Citizenship Entitlements

"This is what I've been waiting for. I felt humbled and safe seeing the kind and heartfelt vibes from the police officers and security at the airport who were extremely hospitable and recognized my face despite my attempts to keep my arrival quiet. It was mind-boggling that the cab driver, passengers on the flight and strangers recognized me in the airport and knew the details of my story."
"I felt lots of warmth and love."
"There are no words to describe how it feels when you are wrongly convicted and sitting in a cold cell, infested with insects, nurturing a broken shoulder."
"Sitting in that prison cell, it was difficult not to feel betrayed and abandoned by Prime Minister Harper."
Mohamed Fahmy, former Al-Jazeera journalist

Mohamed Fahmy attends a news conference hosted by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) at the Ryerson University School of Journalism in Toronto October 13, 2015.   Reuters/Fred Thornhill

Mohamed Fahmy has Canadian citizenship, and had dual Egyptian citizenship. Which gave him clout as a journalist when he worked abroad preferential to remaining in Canada finding employment there. As a journalist working in the Middle East for al-Jazeera as the station chief in Cairo during an uprising against the Muslim Brotherhood, it's a bit of a stretch to identify him as a "Canadian journalist" as Canadian press tends to do.

Al-Jazeera is the news media sponsored by Qatar, a wealthy emirate drowning in oil and the treasury it builds. Qatar supports terror groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, and favours the Muslim Brotherhood. Famously al-Jazeera's political slant is held in suspicion across the Middle East and certainly by countries that struggle against the Islamist agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Little wonder the Egyptian authorities were enraged at the coverage and support given the Brotherhood by al-Jazeera during the transition stage from Islamist rule back to military-sponsored rule in Egypt; the norm across the Middle East.

It is how, after all, most Muslim and Arab societies react to the press; any that are critical of the government in power, and in some places like Iran and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, critical of the ruling elite and most particularly accusations of criticism against Islam, are usually due for a long prison stay. Mr. Fahmy and his supporters were livid with the Government of Canada for not launching a rescue operation on his behalf.

The government did launch a quiet diplomatic intervention and it eventually resulted in his pardon by Egyptian President el-Sissi. Which didn't stop Mr. Fahmy's brother, also from  his job abroad from criticizing the Canadian government for not intervening more strenuously in public, even while the Fahmy family manipulated the victim card to garner concern from among those who viewed him as having been abandoned to his fate by an uncaring government.

Now returned to Canada which suddenly seems a more preferential venue than his former Middle East haunts to Mr. Fahmy, he appears intent on constructing a case against the Conservative-led government in retaliation for what he claims was its tepid response to his imprisonment in Egypt. Claiming that Prime Minister Harper's "hyper-conservative approach directly damaged and delayed my chances for freedom", and slamming former foreign minister John Baird for asserting that Canada had no intention of prosecuting him if he were returned to Canada, Mr. Fahmy emphasized his intention of defaming Mr. Harper.

A deliberate intention to use his popular appeal as a victimized journalist to effect a persuasive story of government inaction on intervening when a Canadian abroad requires government to speak on his behalf. Believing his celebrity will be effective in persuading Canadians that a choice to vote for the current government is not a very good idea, on Mr. Fahmy's say-so. An inflated sense of his own importance in the greater scheme of things certainly identifies his ego.

In the face of an unauthorized senior government official speaking anonymously to state that Prime Minister Harper had indeed spoken directly with the Egyptian president on Mr. Fahmy's behalf, the 'injured victim' claimed to be unaware of that fact And if he was unaware of it, it could not possibly have occurred, presumably: "Why aren't they transparent about him making a call and taking a stand?", he said querulously.

As though his version and perception of responsibility relating to his personal travail is the stuff of which elections are won or lost. His next step should be to run for public office. To aspire in the near future to become Prime Minister of Canada.