Shuv Majumdar, Calgary Heritage’s newly-minted Member of Parliament now goes from ‘upstanding, public-spirited citizen ready to serve his country,’ to ‘just another politician.’.It is a poor reward for good intentions, but one familiar to every elected official who ever won a ballot..In Majumdar’s case, it is singularly undeserved. Some people like to talk about democracy. Others actually believe in it enough, to try and teach it to people who don’t..That would be Shuv..So, a story: More than twenty years ago, there was a small group of small-c conservative-minded young people who gathered weekly at the James Joyce in Calgary’s downtown..It was in fact the very establishment at which Stephen Harper would later celebrate his accession to leadership of the Canadian Alliance. It was also the only occasion upon which I ever saw Harper with a beer in his hand. (Not that I saw him actually drink it.).This group of twenty/thirty somethings was Calgary’s self-proclaimed “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.”.The name was a self-deprecating reference to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s assertion that just such a conspiracy sought to bring down her embattled husband.. Majumdar and Stephen HarperMajumdar, shown here with then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the PM's Langevin office, served as a senior staffer in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. .Self-deprecation was necessary, for they were neither vast in numbers — perhaps 20 — nor had much to conspire about. Mostly it was an occasion to drink to the memory of Ayn Rand, quote Edmund Burke and attempt to chart how far society had already wandered down Hayek’s ‘Road to Serfdom:’ Was recovery possible?.Sounds a little corny but at the time, the Liberal Party looked all powerful and only kamikazes turned out for the Canadian Alliance. But at the time, that’s what it was like..Anyway, Shuv was one of them..Then he disappeared..To cut a long story short, it turned out he had gone to Iraq’s Green Zone, working for the International Republican Institute, preaching democracy to the Iraqis..‘Come my friend, what would Jefferson do?’.The conspirators were impressed. He’d been serious all along, then….Quite serious, in fact. His job also involved keeping an ear open for ‘incoming,’ and forming close friendships with Iraqis who believed in democracy, only to go through the heartbreak of learning that they had just got killed… Not once, but many times. My friend and erstwhile colleague Licia Corbella has more to say about that, here..Briefly, he reappeared in Calgary. And then he was gone again..By this time, Calgary’s Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy was done. Most of the conspirators had been recruited to staff the Harper government. One had been elected to Parliament: one could hardly fly to or from Ottawa without running into somebody.. Majumdar in US Embassy in KabulShuv Majumdar, with Western Standard Opinion Editor Nigel Hannaford, at the US Embassy in Kabul, July 11th, 2009. Elected to Parliament in Stephen Harper's old Calgary Heritage riding on July 24th, 2023, Majumdar risked much to forward his belief in democracy. .But this time, Shuv had gone to Afghanistan, with the same organization, for the same mission..Fast forward to a July day in 2009. I was in the US embassy in Kabul for a reception..Think of it as a fortress rather than an embassy, but within its home acres, the Americans had recreated something in the image of downtown Des Moines, complete with an Olympic-sized swimming pool, stores and a high-end coffee outlet..People deployed there in support functions had no need to leave the premises and for their full six-month engagement, many never did; I was told that going for a stroll to the stores down Chicken Street in search of memorabilia, was ‘not a good idea.’.Then, from out of the crowd with beer in hand, up comes Shuvaloy Majumdar of Calgary, right-wing conspiracist and missionary for democracy..Small world. He quickly confirmed the Chicken Street advice: “I wouldn’t even go out for a pack of cigarettes without four guys from Blackwater around me.”.Shuv put in two years in Iraq and another two years in Afghanistan. He put it all on the line and he did good work. And if neither Iraq nor Afghanistan is much of a democracy today, it isn’t because there weren’t people like Shuv Majumdar from a democratic country, prepared to risk their lives to show people a better way..I learned one more thing about Shuv after that. He draws his own conclusions..For, in the fullness of time he joined the rest of the ‘conspiracy’ in Ottawa, landing up in John Baird’s Foreign Affairs shop as Director of Policy. By then, I was writing speeches for Harper and routinely reached out to Shuv for perspective..This was fine until the draft got to the powers that be. “Where’d you get this, Nigel? You been talking to Shuv, again?”.That of course didn’t mean Shuv was wrong. It just meant that Foreign Affairs had other ideas. And given the enthusiasm with which in 2015 they greeted the departure of Stephen Harper and the arrival of Justin Trudeau, that's about how it was. .There are plenty of people in politics who aren’t qualified to hold the offices they’ve won..Shuvaloy Majumdar is not one of them. He will never be ‘just another politician.’ He has paid his dues. And now he’s where he should be, in the House of Commons..I wish him well.
