Weregild
Rant #1: Weregild
Subject: Compensation for suffering in Canadian politics and, more specifically, in the Maher Arar case
Slant: Monetary compensation is the wrong method from a moral and economic standpoint
More information: Ottawa reaches $10M settlement with Arar
Maher Arar is a sympathetic person. He was arrested for a crime he didn't commit, he was denied a lawyer, and, after top-secret negotiations, he was deported to Syria. He was tortured for months before the Canadian government bowed to public pressure, then he had to wait for an apology. It's practically made for the silver screen--a hapless hero, a corporate villain, and a happy ending. Except not quite. The Bush administration won't remove Maher Arar from their no-fly list and he received ten million dollars from the Canadian government. While Arar is doubtless very pleased with that sum, it smacks of vulgarity and superficiality. It is crude, it is unjust, it is selfish, and its implications for Canadian society are alarming, at best.
The Canadian government has called this ten million-dollar settlement ‘compensation’, but that begs the question ‘what are they compensating for?’ Maher Arar would never have made that much money as a wireless technology consultant, his legal fees can't be that high, and psychiatrists aren't that expensive. It is clear, therefore, that the government is paying him for the pain he experienced. The government has placed a price on human suffering and it’s far higher than the $400,000 maximum that the Supreme Court allows, but no less demeaning that we, as a society, should tack a dollar sign and value on to twelve months of physical and mental anguish and its impact on human life - on Maher Arar’s life. It devalues the human condition in the same way that buying a person or paying for a life would, because that’s exactly what the Canadian government has done and is doing. The ten million dollars they gave Mr. Arar was little more than blood money - money for the life that he lost when he was labelled a terrorist and deported to Syria. In that, there is a tacit and all-together disturbing message about the value of a human life; it is not priceless, as we are often told, according to the Canadian government and by Maher Arar’s own demand, a human life is worth no more than the money it takes to make that human disappear - in this case, they want Maher Arar to disappear from Canadians’ minds.
Other Canadians who have been wronged by the government, however, are often ignored. In fact, they are usually ignored - Aboriginals have been for centuries, as have many other anonymous Canadians whose voices haven’t rung loud enough in public forum. Despite the fact that the government is responsible - directly or indirectly - for their situations, they are ignored and they are ignored because the Canadian government makes bad decisions every single day. Politicians can’t predict the effects that their actions will have on each individual citizen and those who are hurt are rarely covered on the front page or primetime news or any news media at all, even if they lost their jobs and their families and their lives as they knew them, even if they suffered as much as Maher Arar, because the Canadian government cannot measure suffering. No one can put a unit of measure to another person’s pain, no one can truly understand another’s burdens, but the very, very last thing that we, as a society, should do is measure pain in dollars.
It does, in fact, say something very, very sad about our culture that our automatic response to tragedy is ‘money, money, money’, as though it is the be all and end all, as though it can buy a life back. Discussing this argument with my peers I was told that ‘an apology was not enough’ - so impersonal dollars and cents are used to make up for its inadequacy. Where, though, is the effort? The legislation that Mr. Arar has demanded since his return? Where is the transparency? If not to acknowledge their error, to match their words with honest action, then to help the Canadian people understand the situation, and judge the Harper administration as they see fit. Ten million dollars is meaningless, it is nothing in comparison to the criticism and bad press that the Canadian government has avoided, and spending hard-earned taxpayer money on one man, rather than many needy citizens, is an insult. It is an insult to the struggles that impoverished Canadians face, that disabled Canadians face, that most Canadians will probably face at some point in their lives, and simply because our society has and does operate on the mistaken belief that money can buy happiness.
The Canadian government has made so many mistakes in the Maher Arar case, starting in 2002 when he was arrested at an American airport, allowed no lawyers, and deported to Syria almost immediately afterwards without any protest from Canadian officials. However, the government will continue to make mistakes, because they can’t see the future, sometimes they can’t even see beyond their own interests, and they will continue to hurt vulnerable Canadians. The people whose lives are quite literally destroyed by the Canadian government’s mistakes will suffer in silence, will suffer because it’s what life has dealt them, and they have no choice but to live through each day as it comes, unaided and often alone. Once again, the Canadian government has made a mistake, a common folly, a tragic folly, but one of the few mistakes that they won’t sweep under the rug, that they won’t hide. They have made the mistake of debasing the value of the human condition to a single figure, a figure that will falter and fall in future, under different governments, but a figure that now defines the worth of a human life: ten million dollars.
ETA: My thoughts on compensation have changed over the past few years, so this entry doesn't accurately reflect them, but I've decided to leave it up for posterity.