Amer Zahr is a teacher of Islamic law and he points out that while eating pork is forbidden, it is allowed out of necessity in cases of extreme hunger.
Zahr is also a Palestinian-American comedian and in a recent monologue, he stated that in the 2020 presidential election he chose ham over starvation.
He has a point. Much of what Donald Trump and his supporters say about Joe Biden is very true. Throughout his Senate career, Biden represented Delaware, the state with the most corporate-friendly laws in the United States, and Delaware Joe is a corporatist through and through.
He is also at least partially responsible for the horrendous legislation from the Bill Clinton era that resulted in the obscene incarceration rates of visible minorities in corporately run prisons.
Biden did little to improve conditions for the common person in the United States while he was in the Senate and when he was vice president, Barack Obama gave corporate bankers a “get out of jail free” card, and federal minimum wage increases came to a halt in 2009.
Concerning the rights of Palestinians, Zahr refers to Biden as a “triple bacon cheeseburger”.
There is no doubt; Biden is ham.
But Trump is starvation.
He has not only poured gasoline on the flames of misogyny and racism, he has also put the lives of millions of people at risk through his mishandling of a pandemic and he has damaged relations with many of America’s strongest allies. While his predecessors and their congressional cronies whittled away at the principles of the U.S. Constitution by allowing the executive branch to gain more and more power, Trump has virtually declared himself infallible.
Despite all of this, nearly half of the American people still think he is better than ham. What is going on?
It is important to note that the United States actually laid groundwork for all modern democracies. They strongly objected to the constitutional monarchy imposed upon them by King George III and the British and thus put together an amazing governmental system of checks and balances. They enshrined their ideals in a constitution that is still revered as one of the finest human rights documents of all time. While it is true that these rights only applied to wealthy white men in the beginning, they expanded to embrace more progressive and egalitarian principles.
In recent years, however, these principles were also compromised, largely due to corporate and militaristic interests. The American Constitution, for example, states that the country cannot go to war without the approval of Congress. The last time that happened was in 1942.
As an educator in a democratic society, it is my role to educate and empower young people to be informed and active citizens. The government of Canada is not perfect, nor will it ever be perfect. The principles we embrace, however, are the ideals we must strive for.
As the Holocaust came to our consciousness, we said, “never again.” When our residential school system was exposed to the truth, we said, “We are sorry.”
We have a beautiful constitution, we signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we signed the Genocide Act, and British Columbia has even adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It is our job as Canadian citizens to hold our governments accountable to these ideals.
The United States has enshrined the same ideals of justice and equality for all. They have also signed many of the same international documents.
Let us hope that their citizenry is finally waking up to the gravity of their situation. America will thrive when they walk together and embrace the beauty of the international community.
Justice is a banquet. We don’t have to starve and we don’t have to settle for ham.
