From Deportation to Apology: The Case of Maher Arar and the Canadian State

Abstract

In 2002, Maher Arar, a dual Canadian and Syrian citizen, was detained and accused by American authorities of being a member of al Qa’ida. He was deported to Jordan and, ultimately, Syria, where he was imprisoned and subjected to torture for one year. In 2007, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued an apology and 10.5 million dollars (Canadian) in compensation. Drawing on contemporary theoretical accounts of multiculturalism, security, and the state, and utilizing parliamentary debates and American and Canadian print media accounts between 2002 and 2007, we examine the statements of public officials in Canada and the United States to show how the story of Arar, from his deportation to the apology, has been framed in contradictory ways. These contradictions spin on three main dualisms: Arar’s guilt versus innocence; Arar’s status as a Syrian versus Canadian; and the rule of law versus exception. It is argued that these contradictions are of tremendous theoretical significance for understanding the contemporary Canadian state as one in which multiculturalism and liberalism co-exist with racialization and exception. En 2002, Maher Arar, un citoyen ayant la double nationalité canadienne et syrienne, fut détenu et accusé par les autorités états-uniennes de faire partie d’al Qa’ida. Il fut déporté en Jordanie, puis en Syrie, où il fut emprisonné et torturé pendant un an. En 2007, le Premier ministre Stephen Harper présenta des excuses officielles accompagnées d’une compensation de 10,5 millions de dollars. Dans cet article, à partir de théories contemporaines sur le multiculturalisme, la sécurité et l’État, et en référence aux débats parlementaires de même qu’aux média écrits entre 2002 et 2007, nous examinons comment les discours officiels publics se contredisent, aussi bien au Canada qu’aux États-Unis, et ce depuis la déportation d’Arar jusqu’aux excuses publiques qui lui ont été présentées. Ces contradictions découlent de trois formes de dualisme : d’abord, la culpabilité d’Arar par opposition à son innocence, ensuite son double statut de citoyen canadien, mais aussi syrien, et enfin, la règle de droit en concurrence avec la règle d’exception. Cet article montre que ces contradictions sont très importantes sur le plan théorique pour comprendre comment, dans l’État canadien contemporain, libéralisme et multiculturalisme coexistent avec un phénomène de ‘racialisation’ et de rejet de la différence.

Balancing Legitimacy, Exceptionality and Accountability: On Foreign-national Offenders' Reluctance to Engage in Anti-deportation Campaigns in the UK

“…(2007,102) In fact, the literature on the state of exception, derived from the work of Agamben (2005), on which many studies of migrant illegality and deportability draw, leaves little space for resistance or contestation. In recent years, numerous studies attempting to apply Agamben's biopolitics of states of exception to contemporary deportation systems have revealed both that authority is not necessarily overly centralised (Landau 2006;Sutton and Vigneswaran 2011) and that there is in fact scope for resistance and contestation (Abu-Laban and Nath 2007;Nyers 2008;Ellermann 2009Ellermann , 2010McGregor 2011;Rygiel 2011;Tylor 2013). Even in confined spaces such as Immigration Removal Centres, there is room for political action.…”

Contesting Power: A Comparison of Muslim Civil Society Responses to Counter-Radicalization Policies in Canada and the U.K.

“…There has been an abundance of scholarship focused on the discriminatory aspects of national security measures in the context of the 'war on terror.' 6 Canadian research has scrutinized the institutionalization of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab discrimination in counterterrorism law (Bahdi, 2003), the human rights violations, detention, and torture of Canadian Muslims (Abu-Laban & Nath, 2007;Choudhry & Roach, 2003;Macklin, 2008), the questionable use of immigration law to "cast out" undesirable Muslims (C. Bell, 2006a;Razack, 2008), the surveillance of Canadian Muslims (Bhabha, 2018), the impact of the 'war on terror' on Muslim women (Rygiel & Zine, 2016;Thobani, 2007), the biased news reporting on Muslim political violence (Kanji, 2018), and the racialization and Islamophobia enabled through counterterrorism practices (Bahdi & Kanji, 2018;Wilkins-Laflamme, 2018). Research has also provided accounts of Muslim communities' experiences of securitization through the 'war on terror' practices (Jamil, 2014;Nagra, 2017).…”