Looks like a government freedom of information release, doesn’t it?
Hi Maryam,
I’ve been watching the media’s coverage of your “birthergate” controversy closely since it began. I don’t envy you right now, politics is a dirty game. That said, you seem like a smart cookie, so I’m guessing you knew what you stepped into when you decided to launch your campaign.
If we’ve learned anything from Barak Obama’s experience with his own “birther” incident it’s that questions like these can be corrosive, and disruptive to the real business at hand. Part of Obama’s challenge was self-created. He could have nipped the issue in the bud if he released his birth certificate back in 2008 when Hillary Clinton’s people kicked-off their whispering campaign. His decision to wait until 2011 to release his birth certificate was a serious mistake.
The ambiguity of your birthplace and foreknowledge of where you were born has become too much of a distraction. It’s time for you to take action to shut this debate down once and for all. The answer is simple, just take a photograph of your passports and prove to Canadians that they both say you were born in Afghanistan. After that, it will be hard for anyone to continue making political capital out of your mother’s mistake.
In the spirit of fair play, I’ve taken a picture of my passport and posted it at the top of this letter. You don’t need to share any of your personal details, blank them out like I did. All we need to see is the “Place of Birth”, it’s a standard part of all passports. We already know you were born in Iran, so if you blank out the rest of your personal information (issue dates, passport number, signature, etc) you should have no reason to worry about your privacy.
So, what do you think, are you ready to fix this and let Canadians get back to worrying about more important issues? If not, why. Is there something that you’re trying to hide?
Sunny Ways!
-Greg
Afghan passports (like the rest) have a “place of birth” section.
