Summary and Critique of Harsha Walia’s “Colonialism, Capitalism”

Excerpts from the Paper

Summary and Critique of Harsha Walia’s “Colonialism, Capitalism”
The following paper is a summary and critique of
Harsha
Walia’s
short article on the perceived apartheid system of migration in Canada. Essentially,
Walia
argues that the Canadian immigration system prior to the 1960s gave special consideration to people from particular racial and ethnic categories – which is true and a verifiable fact.
Walia
talks about how the number of migrants to Canada from Japan were kept to a minimum in a gentleman’s agreement between the two nations; the Chinese faced the same barriers, as well, thanks to a head tax. Finally, and not surprisingly,
Walia
talks about how the 1952 Immigration Act codified racially-biased perspectives into the law...

.....tsiders are turned into potential enemies of the state who must be carefully monitored (
Walia
, 96-97). Evidently, in
Harsha
Walia’s
world, non-whites are never exclusionist or xenophobic – and measures which might view some groups (such as Muslims) as potential security threats are never done because there is quantitative proof they might be more dangerous but simply because Muslims are “outsiders.” She is making a very simplistic argument.
To end, the article is instructive in some ways and silly in other ways and there does appear to be some questionable generalizing informing her work.
Works Cited
Walia
,
Harsha
. “Colonialism, Capitalism and the making of the apartheid system of migration in Canada.” West Coast Line, 58.2(2008):92-98.