Tears of an Attorney (not a clown)

Watching the statements of Maher Arar and his lawyer today resulted in a new occurrence in my life.

Never before have I come so close to crying at the carefully considered words of an attorney. He almost broke down himself, as he told the Canadian people why his client wanted a written apology from the prime minister. He told us that Mr. Arar's wife wanted written proof, for the day her children come to her with questions about the allegations that were once leveled against their father. His words conjured in my mind the image of a child, running home from school in tears, having just been told by some ignorant and insensitive peer that his father was a terrorist.

As lawyers are so often considered nothing more then social parasites, it's important to acknowledge that some among them truly have dedicated themselves to the advancement of truth and justice. I applaud what they have done on behalf of Mr. Arar. If only all litigators had such lofty goals, the world would be a better place.

Each and every time this story is revisited, it transports me back in time to the point the story broke, and I remember how it made me feel. How embarrassed I felt, as a Canadian, that our nation and its government could have let such a monstrous perversion of justice befall one of our citizens.

The fury that I felt, mostly directed at the American authorities who dared to violate one of our fellow Canadians in such a despicable manner, is easy to recall. I imagine that many Canadians felt something similar, particularly those who may have been born under an oppressive regime. People who came to Canada looking for a place were they’d be free of persecution, and the threat of torture, must have felt it far more deeply then the rest of us.

Something I heard today however, from the chief counsel of the Arar inquiry, made an impression on me. He said that we, as a people, had failed this man, by failing to cry out, by failing to pressure our own government to free him. It’s something to think about. But will Canadians ever take to the streets over such injustice, or will we always be too slow, too complacent, and suffer the consequences of our inaction?

Musing complete.

They can't see what lies ahead when sun is gone and moon is dead

And in the night when all is quiet and we are all alone, are we also unseen? Or does some force watch our lonely musings, our furtive movements, our joy and suffering? Some celestial voyeur who takes his pleasure from watching us wander through life? If we squint hard enough, can we catch this entity at work? If we could, what would we learn from him? That all life is pointless? Or would we learn something of greater value? Some greater purpose, perhaps, for each one of us. We could live our lives with the knowledge that someday we might find that purpose, and our lives might have meaning.

No matter how hard I squint, I still don't see it. So what does that leave us with? If we search hard enough, can we find our purpose for ourselves? Forge a path of our own creation, perhaps. Or maybe we should just stop looking, and acccept that things are what they are. Can a man of science, a man who can't see that greater guiding force, do any less? This is my conundrum.

Science shall say that all is as it is because of natural law. But if we evolved from simple one celled organisms, guided purely by the forces of nature, then what possible purpose could we serve? Beyond the niche we hold, by force of our will, in the amazing ecosystem of this third rock from the sun, what purpose does this man serve? Not just one man, but all men (and women)?

In the end, the only purpose we can serve is to each other. But we all can't be doctors and nurses. We can't all cure cancer, or stamp out hunger, or mental illness. If we did, who would drive the buses, who would clean up the streets, pump the gas of the middle class man? Who would make your clothes and cook your food? Who would grease the wheels that make our daily lives livable? Who would do the thousand tasks that you don't want to?

So if you see him, thank God for those that choose to help the world in their own way. And if you don't see a guiding hand, but instead just a flawed being like you trying to be useful, then thank them for what they bring to your life.

Imagine what it would be like without them.

Musing complete.