The usual knock on the Conservatives is that they are out of touch with regular Canadians - it could be said that the NDP is out of touch with reality. There's truth to both statements, which places voters in a tough corner.

Also, there is no one to replace Jack Layton.

Conventioneering: Day 3 (Stephane Dion)

Stephane Dion, former head of the Liberal party and current schadenfreude superstar after his successor's colossal defeat, attended the convention as an observer at the behest of Bob Rae, his new boss. The big story here is that he was very warmly received - when his presence was announced, he got a round of applause, and name-checking Dion - the former head and current MP of a rival party, mind you - would get you another smattering of hand-claps. When the hipster socialist caucus were busy getting their Marat-style denunciations out during the debate on the merger clause, they were careful to distinguish him from those they were targeting. And when the anti-anti-merger side gave him credit for proposing the green shift, he received a standing ovation. I doubt he could be any more popular at the Liberal convention.

Conventioneering: Day 3 (Substance)

I arrived late, and missed nothing - the first session was dedicated to passing feel-good resolutions promising do-gooder solutions to all the world's problems, payable once the NDP took power. Most passed uncontested (the only controversial ones, related to Israel-Palestine, had been banished to the end of the list, the convention equivalent of the land of wind and ghosts, whence they would never reach the convention floor).

Then a funny thing happened - the debate got interesting. The second session was about internal party affairs. Normally, given the homogeneity of PC-thinking among NDP delegates, the hipster socialist caucus can do little damage - they complain that resolutions don't go far enough, the forward paranoid conspiracy theories, they overreact. This time, it was different - the ballot resolution forbade any merger talks with the Liberals. For the hipster socialists, this was an opportunity to be leftier-than-though, and stick it to the moderates and the pragmatists, insisting on a vow of political chastity. They were all there in line to speak - beardo, dreadlock dude, keffiyeh guy, all insisting on purity of essence. They received fitful applause, and booed the speakers for the other side, twice getting reprimanded by the chair. Also, this was when the crowd showed some ugly, with the term Liberal getting tossed around like a slur.

It ended up being the only close vote of the convention, which required a real stand-up-and-be-counted resolution as volunteers passed through the crowd to tally up the delegates on either side of the issue. The resolution was defeated by an approximately 60/40 margin, wide enough so that the yes side didn't insist on a paper ballot.

Then they dodged the other big, soul-of-the-party resolution, about dropping "socialist" from the party constitution. It got referred back to committee.

Then Jack Layton gave a speech and we all got to go home.