Friday 25 December 2009

Why KAIROS matters.


L'union fait la force. Together we stand, divided we fall.

Alliance-busting is one of many Rovian tactics that the ReformaTories have developed to undermine their opponents and to pre-empt legitimate criticism of Stevie Spiteful and his bullies' way of doing business.

The Con's biggest and most recent target is KAIROS, a compassionate alliance of Canadian religious organizations who work together to bring peace to parts of the world ravaged by conflicts, through a number of humanitarian projects.

In November, KAIROS was told in a desultory way by Minister Oda that its CIDA funding had been cut.

Then two other ReformaTory attack parrots, Toews and Kenney piled on the justifications to justify their government's savage coup bas.

From here:

The speech of Jason Kenney in Jerusalem December 16, tagging peace and development group KAIROS as anti-Semitic and bragging about de-funding it, was so grotesque that it must have left many in the established Jewish community feeling slightly ill. Can they really be comfortable with the accusation that an organization composed of Canada’s major Christian churches are Jew-haters?

Are they willing to let KAIROS lose its projects in the suffering nations of the global south because, though it believes in Israel’s right to peace and security, it also thinks Palestinians have rights too? [...]

After 35 years of CIDA funding, KAIROS will lose $7 million project money ending its support for the peace process in Sudan, for victims of violence in Indonesia and the rights of women in warring Colombia.


Kenney now claims his remarks were misunderstood. I think that he “mis-spoke” by expressing these views publicly, in a venue where his comments were recorded. But it wasn’t accidental. There’s a pattern there, and a tightly scripted, repressive trajecTory being charted by the rightwing socon theocrats in the PMO.

There are many progressive bloggers who have been researching, writing about this grievous assault on KAIROS and making strong points about the Con nature of such pernicious and loathsome political tactics: Scott Tribe, bigcitylib and Dennis Gruending, to name a few. We have to keep blogging about this, and to stand in solidarity with peace-loving organizations today, December 25th and every day of the year.

2 comments:

Chrystal Ocean said...

KAIROS is an excellent organization run by good people of conscience. Kenney & Company have fixed on the wrong target. Could well be this is finally their undoing.

deBeauxOs said...

Lies-Site's resident fundamentalist religious zealot and theocrat, Alphonse de Valk, is thrilled that KAIROS' funding has been cut because that hurts the organization Peace and Development - what an edifying display of MASSIVE egotism and self-righteousness.

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