I nearly got sent home unceremoniously from
my first diplomatic posting. It was 1995, and I was a junior foreign service
officer at the Canadian Commission in Hong Kong. The French government had
announced it was going to carry out a series of nuclear weapons tests at
Moruroa, a small atoll island in the South Pacific. A comprehensive global ban
on nuclear weapons testing was set to come in effect the following year, and
the French military wanted to sneak in another few tests before it came into
effect, to supplement the 150+ tests it had already conducted on the island.
People who lived in Polynesia strongly objected, and in many countries people
organized boycotts of French products, but the tests went ahead anyhow.
At the climate migration policy hack-a-thon
None of this had anything to do with me or
my job at the Canadian Commission. The incident that nearly got me sent home
was this: a group of students at the Australian International School in Hong
Kong wrote a letter to the editor of the South China Morning Post – the main
English language newspaper – expressing their objections to the nuclear
testing, arguing for action to be taken against the French government, and
supporting the boycott of French goods. A day or two later, the Post published
a very dismissive letter from the French Consul General that mocked the
Australian students as being naïve, and stating that they were no doubt put up
to it by their teachers. I wish I still had a copy of it, for it was one of the
more arrogant things I’ve read. It set me off. That same day, I wrote a letter
to the Post tearing a strip off the French Consul General, essentially calling
him a sanctimonious prick, and giving him a short lecture on the evils of
nuclear testing. As you might imagine, my letter was happily published.
I personally felt (and continue to feel)
that nuclear weapons are fundamentally wrong, and testing them on the
traditional territory of colonized people is especially amoral. But it was not
the nuclear testing that prompted my letter writing; it was the dismissiveness
of the Consul General’s letter, mocking students who very articulately argued
their positions on the issue. However, diplomats, no matter how junior, must
keep their opinions to themselves regarding matters of international concern. I
was sent abroad to represent the government of Canada; what I thought of French
nuclear testing or the Consul General’s actions should have been kept to
myself. What I did was wrong, and I was not surprised when I was called into
the Head of Mission’s office the next day to get a strip ripped off me. I was
told that the only reason I was not sent home on the next flight was that I had
not included in the letter anything that identified me as a Canadian or a
Canadian government representative. And fortunately I was junior enough that no
one in the French consulate knew who I was or, if they did, never made a
complaint to the Canadian mission.
Ironic aside: the very next week an
acquaintance who served as the honorary consul for Gabon invited me to a small lunch
party to which he also invited the French Consul General. I thought it wise to
decline the invitation.
Two things today reminded me of this
incident. First, I heard the 1985 song “Hercules” by Australian band Midnight
Oil, protesting western military presence and weapons testing in the South
Pacific. The second was that I participated today in a climate migration policy hackathon organized by grad students at the Balsillie School of InternationalAffairs. I had never been to a hackathon previously, but had some idea that
it involved a group of motivated people making a concerted effort in a short
period of time to think through a problem and devise solutions. Although few of
the students appeared to have any in depth, pre-existing knowledge of climate
migration policy, a group of them had prepared a background paper that was circulated
before the hackathon. How many of the others actually read or digested it is
unclear. But what was clear is that they were ready to get to work this
morning.
If you’ve read this blog previously, you’ll
know that I’ve been researching climate migration for a long time now, and
wouldn’t be surprised to learn that I have some fairly solidly formed views on
what’s missing from climate migration policy. Few, if any, of the students knew
of me or my work (certainly none of the students in my breakout group did); I
was invited only because one of their professors suggested it. It would have
been easy for me to be dismissive of the event or of the students’ lack of
expertise; I could have simply lectured the students in my breakout group on what
I think should be done, and they would no doubt have dutifully taken notes and followed my lead. But
I don’t do that, especially to students, having learned my lesson from the
French Consul General all those years ago. At the hackathon I contributed some
and listened a lot during my group’s activities, and in doing so I learned some things I didn't know, or hadn't given enough thought to. For example, I realized that in
Canada there’s a serious disconnect between federal refugee policy and housing
policies and programs delivered at lower levels of government (I suspect this
is a problem in other countries as well). I like this hackathon concept, it
reminds me I don’t know as much as I think I do. I hope to attend more, and
will perhaps try organizing one around one of my own classes in the future.
.
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