When home is the scene of the crime.

Never really thought that this image would qualify as home but after being away for almost two weeks it feels just all too normal. Pub Street is the backpacker and tourist epicentre of Siem Reap, loaded with all things unrighteous and the scene of the crime for many bad decisions. I don't stop there but it's where I get dropped off because everybody knows where it is. I walk through and for that minute or two it's possible to just be lost in the fray of consumerist tourist privilege. Somehow that level of fucked up offers a level of backwards comfort, knowing that we're all so okay with our misconstrued idea of what is good. On the other side I squirrel down an alley and find my little haunts and sit with a drink and write things like this on napkins and receipt paper.

 

Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Canada has an empathy problem.

Canada has an empathy problem. It is hurting not only those we lack compassion for but all of us, collectively, albeit in different ways. The nature of this problem lies in a colonial tradition of denial and a cultural manifestation of the Other. The “Indian” problem is actually the Settler problem. 

The ramifications of this predicament reveal themselves clearly in the interdependent banners of human rights, civil society, and the environment. Without compassion and a true understanding of equal human rights for all we cannot engage in the intergroup relations needed to build a healthy civil society capable of absorbing social shocks. These shocks will become increasingly frequent and intense on a planet moving rapidly towards a future of acute resource shortages and irreversible damage to the biological systems that keep us alive. 

Confronting this empathy problem will require acknowledging a deep identity crisis within Canadian nation-project that will leave us, in every sense of the word, unsettled. To begin, we must cultivate liminal spaces where Canadians can engage in a lifelong practice of critical self-reflection. This process of spiritual reconciliation necessarily begins and ends with compassion.