Diplomacy and Influence: the Best and the Brightest

"The reports regarding the ambassador's conduct include allegations of harassment and unwelcome actions of a sexual nature."
"The ambassador's continued presence in Canada was deemed to be a significant disruption to the conduct of normal diplomatic relations."
""The Office of Protocol has since been advised by the director of the West and Central Africa Division that, during a private conversation following his presentation of credentials, the newly-arrived ambassador of [deleted] to Canada proactively expressed his dismay and embarrassment regarding the conduct of his predecessor."
Global Affairs quarterly reports

"They are not all like that. These are very few and far between. It's unusual for career diplomats to get caught up in these things."
"In my time I don't remember an ambassador getting into trouble."
"[Some countries have fewer professional diplomats]; friends of friends of the president, or friends of a senior person like a minister."
"In my time, and I was here [as chief of protocol] for four and a half years, we had several cases."
"We would 'PNG' them. We would make them persona non grata."
Larry Lederman, former head of protocol, Foreign Affairs

Diplomatic plates on an example of erratic driving

Ottawa has quite a headache with its various foreign missions' staffs running up traffic infractions. And though foreign diplomats have immunity from prosecution, they are not immune from the responsibility to behave responsibly and with due respect to the country they have been assigned to in the representation of their own nation's best interests abroad. Simply put, diplomatic staff are universally expected to represent to a foreign nation the best and the brightest of their nation; how else gain trust, respect and clout? Yet tens of thousands of traffic tickets languish without honour.

There's worse than that, of course. Issues of drunk and disorderly conduct, including driving under the influence. Back in 2001 a Russian diplomat, driving drunk, ran down and killed an Ottawa woman. That's not the type of action that would 'protect' a diplomat through diplomatic immunity. He fled the scene, he fled Canada, returning to Russia. Under pressure from Ottawa, a trial was  held charging him with 'involuntary manslaughter' when he hit two women, one fatally the other seriously.

Foreign diplomats in Ottawa can be a real pain. Speeding tickets, yes, but also shoplifting, street fights with knives, high-speed chases when diplomat-plated vehicles plow into police cars; rent skipping, because they're diplomats, after all. Children of diplomats have on occasion been the cause of a different kind of concern when child welfare has been called in to check on their well-being from neglect. There have even been instances of diplomats bringing over their personal slave labour.

Sexual harassment? That too. Assault charges? You bet. Armed robbery, yep. This year alone seven staff members from two foreign embassies declared themselves as refugees, seeking status in Canada. In 2017 the RCMP urged the protocol office "to prepare an appropriate request for a waiver of immunity to accompany court documents"; in other words an ambassador's country would be asked to set aside immunity protecting him from criminal charges in Canada.

The son of one diplomat has been charged with taking a vehicle  without permission, two counts of fleeing while chased by police, failing to remain at the scene of an accident, and property mischief over $5,000 to go with his breach of bail conditions. The embassies themselves must pay tax on properties they own outside official tax-free residences and embassies; scofflaws there too, to the tune of hundreds of thousands owing.

A private company has approached Global Affairs to help it recover $3-million in payment for construction commissioned by a foreign embassy. A staffer at an embassy was charged with robbery with a weapon, assault causing bodily harm, intimidation and conspiracy to commit a crime. When prosecutors asked the embassy to waive immunity there was no response, forcing Global Affairs to cancel the accreditation for the diplomat.

Too bad they're not all like our superior Canadian diplomats. Oh, they are? Foreign diplomats do in fact, in their sense of entitlement resemble the attitudes and expectations of many Canadian diplomats sent abroad to showcase Canadian values and initiatives. And many of them are as crass and entitled and lax with other countries' laws as their counterparts from abroad. And they're not immune from getting into trouble and calling on diplomatic immunity. Which didn't help the Canadian consul-general in Miami when her two sons turned out to be little thugs.

Marc Wabafiyebazu, 15, of Ottawa, is seen in court during his bail hearing in Miami on Friday, May 29, 2015

Canadian Consul-General Roxanne Dube took up her post in Miami bringing with her two sons, Jean Wabafiyebazu, 18, and his 14-year-old brother Marc, in January 2015. Two months later, on March 30, the brothers drove their mother’s BMW with its diplomatic plates to an apartment to carry out a plan to rob a drug dealer. While the younger of the brothers sat in the car, the older one engaged in a shoot-out with a Miami teen when they killed each other in a gunfight during the botched ripoff of 800 grams of marijuana from a drug dealer.

