Maher and Monia

When I asked the Member of Parliament who visited my grade six class in Ottawa back in 2002 about the case of Maher Arar, the Canadian sent to Syria by American authorities to be tortured, she backed away from me. She figured I was a friend of Monia Mazigh, Maher’s wife. She sighingly vented that she was trying whatever she could but Monia needed to back down a bit. It appeared Monia was not the backing down type. Not when her husband goes missing while on a stopover – in New York – during a flight back home to Canada.

Monia was one of the parents picking up their children at the school I taught at. She was an acquaintance – someone to wave and say salam to and sometimes, someone to stop by to inquire whether there was any change in Maher’s case. As time went on and there was obviously no change, I just salamed and waved, hesitant to ask and hear no news. Her daughter, Baraa was in grade 1 and very bright – I once saw a beautiful drawing by her which painfully conveyed that she knew of her father’s plight.

Monia’s relentless pursuit for her husband’s freedom made her a national heroine. She was shortlisted for the 2003’s Nation Builder of the Year award by the Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper, as their byword states. She ran for Member of Parliament for the NDP in 2004 and though she came in 3rd, she received the most votes the NDP had ever received in the riding. She had been courted to run for the party that eventually did win but chose the NDP on principle: they were the ones who most emphatically supported her during her campaign to free Maher. Well educated with a doctorate in Financial Economics from McGill University, she is now a professor in British Columbia.

And Maher? Before he was sent off to be tortured, he was an engineer with a promising career. Now, the lingering sense of suspicion around him, the after-effects of his torture and the amount of time devoted to securing the clearance of his name has robbed him of a career. His son thought his father’s job was to attend public inquiries.

“Even my (5-year-old son Houd), every time I leave the house, he’d ask me, `Are you going to the public inquiry?’ He thinks the public inquiry is my job,”

I read that the community that the Arars currently live in – Kamloops – have embraced them warmly. It’s good to know British Columbians lived up to their granola-munching, birkenstock wearing, love-ya all stereotype.

On Friday, January 26, 2007, the Canadian government finally took some of the blame for Maher’s suffering: 11.5 million dollars (1 million going to legal fees) and a formal apology to help the Arars rebuild their lives. Monia insisted on the apology and Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada, delivered it:

Dear Mr. Arar,

On behalf of the Government of Canada, I wish to apologize to you, Monia Mazigh and your family for any role Canadian officials may have played in the terrible ordeal that all of you experienced in 2002 and 2003. Although these events occurred under the last government, please rest assured that this government will do everything in its power to ensure that the issues raised by Commissioner O’Connor are addressed. I trust that, having arrived at a negotiated settlement, we have ensured that fair compensation will be paid to you and your family. I sincerely hope that these words and actions will assist you and your family in your efforts to begin a new and hopeful chapter in your lives.

I never thought I would say this, being anti-Conservative, but kudos to you Mr. Harper. Now, if you could just get on the phone to your best bud, George and tell him the time to play “nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, we know something you don’t about Maher Arar” is officially over, you would be getting double kudos. The American government still has Maher on their no-fly list and has gone so far as to tell Canada to butt out of their business. As the American ambassador to Canada, David Wilkins put it, “With all due respect to Mr. Day[Public Safety minister, Stockwell Day] and his comments … it’s a little presumptuous for him to say who the United States can and cannot allow into our country.”

Apparently, the State Department, Homeland Security and the Department of Justice had reviewed Maher Arar’s file and decided that sending him to Syria to be tortured for 10 months wasn’t enough to warrant any back pedalling. The review concluded Maher should remain on a watch list. Someone, please tell them there’s no dignity in clutching at vanishing straws.

Oh well, let them keep Maher on a watch list. Let them watch this family who has only to reveal the human capacity for resilience and grace under pressure. Maher, you are extraordinary in your ability to endure and still smile and still thank ordinary Canadians. Monia, you are extraordinary in your ability to not back down. In the words of your husband,

I met my wife, Monia at McGill University. We fell in love and eventually married in 1994. I knew then that she was special, but I had no idea how special she would turn out to be.

If it were not for her, I believe I would still be in prison.

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To read Maher’s account of his ordeal, click here.