“I know this is the part of the speech where I am supposed to tell you how important it is to pursue your dreams. And that is important; one of my dreams was to travel around the world, and I did that, and it was wonderful.
But I believe even more than that, is you need to realize that you can go far in this world if you work hard. You will compete against people who went to expensive private schools, people who have connections that you don’t have, or people who have more money than you do.
And you cannot compete against that. In fact, sometimes you feel inadequate when you hear about the fancy schools your competitors will come from — schools with several thousand kids, with dozens of different options to choose from.
But there is one way you can compete, and that is with hard work. You can go a long way in this world with hard work.
Your tax dollars are going to fund anti-Canadian propaganda that sympathizes with the Taliban and glorifies violence against Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
The Prime Minister’s Office sent out an email late this evening condemning rapper Manu Militari for producing a music video that disrespects our men and women in uniform,
Shocking Music Video Glorifies Taliban Terrorists
Rapper Manu Militari has released a song and music video that glorify Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan. The shocking video includes a reenactment of a roadside bomb attack on a Canadian military vehicle and the murder of Canadian soldiers.
· This music video is outrageous and offensive and our government denounces it in the strongest terms.
· Our men and women in uniform have fought and 158 have died in Afghanistan in defence of the values that we hold dear.
· Canadian soldiers have been fighting in Afghanistan for over 10 years, longer than both World Wars.
· This music video glorifies terrorism and shows an utter lack of support to those who have sacrificed everything for us.
Despite strong words from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Canadian taxpayer helped foot the bill for the production of the Manu Militari rap video and they also help fund the rapper’s music career and national marketing.
MusicAction is a non-profit organization funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage and private broadcasters to produce and market the music of francophone artists. Since 1985, more than $90 million has been granted to this organization.
According to an annual report from MusicAction from 2008-2009, Manu Militari received the following funding from the organization:
$5,000 (Artist Management)
$20,000 (Album Production)
$25,000 (National Marketing)
Here is the video that is referenced by the Prime Minister’s Office (it was taken off of YouTube and now has been rehosted by Sun News),
And here are the roughly translated lyrics,
1431, Pashtunistan.
Before the first prayer of the day.
I leave my lair, a scarf tied around my neck.
My eyes scan the sky in search of a drone – as if I’d have time to run before the missile hits.
As I walk, I question myself about a thousand things at once but if I continue my journey it’s because [?] strengthens my faith.
I cross the rivers and the ravines of my tribal country. After many hours I finally make it to the side of the main road.
I get out my shovel, I hurry up to dig a hole in the ground to put an explosive charge of agricultural fertilizers.
Inside there isn’t any metal, the trap is undetectable. I just have to erase my tracks before going to the mountain.
I position myself strategically, I just hope that nobody spotted me by satellite.
I just try to calm my fear, ready for the ambush, finger on the detonator, I’m in no hurry, so I wait.
I’m waiting for the one, who should have stayed home.
I’m waiting, and as goes the old Afghan proverb: they may have the watches, but we have time.
I’m waiting for the one, who should have stayed home.
I’m waiting, and as goes the old Afghan proverb: they may kill the swallows, but they won’t stop the spring from coming.
[6 months earlier]
It’s been hours, the light has chased away the darkness, I realize just how close the road is.
Squinting, I may look stressed, but I’m reflecting – just like the sun on my RPG.
I’m aware that if I’m ever caught they’ll torture me or photograph me naked on all fours.
As if I was just a [?] I get wrongly accused [?]
As if [?] was like a cancerous virus, as if I had no children or no tenderness, as if I swept my cave with my wife’s hair, and I warmed myself at night with napalm.
As if I was a mentally ill, an extremist, but there are signs for thinking people.
I’ve been disfigured, I had acid thrown in my face, scratched out my image to better raze my village to the ground.
I’m not the kind that panics under fire, I have already kicked the butt of the British Empire.
I’m ready to do the same thing, I’m fighting for the same cause, I always refused the peace imposed by the occupier.
I’m far from being a beginner, I’m not afraid of wasting time, I’m ready, I have weapons and powerful arguments.
I want to free my land, is not about religion, turn off your TVs: I’ve never hijacked a plane.
I’ve fought against poppy cultivation, now if I’m growing it, it is to live, it’s you who’ve pushed me to do it.
I am not perfect. My way of life has created victims, but the attacks on my country have made me legit.
I’m waiting for the one, who should have stayed home.
I’m waiting, and as goes the old Afghan proverb: they may have the watches, but we have time.
I’m waiting for the one, who should have stayed home.
I’m waiting, and as goes the old Afghan proverb: they may kill the swallows, but they won’t stop the spring from coming.
I was about to fall asleep, when I detect the sound of an engine, which paralyzes my legs makes my heart race.
I lean hard against a rock, I am afraid of being poorly hidden. I look one last time to see if my weapon is ready to fire.
Death is so close, I’m already reciting the [?] The enemy approaches, I recognize Canada’s colors.
Like a hundred countries, adrenaline flows through me, in a few seconds they will understand how much I hate them.
The wait is almost endless, but I ready to make sure no one slip by me. Eventually the invader reaches my position, I feel so much stress I am feeling sick to my heart.
I let a first humvee pass, even a second disappears, but the third: say hello to the devil for me.
One month ago, a wayward bureaucrat (or rapporteur as he is styled) found himself in Canada and decided to tear a strip off our country on the topic of food security in Canada. Yes, while Canada sends billions of food aid to developing countries, the UN came to criticize Canada for how available food is to poor and aboriginal communities. Canada is 6th on the human development index, and while poverty and famine grip other regions such as the horn of Africa, the scant resources of the UN were used to study Canada.
Today, we learned of the head of the UN’s Health Agency’s trip to North Korea where she praised that country for its health system and said that it should be the “envy” of the developing world,
“Based on what I have seen, I can tell you they have something that most other developing countries would envy,” [the head of the UN’s health agency] told journalists, despite reports of renewed famine in parts of the country.
“To give you a couple of examples, DPRK has no lack of doctors and nurses, as we see in other developing countries, most of their doctors and nurse have migrated,” the director general of the World Health Organisation said.
She also highlighted its “very elaborate health infrastructure” extending to a district network of household doctors, she added.
Chan visited the closed communist nation Monday through Wednesday at the regime’s invitation.
She met senior ministers and visited health facilities in the capital Pyongyang, as well as a rural hospital about an hour’s drive away.
Her visit to Pyongyang came amid reports of a severe food crisis in North Korea.
Good Friends, a Seoul-based welfare group with contacts in the North, said in February that 2,000 people had starved to death there this winter.
A growing number of North Koreans have fled their homeland, which has relied on outside aid to help feed its people since a famine in the 1990s killed hundreds of thousands.
North Korean officials offer stage-managed propaganda tours for visiting tourists and dignitaries that is so predictable, the same stops (and sanctioned photo essay) unfolds for any outsider that visits: statues, monuments, the metro, and empty dining halls with lots of food. When tours go off-script, they are noted as a newsworthy aberration.
It’s no surprise that the article describing the UN tour of North Korea ended with this concession,
Chan later accepted that what she saw in Pyongyang “might not be representative of the rest of the country.