Shuv Majumdar, Calgary Heritage’s newly-minted Member of Parliament now goes from ‘upstanding, public-spirited citizen ready to serve his country,’ to ‘just another politician.’.It is a poor reward for good intentions, but one familiar to every elected official who ever won a ballot..In Majumdar’s case, it is singularly undeserved. Some people like to talk about democracy. Others actually believe in it enough, to try and teach it to people who don’t..That would be Shuv..So, a story: More than twenty years ago, there was a small group of small-c conservative-minded young people who gathered weekly at the James Joyce in Calgary’s downtown..It was in fact the very establishment at which Stephen Harper would later celebrate his accession to leadership of the Canadian Alliance. It was also the only occasion upon which I ever saw Harper with a beer in his hand. (Not that I saw him actually drink it.).This group of twenty/thirty somethings was Calgary’s self-proclaimed “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.”.The name was a self-deprecating reference to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s assertion that just such a conspiracy sought to bring down her embattled husband.. Majumdar and Stephen HarperMajumdar, shown here with then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the PM's Langevin office, served as a senior staffer in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. .Self-deprecation was necessary, for they were neither vast in numbers — perhaps 20 — nor had much to conspire about. Mostly it was an occasion to drink to the memory of Ayn Rand, quote Edmund Burke and attempt to chart how far society had already wandered down Hayek’s ‘Road to Serfdom:’ Was recovery possible?.Sounds a little corny but at the time, the Liberal Party looked all powerful and only kamikazes turned out for the Canadian Alliance. But at the time, that’s what it was like..Anyway, Shuv was one of them..Then he disappeared..To cut a long story short, it turned out he had gone to Iraq’s Green Zone, working for the International Republican Institute, preaching democracy to the Iraqis..‘Come my friend, what would Jefferson do?’.The conspirators were impressed. He’d been serious all along, then….Quite serious, in fact. His job also involved keeping an ear open for ‘incoming,’ and forming close friendships with Iraqis who believed in democracy, only to go through the heartbreak of learning that they had just got killed… Not once, but many times. My friend and erstwhile colleague Licia Corbella has more to say about that, here..Briefly, he reappeared in Calgary. And then he was gone again..By this time, Calgary’s Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy was done. Most of the conspirators had been recruited to staff the Harper government. One had been elected to Parliament: one could hardly fly to or from Ottawa without running into somebody.. Majumdar in US Embassy in KabulShuv Majumdar, with Western Standard Opinion Editor Nigel Hannaford, at the US Embassy in Kabul, July 11th, 2009. Elected to Parliament in Stephen Harper's old Calgary Heritage riding on July 24th, 2023, Majumdar risked much to forward his belief in democracy. .But this time, Shuv had gone to Afghanistan, with the same organization, for the same mission..Fast forward to a July day in 2009. I was in the US embassy in Kabul for a reception..Think of it as a fortress rather than an embassy, but within its home acres, the Americans had recreated something in the image of downtown Des Moines, complete with an Olympic-sized swimming pool, stores and a high-end coffee outlet..People deployed there in support functions had no need to leave the premises and for their full six-month engagement, many never did; I was told that going for a stroll to the stores down Chicken Street in search of memorabilia, was ‘not a good idea.’.Then, from out of the crowd with beer in hand, up comes Shuvaloy Majumdar of Calgary, right-wing conspiracist and missionary for democracy..Small world. He quickly confirmed the Chicken Street advice: “I wouldn’t even go out for a pack of cigarettes without four guys from Blackwater around me.”.Shuv put in two years in Iraq and another two years in Afghanistan. He put it all on the line and he did good work. And if neither Iraq nor Afghanistan is much of a democracy today, it isn’t because there weren’t people like Shuv Majumdar from a democratic country, prepared to risk their lives to show people a better way..I learned one more thing about Shuv after that. He draws his own conclusions..For, in the fullness of time he joined the rest of the ‘conspiracy’ in Ottawa, landing up in John Baird’s Foreign Affairs shop as Director of Policy. By then, I was writing speeches for Harper and routinely reached out to Shuv for perspective..This was fine until the draft got to the powers that be. “Where’d you get this, Nigel? You been talking to Shuv, again?”.That of course didn’t mean Shuv was wrong. It just meant that Foreign Affairs had other ideas. And given the enthusiasm with which in 2015 they greeted the departure of Stephen Harper and the arrival of Justin Trudeau, that's about how it was. .There are plenty of people in politics who aren’t qualified to hold the offices they’ve won..Shuvaloy Majumdar is not one of them. He will never be ‘just another politician.’ He has paid his dues. And now he’s where he should be, in the House of Commons..I wish him well.
