This is a cross post by Terry Glavin
When federal Cabinet Minister James Moore intervened Tuesday to protest the cancelled screening of the film Iranium at the National Library and Archives in Ottawa, he said: “I am disappointed that Library & Archives Canada chose not to show the film tonight due to threats of violence. . . The Iranian Embassy will not dictate to the Government of Canada which films will or will not be shown in Canada.”
But the screening ended up cancelled anyway after a “suspicious package” shut down the Library. Ottawa police and a haz-mat team showed up late in the afternoon and the staff was sent home. In another version of events, most employees were already gone when suspicious letters were dropped off at the building, on Wellington Street, by a man who hurried away.
Altogether it’s been a busy couple of days for my pal Fred Litwin, who runs Ottawa’s Free-Thinking Film Society, the host of the event. Fred’s been keeping me posted – I’m a director of the society (and no, I’m neither “libertarian” nor “conservative”). Only two months ago I joined some Iranian comrades at the National Library to give a talk at a Film Society screening of another film about Iranian despotism, The Stoning of Soraya M.
The Iranian embassy confirms it was involved in the initial “complaints” about the Iranium event. The Library confirms the embassy lodged a formal request to cancel the screening. A “suspicious” package or a letter that turned out to be a false alarm – that’s something I can understand as a justification for cancelling the showing. But the National Library first cancelled the screening after merely having received “complaints.” It agreed not to back down to the protests, only after Moore’s office intervened. But then the Library apparently backed down again after “letters” and “threats” and “protests,” or something.
“I’m outraged that in the capital of Canada the Iranians have been able to shut down a movie,” Fred said. “Bad enough in Tehran, but in Ottawa?”
Apparently so. Something very nasty is going on here, and I am more than a little curious to discover what’s at the bottom of it, who was involved in these “protests,” and what the hell the National Library was thinking by cancelling the screening in the first place. The National Library is not the Bijou. It’s a venerable, national, public institution. Iranium is an important film, it’s a new film, and Clare Lopez, a Middle East strategic policy and intelligence expert was flown in from Washington D.C. for the planned screening. The National Library owes more than an apology and a lot more than full compensation for the Film Society’s costs. It owes every Canadian a complete explanation and full accounting of what the hell just happened.
National Post
Journalist, author and blogger Terry Glavin is an adjunct professor of creative writing at the University of British Columbia and editor of Transmontanus Books. He was awarded the 2009 B.C. Lieutenant-Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence.
UPDATE: An authoritive account from the Ottawa Citizen here.
