On racism on Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada:

The most racist province in Canada is without a doubt British Columbia, The racism is dire because it is structural violence, meaning not only does it come from society in casual encounters but also from societal institutions such as schools, hospitals, and mental hospitals. This racism is a poison that ultimately corrodes the entire society, and people use it to indemnify their power. Entire families have been affected by this profound and ugly race hatred and the serious and completely unacknowledged crimes that it engenders, while others have explicitly sought to move to Vancouver Island because it is wholly white.

I am a lifelong resident of the Island and the racism that I have encountered is searing, institutionalized, typical, and at times vigilante. It is not for nothing that Reena Virk died in British Columbia and the province has since spent barely a dime on antiracism organizations and solutions to her fate, beyond a few shopworn newspaper headlines that are notable only for their dearth of both substance and creativity.

It is not for nothing that well over sixty percent of the population of mentally ill in Victoria's hospitals are non white. The stresses of living in this locality are profound, and many people are locked up and incarcerated against their will based solely on their colour. Indeed, an overwhelming number of South Asian women are diagnosed with schizophrenia in the Vancouver area every year. For those who are not of British background, the incidence of mental illness is incredibly high, and this rises to even more especial heights in the non white population. Most white people in Victoria, for example, live there because it reinforces notions of class, race status, and majority privilege in a place where the entire system condones it. People who do not derive from a powerful Anglo tradition have been incarcerated in jails and mental institutions at the slightest provocation.

On a larger note, the rest of Canada is unfortunately heading in this incredibly hierarchical and unjust direction, predicated largely on the influence of the power elites in Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia, which enjoy the highest standard of living and mildest weather in the world. Very recently we have witnessed an Afghan Canadian family who vehemently denies killing their daughters, which perished in a terrible auto accident, the surviving members which are basically being explained, without trial, as having perpetrated honour killings in the media. Reams of comments on this situation affirm that Canadians have taken their cue from the morally bankrupt elites in Victoria to castigate this unfortunate family and heap the most abusive verbiage upon these heartsick individuals in a time of tragedy. This is part of a targeted attempt on behalf of the Canadian establishment to frame a community whose contemporary condition is largely as the poorest, most destitute people on the planet, as the "enemy" in order to justify the war that they are fighting which is to bilk this society out of its natural wealth, which would have enabled them to carve out a small, functional polity. This polity would have then dealt with internal rights, freedoms, and other determinations, with far greater zeal and cooperation than having their people extinguished could ever have accomplished, but it is ever the project of the oppressor to inspire fear and hatred in the oppressed, and then to grandstand when such tortured souls, having lost all there is to lose, and suffered more than the average human being can ever dream of, muster the gumption to address those that have laid waste to their homes, families, and basic existence. Because the Canadian government does not want these poor people to have the fundamental dignity that Canadians themselves enjoy, the war continues unabated and unopposed by the two leading parties in parliament.

Meanwhile, in Australia, the government as previously made heroic attempts to redress the dreadful situation that Afghans, people with the cheapest blood in the world, have found themselves in, through compassion for Afghan refugees and number of sympathetic publications that wait for a give in the war complex in order to insert a more humane picture of the possibilities of war. The Canadian establishment obviously think themselves above all others in regards to learning anything, but could have learned some major lessons in openness, class, decency and compassion from the Antipodean nation, which continues to act in the spirit of understanding and generousity. As someone who was choosing to make Australia my home, it is both surprising and heartening to see people's humanity in this regard.