Emery loses support

Editorial

There are many British Columbians, among those a not insubstantial number of Jews, who sympathize with the legal and political plight of Marc Emery. Emery is the most familiar face of Canadian marijuana activism. He is currently under arrest, awaiting resolution of an extradition order based on his mail-order business of cannabis seeds to United States customers.

Canadians are watching the Emery case with interest. Even many of those who do not condone or support the recreational use of marijuana view the potential punishment facing Emery as unfit for the alleged crime.

Emery is, generally speaking, very media-savvy. He is a telegenic, articulate advocate for reasonable personal freedom around the use of what is still, despite his efforts, a banned substance.

But Emery has made an appallingly insensitive, cruel and deliberately painful assertion that has, in one succinct comment, evaporated what nascent goodwill we may have had for his cause.

In a web posting that just recently gained widespread attention, Emery called federal justice minister Irwin Cotler a "Nazi Jew." The implication, apparently, is that Emery views himself as a persecuted victim of totalitarianism. We can disagree with Canadian (and American) laws around possession, use or sale of a substance that is arguably less harmful than many legal substances, like cigarettes and liquor. But some perspective is warranted in criticizing laws, however unjust we may perceive them to be.

It is fair to argue that individuals have a right to choose whether to use. It is even understandable, to those of us who have watched terminally ill people suffer when a natural, herbally sourced pain alleviator is subject to criminal sanctions, that such prohibitions should raise anger and frustration in those who know pot's efficacy and believe in its value. But firmness of resolve and justness of cause do not justify inhumane rhetoric.

Moreover, it is not Cotler who Emery has most grievously offended with this grotesque comment. Cotler is a politician who probably has a thick enough skin to take worse than this. The victims of Emery's ghastly analogy are Canada's Holocaust survivors and the people who care about their well-being and the sanctity of their memories and experiences.

Emery could hardly have conjured a more deeply inappropriate juxtaposition of two words or one as offensive to the decency of Canadian values of respect for differentness.

Everyone is capable of misstating or blurting out something inappropriate and hurtful. Apologies and regret go a long way to assuaging hurt feelings in personal relations as well as public affairs.

But Emery, when confronted with the pain he had caused, did not apologize. He exacerbated the damage.

Canadian Press reported over the weekend that, in clarifying his words, Emery went further down the road of inappropriate analogies.

"If you're going to make comparisons," he wrote in response to concerns expressed by Vancouver-East MP Libby Davies – who deserves mazal tov and a heartfelt todah rabah for speaking out on this issue, "the term for Irwin Cotler might be 'capo.' These were the Jews during the Holocaust who were fated to deliver their fellow Jews to their death."

A person with a moderate degree of sensitivity, who is not so self-obsessed, might have taken the opportunity presented by Davies' expressed concern to retract, apologize and make what amends are possible under the circumstance. Instead, Emery dove further. His use of the term capo indicates he has some knowledge of the history of Nazi genocide. The remotest acquaintance with the moral chaos of that period should guide any decent person away from analogies that are, by their very definition, inappropriate and overblown. Given the opportunity to retract and make amends, Emery chose to inflict further desecration on the memory of the Shoah.

In the same manner that we demanded First Nations leaders condemn in the strongest terms the repugnant views of David Ahenakew, we should expect Canada's other leading marijuana liberalization advocates to isolate Emery for the remarks he has made.

He has lost what moral authority he may have had.

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