The Dominion of Fear.

My brave comrade Lauryn Oates, writing in Butterflies and Wheels: "This fear is something that has deep roots in Canadian culture, perpetuated through academic institutions, the media, even the peace movement. It has long been fashionable in the halls of western arts faculties to view all the world through the lens of post-colonialism. In classrooms across the country students of political science, anthropology, literature and other disciplines learn to see the developing world as unflinchingly hostile to foreign interference, as the wounds of conquest by imperial powers continue to heal. Through this lens, universal values do not exist. Young Canadians are taught to challenge their own western perceptions and to be culturally sensitive. Buzzwords like “ethnocentrism” abound, and all kinds of activities take on the metaphor of colonialism, whether international development projects or scientific research."

Meanwhile: You are working with the government. We Taliban warn you to stop working for the government otherwise we will take your life away. We will kill you in such a harsh way that no woman has so far been killed in that manner. This will be a good lesson for those women like you who are working. The money you receive is haram [forbidden under Islam] and coming from the infidels. The choice is now with you.

Elsewhere: Sima Samar, head of Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission, is asking Canadians to stay engaged in Afghanistan on the simple grounds of helping fellow humans in great need. She said some people are afraid they are imposing "Western values" on Afghanistan, especially when it comes to equality for women, when no such distinction should be made. "Excuse me, these are human values," she said, winning applause. "These are universal values for all of us."

Up in the Okanagan Valley, 13-year-old Alaina Podmorow continues to do more for her Afghan sisters than the establishment "progressive" movement in Canada, combined, has managed to do. Chapters of Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan have sprung up around the country and fundraisers have been held in many cities. The groups have raised about $160,000 from the public and almost the same amount again in matching funds from the federal Canadian International Development Agency, the foreign-aid wing of the federal government.

My latest essay in the Calgary Herald, Majabeen is Unafraid:

Majabeen is dark-eyed, raven-haired and 17. She's the oldest of the 29 girls at the Omid-e-mirmun orphanage in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is going to go to university to be a doctor. When Majabeen was small, her father died in a car accident, her mother remarried, and the new husband wanted nothing to do with Majabeen or her younger sisters Qamaria and Zamaria. So the girls were abandoned. That was six years ago, and that's how these three sisters ended up here.

You would have no inkling of this sad story upon meeting Majabeen or her sisters. You would not know, either, that the two-storey brick house where they live is an orphanage. . .

Update: My dear friend Brian Platt writes: The right to education is universal,” I’ll say, “everywhere, for every person, at all times.” “Yes, but Brian . . .” they respond solemnly, and then proceed to enlighten me about the neo-conservative program to dominate the world, the neo-liberal agenda to smash the welfare state, and corporate schemes to brainwash us with advertising. Today when you urge one of my fellow progressives to support the right to education in Afghanistan, the response you inevitably get is “Yes, but . . .”