Stephen Harper has just concluded a trip to the Canadian north, during which he announced several new measures dealing with northern affairs in general and the problem of maintaining Arctic sovereignty in particular. Ships passing through the northwest passage will now be obliged to register with the Canadian coast guard. The scope of the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act will be expanded to cover waters up to 200 nautical miles offshore. A long-simmering infrastructure project called the McKenzie Valley gas pipeline will now, inshallah, be pushed to completion in short order.  A new icebreaker, the Diefenbaker, will be in service by 2017. Perhaps most importantly, $100 million will be spent over five years on a project to map the Arctic’s mineral resources.

It’s hard to say how many of these ambitious plans for the Arctic will actually be realised, especially with a probable election looming. Icebreaker purchases and pipeline projects can always be cancelled. The NDP also had a point when they accused Harper of neglecting the day-to-day concerns of northern residents, such as roads and housing. Local communities confronted with disintegrating sea ice and starving polar bears would probably appreciate a bit more commitment to tackling climate change, too. Even so, mapping minerals and patrolling the north are important and necessary steps. The Arctic is rich in resources, the Northwest Passage is likely to become an important shipping route as northern waters grow more accessible, and four other powers - Russia, Denmark, Norway, and the United States - are sniffing around the region. Harper is absolutely right in believing that the best way to assert our territorial claims is to establish a stronger presence, both military and civilian.

I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Arctic Canada twice, during the summer months. In both cases I was there to hunt for fossils on southern Ellesmere Island, and the expeditions eventually recovered the remains of a strange creature called Tiktaalik, a transitional form between fishes and ancient amphibians. The Arctic is full of surprises and buried treasures, scientific and otherwise - and in my opinion, it’s well worth defending from the encroachments of rival nations.

In other news, Mark Mardell of the BBC and Adrian Hamilton of the Independent both have very incisive pieces on the conflict between Russia and Georgia. And I should more to say about climate change fairly soon.

I started out as an Obama doubter, but I began to see things differently after the ”More Perfect Union” speech. After decades of observing politics, I’m immune to such slogans as “Change!” and “Yes, we can.” I’ve heard them too many times, and I’ve learned that change doesn’t come easily. But now it looks to me as if Obama may be on the cutting edge of an important change in the way leaders and followers communicate with each other in a global age. 

The “More Perfect Union” speech  contained two elements that I’ve never seen before, in American politics or elsewhere. The first is something that, as far as I know, hasn’t drawn commentary: The tone of the speech. It’s conversational, rather than oratorical, and yet comes across as riveting oratory. The contrast becomes clear if we compare Obama’s tone to that of the great 20th Century orators. 

I heard Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, and was impressed by it then, but today, though still stirring, it sounds extravagant, certainly in comparison with the sober straight talk of the Obama speech. A similar contrast can be observed if we listen today to John F. Kennedy’s famous inaugural speech. Even Winston Churchill, surely the greatest English-speaking political orator of the 20th Century, couldn’t resist promising “broad, sunlit uplands” and holding out the threat of “the abyss of a new Dark Age”.

These were all appropriate to their times, but today, when a political speech reaches a predictable  climax, followed by a crescendo of applause, we are more aware than our parents were of how staged it is, and more resistant to the emotional upsurge. Obama’s tone responds to that more jaded 21st Century sensibility, by speaking to us, rather than talking at us. He also refrains from milking the applause, responding patiently to it as an understandable interruption of his speech, appearing to encourage thought rather than emotion. 

The other remarkable thing about the Obama speech is the straight talk about race. He offers frank acknowledgements of the validity of both African American and white American frustration and anger, while resisting the temptation to ride either rhetorical wave and pointing out the hard reality that mutual acknowledgement must precede reconciliation.

This is a remarkable contrast with the slavish adherence to polls, and the spin-doctoring, that I suspect we are all thoroughly tired of. If Obama can talk the way he did in Philadelphia and still get elected, it will be a remarkable achievement. It doesn’t guarantee a successful presidency, but it does suggest to me that he brings something new to 21st Century politics, something Canadian politicians would do well to think about.

Christopher Leo

Probably the most interesting event on the international stage while I was away in Inner Mongolia was the brief war between Russia and Georgia, which of course resulted in a clear military defeat for the latter. Since I didn’t have access to the blog at the height of the action, I thought I’d offer a few belated comments.

One seemingly common reaction to the war was captured perfectly by a few lines in a BBC article:

Young Georgians want to join the world of their contemporaries in the West… and they cannot quite believe they have been caught up in something as old-fashioned as a war with Russia.

Until very recently, many Canadians would probably have agreed that worries about Russian aggression were old-fashioned. Right-thinking westerners in the 21st century, after all, are supposed to be concerned about Islamic militancy, the belligerence of Iran, and perhaps the growing military clout of China. But Russia? That’s, like, so 1980s.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, it became fashionable to regard Russia as a spent force, a harmless if sometimes unruly bear that would become a tame member of the international community given a few years and a bit of guidance. Russia was badly weakened at the time, and NATO countries could virtually ignore Russia’s interests even in eastern Europe. Bombs fell on Russia’s ally Serbia, the United States established a close relationship with Georgia, and the EU and NATO expanded relentlessly eastwards in a sort of Eurocrat version of Manifest Destiny. An eventual counterreaction was inevitable.

