I grew up on a neurotic faraway island called Australia in the 1960s.
Even as a youngster, like millions of frightened Australians, I knew it seemed only a matter of time before a big, bad ogre descended and overwhelmed the land, turning it from a sun-drenched land of freedom into a dark, gruff place of ruthless, Maoist conformity.
Back then, the looming threat was called “the yellow peril,” and the creeping bogeyman was China’s Chairman Mao, who schoolchildren like me were taught had sinister plans to overrun our not-so-distant island.
The manufactured mania reached an almost paralyzing peak when Australia’s Prime Minister Harold Holt went for a swim in the ocean on a clear Sunday afternoon in 1967 and never came back. The all-hands-on-deck search for the missing prime minister proved futile.
Lacking a body or the common sense to conclude that Holt probably drowned, conspiracy theories based on “yellow peril” flourished. Countless nervous Australians, like myself, were conditioned to treat them seriously.
One ‘theory’ that quickly took hold was that the prime minister had been a traitor all along, fleeing the country in swimming trunks before being exposed. His grateful Chinese escorts had arranged to pick up their prized agent by submarine just off the Australian coast.
Such was the pervasive power of the madness that many Australians believed this nonsense and were sure that the dreaded invasion by China had begun in earnest.
There was, of course, no invasion and Australia remains largely a sun-drenched and free island.
I’m sharing this journey down an irrational memory lane because a jarring echo of the chaos of the “Yellow Peril” has gripped the snowy, neurotic land I’ve called home for decades: Canada.
The déjà-vu-like hysteria has been fueled by reporters, columnists and politicians who have played willing and eager handmaidens to what amounts to a handful of faceless so-called “security officials” who populate Canada’s sprawling, largely unaccountable and worthless “intelligence force”. infrastructure”.
China, the boogeyman of the day, is said to have interfered in at least two recent Canadian federal elections and perhaps one municipal election.
Note the apoplectic outbursts among columnists and politicians who lament in polite code that the devious “yellow” hordes have undermined the “integrity” of how Canadians vote and who they vote for.
This, despite the fact that a shy, “senior” specter – who appears to have a number of reporters and news organizations in their front and back pockets – has acknowledged that China had no influence over the outcome of that election.
Oh, nevermind.
In addition to leaking “top secret” materials about Canada’s compromised, but not compromised, election, the unnamed spies have accused incumbent and former Ontario legislators and legislatures of Chinese descent of being, in fact, fifth columnists interested in Beijing.
To date, none of Canada’s suddenly loquacious ghosts have found the courage or courage to step out of the comfortable shadows to point an accusing finger at their fellow Canadians whom they have branded, implicitly or explicitly, as Chinese “trumps.”
Instead, earlier this month, one of the unidentified “security officials” was given front-page prime real estate in The Globe and Mail newspaper to write a florid, egotistical defense of their decision to launder selective secrets that the sparked the latest wave of “Yellow Peril” hysteria and questioned the loyalty of elected lawmakers.
To bolster the coveted source’s credibility, editors at The Globe have, unsurprisingly, touted the anonymous official as a “whistleblower”.
During my long career as an investigative reporter, I’ve had the privilege of meeting brave people and writing about brave people who have chosen to expose wrongdoing, knowing that the consequences of their truth-telling will be swift, blunt, and life-changing.
Unlike The Globe’s sneaky leaker, these whistleblowers have not only put their name to their allegations, but have also been willing to publicly defend themselves, their motives, and their understanding of the truth, not behind the convenient curtain of anonymity.
Not so for the mystery reader of The Globe who, in the name of patriotism and duty, has cast doubt on the patriotism and duty of other Canadians who were forced in the House of Commons to tearfully deny having been disloyal to the maple leaf.
One reason The Globe leaker used to stay in the shadows is that they could lose their jobs, or worse, go to jail, for laundering secrets to journalist friends.
Reminder to the leaker and the Globe: That’s what bona fide whistleblowers do. Reluctantly, they risk their livelihoods and even their freedoms to shed necessary light on often state-sanctioned negligence, deceit or lawlessness.
The Globe’s leaker isn’t Daniel Ellsberg—the former military analyst who provided the New York Times with a copy of the Pentagon Papers that revealed all about America’s criminal, imperialist adventure in Vietnam.
Ellsberg faced numerous charges that would have landed him in prison for more than a century. Still, he arrived in court a man of conscientiousness, ready to answer charges that were later dismissed.
The Globe’s leaker isn’t Edward Snowden — the ex-National Security Agency contractor who shared reams of secrets with reporters from The Washington Post and The Guardian, who exposed how a network of electronic espionage agencies broke the law by eavesdropping on civilians for what they were meant to do to protect.
Snowden and his young family have found a safe haven in Moscow, far from the retaliatory clutches of the vengeful US authorities who want to make him a stiff and undeniable example.
I wrote a book full of secrets. I have mentioned corrupt CSIS agents who broke the law. My book, Covert Entry: Spies, Lies and Crimes Inside Canada’s Secret Service, details their illicit modus operandi and photographs of them. I also risked going to jail. And my name is on the front cover of my book.
So, it’s time for Canada’s leak-happy spies to come out – come out wherever you are if you’re going to bully other Canadians as Beijing’s seditious tools.
While we wait, wrote The Globe’s sneaky leaker, crossing their hearts and hoping to die, all they wanted to do was start a “conversation” about “what we expect from our government” and they are shocked that their good-faith efforts have caused such “ugliness and division” in the country.
The naivety and inability to take responsibility for the McCarthyite-esque madness they’ve provoked is amazing, isn’t it?
This self-proclaimed guardian of Canadian democracy ignites an ethnic bushfire and feeds it – drop by drop – with gasoline and has the audacity to claim that none of the “ugliness or division” was ever meant to happen.
My god, the blindness and hubris.
If you think race and ethnicity don’t play an essential role in calculating how Canada’s myopic “intelligence infrastructure” identifies its adversaries, then you haven’t been paying attention.
In 2017, five Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) officers and analysts sued the spy agency for $35 million, claiming it was a cesspool of racism, intolerance and Islamophobia where anti-Muslim slurs and homobashing are an institutional norm. The parties settled out of court to no doubt save CSIS from airing its dirty laundry.
If that’s how CSIS treats its own, imagine how it treats “outsiders” — in or out of parliament.
Muslim Canadians have always been considered the suspected ‘other’ by Canada’s rank, xenophobic spies. Today they are joined by Chinese Canadians.
It’s as embarrassing as it is predictable.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial view of Al Jazeera.