ISIS

Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently announced, during a rare address to parliament, that Canada would be going the fight against ISIS. He informed the MPs that, though there will be no ground troop deployed, air strikes will commence and continue for up to six months, at which point the situation will be reviewed and efforts will possibly be extended. According to Harper, the airstrikes are planned for Iraq, but could potentially be expanded to Syria. 

Additionally, Harper explained that Canada's participation will be limited to only countries where there is a supporting and legitimate government (thus excluding Syria). Parallely, the government will extend it's original 30 day advisory mission, which is supposed to contribute 69 special operations officers, in addition to the 280 aircrew personnel. Despite admitting that eliminating the Islamic State is likely impossible, he said that he does believe Canada's efforts will "significantly reduce" the threat. 

Parliament will vote on -and likely pass- the proposition on Monday, due to the Conservative majority. Both Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau, leaders of the NDP and Liberal parties respectively, said that, as oppose to airstrikes, other means could be explored. Mulcair said “The tragedy in Iraq and Syria will not end with another Western-led invasion in that region." Similarly, Trudeau said that Canada can make a much more prominent impact on the war on ISIS by using some unspecified "non-combat roles", rather than "a few aging warplanes".

The US's airstrike campaign against ISIS has seemingly come to no avail. Not only has it cost them approximately 1 billion dollars to date, but it has cost them the literal heads of 3 citizens (The US refused to pay a 100 million ransom for each kidnapped journalist, and the journalists were hence beheaded). Other countries have joined the airstrikes and threatened to revoke the passports of citizens that go to aid ISIS, but it doesn't seem to be having a potent effect either. 

The only troops on the ground at the moment are Kurdish (An Islamic minority being targeted by ISIS) and Iraqi militia and soldiers. "Not good enough" according to a flurry of critics, who believe that the only remedy to the ISIS plague is ground combat. It is undeniable that ISIS must be stopped, but to what lengths should Canadians and the rest of the world go to? How much tax-payer money should be expended on this? Is there more that Canada can do? And most importantly, is this fight, especially from Canada's perspective, in vain?

The Personal Bubble

"Don't invade my private space!"

"This is my personal bubble!"

"Could you just not be so close to me?"

These are all phrases which I have heard all too often.

When I was younger, and attending elementary school, I was faced with the concept of "the personal bubble". It was a very challenging concept for my extroverted mind to grasp. Nonetheless, I tried; naturally, I failed. No, I wasn't very good at "keeping to myself". When I would talk to my friends, I would touch them. It was nothing inappropriate; just the occasional tap on the hand, the hug and the pulling of the jaw to adjust the line of sight. At least, I thought it was nothing inappropriate. 

According to a countless array of Super Vision Aids, teachers, counsellors and friends, however, I was extremely aggressive and impolite. In fact, I was even once told, by a teacher, that my touching could be viewed as a form of harassment. Apparently, tapping your friend's hand to get their attention, holding their hand while walking to some place you're really excited about and adjusting their line of sight via jaw-pulling, could all be potentially traumatic and harassing experiences to a person, even if that person was your friend. It was a good thing to learn. It gave me a better perspective of what constitutes a friend and of the society I live in. It was tough lesson to learn at a young age, and it was, in a way, very shocking. Needless to say, it was a lesson which I was bound to learn the hard way. In hindsight, I am actually quite happy to have learned the lesson at a young age, for it put a lot of  society's mannerisms into perspective for me. Additionally, that lesson became the foundation for many soft skills that I would learn in the years to come.

Obviously, I still touch people; not as much as before, but still. Actually, I am able to judge which friends of mine would greatly mind me invading their personal space and which ones wouldn't. Last year, I made an error in judgement. I was talking to a petit Asian girl in my fantastic planning class, and when she started to stare out the window, I poked her leg as to have her turn her attention back to me. My poke succeeded; she focused on me again, but quickly drifted off again. This time, I didn't want to poke her, rather I came to terms with the fact that she didn't want to listen to me. Regardlessly, I kept talking because I was so enthralled in my own story that I simply had to say it, and didn't care if anyone bothered to listen. During my riveting monologue, I placed my hand gently on top of hers in order to imitate and add some depth and texture to what I was saying. To this touch, she swiped her hand away from under mine and gave me a look of fury. 

"Can you stop touching me?! No seriously, it's like every story you tell you have to rape me!"

Rape her? I didn't know that tapping her hand constituted rape, but I guess it did to her. 

Luckily for me, my planning teacher heard this, and turned her head to give me the most degrading and confused look possible. I immediately addressed her confusion with the line: "I only touched her hand!"

"Look Nat, I know, it's just a difference in culture. You have to understand that this isn't Europe, people don't like to be touched."
Okay, I guess I understood. People are, for whatever reason, petrified of being touched. I myself, can never truly relate to those people, but then again, I'm European, right? We barbaric Europeans, we feel the need to express our emotions fully and to the highest possible degree. To achieve this, we use hand gestures and touching. They convey the story a little better; they dramatize the story a little more.
Allow me to move from this small anecdote into the reason I am actually writing this post.
Everyday, on my daily commute, I see people who know each other, avoid each other on the bus. They politely nod and say "hi" as the make their way to the back of the bus. They don't stop to speak to the person they know; sometimes, they don't even sit down next to the person (provided that there is seat available). They walk on by without giving so much as a second thought to speaking with each other. It's repudiating. If it weren't for the pathetically induced polite "hello", one would think that the two didn't know one another.
Many of you reading this are probably taking into account how well the two folks know each other. You probably are thinking "well, you can't talk to someone if you don't know them well enough to know what to say - you could offend them." That's true enough, but are there really things that you think/say that could offend them so much? I would hope not.
It's really annoying and sad when I see it. I say a little prayer to myself that I never become associated with such individuals. Even if a person had only met me for a few minutes at a mutual lecture, I'd still hope that they'd be willing and decent enough to strike up a conversation. I'd rather have them sit beside me and talk about anything, than have them ignore me while they walk to the opposite side of the bus. Wouldn't you? See, I would feel like a bad person if someone didn't want to sit near me. I would question what I did wrong in order to have that person feel that way about me.
But, what would make me feel the worst? If that person sat down beside me and then ignored me by putting their earbuds in or opening up the newspaper.
I could barely believe my own eyes when I saw it! A man donned a proper nod to some woman he knew and -I believe it was out of decency- sat down in the empty seat next to her. They exchanged greetings that lasted about 30 seconds. A "hi" and "how are you" per person. Then the they got bored with each other, or they came to a lack of words, or, most likely, things just got awkward. The man pulled out his tablet and started repairing some excel spreadsheet, and the woman, keeping her plastic smile in full throttle, stared out the window.
It looked like something out of a SciFi movie, where aliens had programmed people to say "hello", yet be emotionless. She reminded me of a Stepford wife, and he, he just looked pathetic. Overall, it was a very sad and depressing scene to witness. It was almost as if the end of human interaction was pending.
Worst of all, when the man checked his Facebook account, I saw that he had 568 friends. 568 friends in cyberspace, yet he couldn't even properly speak to one for twenty minutes.
Just like people feel uncomfortable with me touching them when I tell a story, I'm sure they feel uncomfortable to speak to each other if they aren't very well acquainted. What's the point of a life when you have no one you can talk to? What's the point of life when you are too frightened to speak to your fellow man? Can living truly be called living if it is wretchedly stiff?
I wouldn't write about this if it was a "one-off", but unfortunately, it's not. It's an event I see at least once a day on my commute, and it's an event which sours my entire day and causes me to lose hope in this interactionless society known as "humanity".