Russia’s ferocity against Georgia may have had something to do with protecting the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgian domination, or with threatening the viability of Georgia’s new oil pipeline. But surely the primary motivations were to demonstrate the strength of Russia’s military, to punish a neighbour that was getting too close to America, and to send a clear message that Russia’s claims to a sphere of influence could no longer be ignored.

Canada and other western nations will have to decide carefully how to respond to this emphatic flexing of muscles. Should we urge our allies to impose punitive measures on Russia until its leaders come to a diplomatic understanding with the west, as Conrad Black argues with his usual eloquence? Or should we argue for a halt to western encroachment on Russia’s borders, in the hope of preventing further conflict?

Did anyone catch Gary Reed’s noble come -from-behind surge that still fell a hairsbreadth short of bronze in the men’s 800 metres? As a writer-geek, with no pedigree of  Olympic sport-watching, I was again enticed to see this high drama event, not just because of my husband’s obsession with track, but because of the inspiring story of Gary Reed.

Born in Corpus Christie, Texas, he roamed around BC, grew up in Kamloops and Vernon and now hails from Victoria. Gary’s personal story, like so many of our Canadian Olympic athletes, is one of overcoming the odds - he’s not had much contact with his Dad and credits his single mother for not only his upbringing but his drive to succeed. A “mixed-race” kid, growing up “dirt poor,” Reed’s confidence and grit just makes me want to ditch all my cynicism about creeping corporatism in the Olympic movement.

After his loss in the 800 metres, on-line reader comments were uniformly positive and interestingly, written as if Gary would be reading each one: That was an amazing race on your behalf, Gary. I know 4th place can seem hard to accept but less than 3/10ths from gold is right there”/”you are in inspiration and a role model”/”All Canadians are so proud of your hard work/”…

I’m guessing die-hard O watchers will know lots about the pain and fierce competition involved in track events at this level; and the 800 metres is legendary. Reed arranged for his mother and sister to be trackside for his race - he paid for their tickets, flights and hotel. And when he lost, he said, “I left it all on the track. No regrets.” You are a class act, Gary Reed.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my “counterpart” (irony!) in diversity matters, Bruce Allen was at it again. Making excuses for the actions of the Spanish Olympic basketball team(s) - the story broke when veteran Guardian sports stringer, Sid Lowe, ran a short piece describing the pose for a pre-Games advertisement: there was Spain’s finest, hands up to their temples, some kind of index-finger “pulling at slanty eyes” thing going on.

The ensuing media storm garnered wide-spread attention in the U.S. and out in the blog-o-sphere debates raged about “affectionate gesture” v. “ethnocentric tastelessness” (my call). Then, wham, a “backlash” from some of the Spanish media, accusing Lowe and the “Anglo-Saxon” press of trying to “dirty Spain’s name.” Any of our readers follow this story closely? Please write in…

Oh. Yeah. About B.Allen: I’ve listened to his mini-rant several times (you have to join his radio station’s “club” in order to access the audio vault/8/20/08); as usual, I couldn’t quite follow his reasoning, but he seemed to suggest that “north American media” whine too much & are too wussy. In the wake of the predictable apology from the Spanish Olympic Team, Allen ended with a kick at “P.C.breath” and a sigh of “no harm, no foul.” Well. What do you think?

I’ve been absent from this blog for three weeks, not because I lost interest but because I was away from Beijing on another scientific trip to Inner Mongolia - to the northwestern part of the region this time, near Mongolia proper.

Travelling in China during the Olympic period was interesting, to say the least. Faced with the minor risk of embarrassing demonstrations, and the more serious one of attacks by Uighur militants, the authorities instituted extra security measures all over the country. Some were probably imposed by local government, because they were very sporadic: one day, for instance, all of the foreigners in the party had to show passports before being allowed into a restaurant for lunch. Sometimes we had to fill out elaborate forms at hotels, and sometimes not.

We spent the bulk of our time in a small town very close to the Mongolian border. The place had two internet cafes, but partway through our stay the local government decided that foreigners should not be allowed to get online in a border region. The logic was apparently that we might see something sensitive and report it to the wrong people - whoever they might be. Eventually a compromise was reached whereby we could use the internet if accompanied by a Chinese citizen. Then, on the way back to Beijing, we had to negotiate two police checkpoints, one of which kept us held up in backlogged traffic for a good hour.

It’s hard to imagine similarly pervasive measures in Canada or another western country. This is partly due to a difference in political systems, but after seeing the Chinese security apparatus in action I think there’s also a gulf in cultural sensibilities. My Chinese companions didn’t seem to perceive the petty restrictions and frequent identity checks as particularly unreasonable, but tolerated them in the same spirit that Canadians tolerate, say, airport security. Of course dissent exists, but my impression after nearly a year in Beijing is that the Chinese government - particularly the federal government - excites minimal resentment in most of the people most of the time.

The lesson for Canada is simply that we should respect their way of doing things, their rather different ideas about the appropriate balance between liberty and privacy on the one hand and security and social harmony on the other. We may not see entirely eye to eye, but we can still be friends.