Pardon me while I wax mainstream for a moment, here.

 

For those of you who have been following the Tamil protests around the world lately, I have some information for you:

 

On the local news this morning, the reporter was interviewing one of the protest organizers in Toronto. The guy was talking about forming another human chain to grind traffic to a halt. Pretty standard fare. However, he let slip that at tomorrow's event they will be asking protesters to bring donations to the Daily Bread Food Bank. He wants his protesters to "give back to the people".

 

I guess these guys have learned from the failures of General Prabhakaran, Leader of the LTTE in Sri Lanka (Excuse me, former leader of the former LTTE. It's getting pretty hard to find either Prabhakaran or his men, no matter how hard they try). This food drive is straight out of Mao Tsedong's book "On Guerilla Warfare". I mean it's literally straight out of the book. It's right there, at the end of chapter 6:

 

 

By giving food to the poor, these modern day Che Guevara wannabes figure they can garner the support of the disenfranchised here in Canada. There's only one small problem with this plan: Canadians don't give a rat's ass about your dead countrymen, and they laugh at your cowardice. All the rice and canned tuna in the world isn't going to make your rediculous whining, 10,000 miles away from the front lines look the slightest bit noble.

 

Besides, we Canadians have long memories. We know all about the brave LTTE, boldly sending women suicide bombers to murder foriegn politicians. We know all about the brave LTTE generals, sending children as young as 7 to the front lines. We know all about your crimes at Aranthalawa, Anuradhapura, Kattankudy mosque, Kebithigollewaand and the Dehiwala train bombing. We know, and we are not impressed. You whine about the atrocities committed against your countrymen by the Sri Lankan government, but where was your outrage when it was they who were commiting genocide?

 

And let's not forget your fellow Sri Lankan and Indian Tamil immigrants right here in Canada. I can't count the number of friends who have had encounters with Tamil gangs. Friends who barely survived. Friends who didn't survive. Your brothers bravely attack lone individuals. You descend upon us with 10 of your friends, armed with sawed-off pool cues, baseball bats and knives. You have imported your ethnic violence, and you ask us to come to your aid?

 

The truth is, despite the Canadian government's measured responses in public, behind closed doors we are applauding the deaths of your countrymen.

It's been a few days, and a lot has happened. Chrysler went bankrupt, H1N1 turned out to be exactly as meaningless as I predicted, and the American puppet government in Georgia crushed a populist military coup d'etat. Even as I post this, the Chairman of the Canadian Auto Workers' Union is giving a press conference, stating that they WILL NOT agree to any more pay cuts in the face of GM's most recent $6 BILLION quarterly loss. Each of these events on their own are worthy of a full-page Dreamtwister rant. But you know what? Even the Dreamtwister gets tired of looking at the big picture. Sometimes, even I like to stop for a second and focus on the little injustices that tend to get completely ignored in the face of world-crushing geopolitical juggernauts.

 

"But what problem could be so little that the mainstream media would overlook it, but the mighty Dreamtwister would get mad enough to rant?" You might ask. "Could it be how the US government, failing to convince the landowners to sell, have decided to declare condemned 500 acres of land so they can build their Flight 93 monument?"

 

Again, it's a topic fully worthy of a Dreamtwister rant, and you can be forgiven for assuming it was my topic of choice for today. But no, today's issue is an even smaller injustice than a government robbing a few landowners of their land.

 

Today, I want to talk about a 15 year old boy's right to defend himself.

 

Last week at a high school in Keswick Ontario, a 15 year old Korean boy was suspended for 20 days for breaking another student's nose. The York region school board was even pushing for a permanent expulsion. There are charges pending. He might even face jail time.

 

I know, I know. Young Offenders' Act, LOL at Canadian youth prisons, all of that. You get a gold star for completely missing the point.

 

As it turns out, this Korean boy was being bullied.

 

You see, the other boy was calling him names and shoving him. Bad choice for the bully. Turns out the Korean boy holds a black belt in Tae Kwan Do. (Spare me the 'take my dough' jokes for the time being, please). Finally, when the victim felt the abuse had continued long enough (And I have to admit, he used far more restraint than I would have in a similar situation), he broke the boy's nose.

 

Of course the school board, in it's infinite wisdom, decided to not only hand down the maximum suspension allowed, but to begin expulsion proceedures and notify the police!

 

Things have changed a bit since this happened last week. The students of the school staged a walk-out and notified the media. The school board has repealed the suspension and terminated expulsion procedures. The price? The victim was forced to apologize to his attacker. I can't even begin to articulate my outrage at this miscarriage of justice. There are just so many little details to this story that make my head want to explode.

 

First of all, why is the Globe and Mail trying to make this story all about the racism? Is that even the point? The victim was being bullied. He was verbally and physically abused by his classmate. It doesn't matter what the words were, they were abusive. Mister Friesen, why are you trying to downplay the self-defense aspect of this story in favour of playing up the racism? What is your agenda here?

 

Second, why has no disciplinary action been handed down for the assailant? Last time I checked, assault is a crime in Canada. This little bastard assaulted his classmate in front of a score of witnesses. Why is he not being punished?

 

Third, why was the victim forced to apologize for defending himself? Could it be that the school board is participating in the systematic destruction of self-reliance in our children, prefering instead that these children grow up to be completely dependant on the state for everything?

 

Finally, WHY THE HELL ARE THE CHARGES STILL PENDING? I kid you not. The boy's first court appearance is on May 13, at which point the Crown will determine if the case is to proceed. So now this kid who has already been forced to miss a week of school for defending himself, now has to miss another day of school to appear in court to explain why he felt he should defend himself. Not only that, but his parents have to take time off of their jobs and incur the expense of retaining a lawyer.

 

OK, I think I'm done now. Excuse me while I go vomit.