Now, that's fairly extreme. On the more pedestrian side there are issues of arrogant disrespect for the culture and the people of foreign countries where Canadian diplomats are assigned. Tag that in with an attitude of entitlement that sees them conspiring to use all means at their disposal to claim expenses courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer while living in a manner to which they have accustomed themselves but could never themselves afford in Canada. Forgetting in the process how privileged they are to travel abroad, gaining experiences of great personal value allowing them to appreciate other cultures.

But as the former head of protocol said, it's not all diplomats, nor yet Canadian diplomats who fail to appreciate their opportunities and their obligations, just some. Enough, on the other hand, to make anyone shake his head in disbelief, witnessing the behaviour that betrays the trust invested in them to make a favourable impression on the foreign countries they visit because they represent a country's 'best and brightest'.

Converts To Islam

"Converts are disconnected from mosque communities usually because they are from a different ethnic background."
"Most mosques are Pakistani, Turkish, Saudi or whatever, and converts are not being accepted into those communities. So they are outsiders. If they are not connecting to the mosque and they lose their families [disowned for conversion], they are doubly isolated."
"They are living in this environment and it's not conducive to openness. [Distrust of non-Muslim researchers asking questions about converts.] They ask 'Do you Work for CSIS?' or, 'Do you work for the government?' Even if they don't ask it, it has to be on their minds. It's the reality of doing research on this very sensitive topic."
"We can't say it's lack of education because we have people [who convert] who are professors, have master's degrees or Grade 12 educations. It's not about income either. We have people in our sample who are incredibly wealthy and have converted and people on welfare who have converted."
"They might be alcoholics or drug users, and seeking to solve and rectify that in some way. Islam and Pentecostal converts are seeking security -- Pentecostal Christianity no drinking. Islam, no drinking."
"It's black and white, and that simplicity is very powerful for someone who is confused, disoriented and unhappy."
"So it's not spontaneous, not a rash thing. Most Muslin converts think deeply about conversion. It's a big commitment."
Dr. Scott Flower Australian researcher

‘Veiling practices can be used to create a dichotomy between Islamic and Australian values’. Photograph: David Axelbank/Alamy

And so it must be. And there must be an awful lot of confused people in circulation, people who are looking for some element of salvation, something to rescue them from the lives they're living which have given them no satisfaction, no sense of accomplishment, of security. They look outside themselves for some mechanism that will furnish for them a sense of having arrived at some inner place of peace and sanctity. And, one supposes, they come to believe that Islam will provide them with that agency.

Dr. Flower points out that one of the major tenets of Islam is that its followers understand it is incumbent upon them as the faithful to do all they can to convince non-Muslims to accept Islam and surrender to it completely. It doesn't take much as far as ceremony is concerned; a statement termed the shahadah is the testament of faith; the declaration by anyone who means to convert, that "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger", is all it takes.

Of course, any rational individual would want to know what they're pledging themselves to in perpetuity. They will make an effort to find out all they need to know, all they wish to know, all that they really should know, about Islam. So most mosques are initially welcoming to prospective converts; it is their mission, after all, to develop Islamic growth worldwide, to increase the ummah. Once conversion takes place, however, the convert is on their own.

There exists too many differences between a Western, white convert to Islam and the Muslims whose heritage, culture and traditions are inextricably linked with Islam. The convert is an outsider and will always be an outsider. And the convert whose family feels outraged at the conversion as a repudiation of all that they themselves believe, an insult and an assault upon them personally, preferring to have no further contact with the convert, is left to his/her own devices.

A Muslim adrift and alone. Dr. Flower is a professor of political economy at the University of Melbourne, and he has been contracted by the Public Safety Canada through a $170,000 grant to conduct a study into conversion to Islam by Canadians. A 70-question survey is featured in the study, as an enquiry aimed toward converts across the country. The survey also includes interviews with imams. Other similar studies have been done in Australia and Papua, New Guinea.

Conversion to Islam is of huge interest for many reasons not the least of which being that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. And Dr. Flower expresses his frustration that he has encountered a lack of cooperation from imams he and his researchers approach. He has, however, concluded on the basis of what he has learned to date that there is no simple answer to why Canadians seek to convert.

He has established that his research shows it takes converts from six to 12 months to take the final step of conversion, after 'discovering' Islam as a potential answer for their personal dilemmas.