Obasan really made me think, was the Canadian internment of Japanese-Canadians necessary? I came to conclude, it was the best of all the bad ideas. With the rate of immigration the Canada has, with the huge influx of Canadian immigrants, is it really strange to assume that perhaps one of these immigrants still holds fealty and loyalty to Japan rather than Canada? How can you find out, out of thousands, who could be a spy, or who has the potential to be one? So in the end, i tried to find alternatives to internment camps that still did maintain control over a group of people of which a small amount could be enemy aliens. By this i stress, i am not justifying what the government did, nor the repercussions or how they did it, i am merely wondering what else they could have done? What i found more shocking however was that, Canada also fought against Germany, Austria and Italy, how come immigrants with those roots were not interned? Or at least not to the same scale as the Japanese. So I think it is safe to assume that the internment camp system had racial connections as just seen, but why all the confiscation of property? why the revoking of citizenship, why the mandatory expulsion? I can understand the interment camp system being put in place for possible spies, but really the way it was done was far from what it should be! It was entirely inhumane and the magnitude to which was uncalled for. However, what would the consequences be if they didn’t do it, good and bad i wonder…

The political situation in Egypt is a complicated one. One one side you have the democratically elected government (now deposed), and the other side the military. The supporters of Morsi claim that the military has no right to depose the democratically elected leader, because if doing so it would be fighting against he wishes of its own people. However the military and its supporters are claiming that the President wasn’t acting upon the wishes and promises he made during his candidacy, furthermore that he was radicalizing the country. So you wonder, who is right? Who has the right to rule or depose? The answer of these questions is unclear, hence the unrest in Egypt at the moment. However, does the democratically elected president, elected by the people, not deserve the opportunity or the constitutional right to execute the position he was elected for? I am not one to promote religious interference in the government, nor am I one to promote the reduction of rights and privileges of religious minorities. I do not condone what he has done, but is it correct to undermine the first time the country has ever tasted democracy?

Imagine a country, when anyone doesn’t agree with the president, that they attempt to depose him? Is this respecting the democracy of the country? Democracy is as much about the elections as it is about respecting the results. If one does not agree with the democratically elected leader, if it is a true democracy, the people can annul his leadership in the next following elections. Is this not what Egyptians should try to do? I can understand that deposing ones dictator, is a great feat in itself, but is it really a trend to try to keep up and follow. I mean you can’t continue your life deposing each leader you don’t like. There will never be an election where a candidate receives one hundred percent of all the votes. How would any country work that whenever a leader was elected that the opposition would try and depose him just because they don’t approve of his leadership. Granted some of his policies were sketchy to say the least, however can we automatically assume that a country will go through the harmonious transition from a dictatorship to a pure democracy easily?

If we look at this through a historical lens, what were the processes of countries becoming a democracy. The French revolution lasted for over ten years, it went through a series of bad and corrupt leaders, and look at it now? France today is a global symbol of democracy. Robespierre massacred thousands in the reign of terror, Napoleon amended election results, and the Royalty kept on trying to change France into a Monarchy again. So after all of this, is it really a correct assumption that Egypt can make this transition in less than a year. It took France over 150 years to become the democracy it is today. It is currently on its fifth trial of a republic. So what expectations do Egyptians have of themselves, and do we have of Egypt? Ultimately, the change Egyptians sought for when they started the revolution won’t be for themselves but for their children and grandchildren.