Dear Mr. Harper

18 May 2006 21:54 CST

Dear Mr. Harper,

In a Washington Post article covering our recently extended mission in Afghanistan, you are quoted as saying: "As long as we defend freedom, democracy and human rights, we will not be safe from attack from those who oppose it."

Can Canada truly defend such nebulous concepts? Here's what George Orwell had to say in 1946:

"The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different."

What definitions of freedom and democracy would you have us defend?

Kind Regards.

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