'Bigots' Tell Kite Flyers Go Fly One--Can a 'Human Rights' Complaint Be Far Behind?

Every non-rainy weekend during the summer, a bunch of kite enthusiasts gather in Milliken Park to engage in the popular sport (popular in places like Afghanistan, anyway) of kite fighting. Unfortunately, reports the Toronto Star, they leave behind them lots of kite debris--"ravaged kites and dozens of metres of string." The string, which is as sharp as fishing wire, "has strangled birds and cut people," and has also "snared animals and created one-legged ducks and geese." As a result, the kite flyers have been told their kites are no longer welcome--and, no surprise, aren't taking it too well:

The whole process has left [kite flyer] Malik confused and persecuted.


“We only have three to four months of summer to fly the kites. We don’t drink, we don’t smoke, we don’t go to a casino. This is a very safe and easy game,” Malik said.

“At least they could have given us some warning. Why not talk to us? It’s not like we just started. We’ve been flying kites for six or seven years.”

Chin up, Malik. The Trudeaupia affords disgruntled ethnics a way to lash out at and gain recompense from their "persecutors". It's called the "human rights" system and Babs, this province's "human rights" honcho, is their current Queen. (She heads up an outfit called CASHRA, which sounds like the name of one of Godzilla's enemies, but is actually the national association of all our "human rights" bodies.) Just look at what she did for those "Asian anglers" who, like you Asian kite flyers, have felt the wrath of "bigots".

Update: The Globe and Mail has more on the kite kerfuffle:

...So far, Toronto is not proving very pliable on the beloved South Asian sport of kite-fighting.

The city has summarily banned all kites from Milliken Park, a 32-hectare green space and unofficial home of a game that sees skilled kite-masters manoeuvre their flying contraptions to slice their opponents' strings. Every weekend, dozens of mostly Afghan-Canadian families flood the park to barbecue, picnic and watch the thrust and parry of the kites, a sight that reminds them of home.

“This is like a slap in the face to every Afghan,” said Ahmad Sadozai, a 33-year-old Afghan immigrant who used to fly kites at Milliken Park and will now face a $100 fine if he returns. “People ship kites and lines and strings and everything from Pakistan and Indonesia to here so we can play kites.”

But the city councillor who pushed for the ban says this is a case where public safety must trump cultural accommodation: The contests leave the park littered with dangerous kite line, some of it metallic or coated in glass. “People have called my office and said they've been cut by it,” Chin Lee said. “In one case, a person's ear was seriously cut by it ... I've been sent pictures of birds hanging from the kite strings in the tree.”

A local kite-fighting club is planning a Saturday protest of the ban, which took effect Tuesday. This new kite fight appears to be a first for Canada, which hasn't had to grapple with major injuries caused by a sport that Pakistan has banned outright.

Hmm. When one Asian takes action to "unaccommodate" the cultural accommodation of another Asian, which Asian wins? (I'm backing the Asian backing the ban: if Pakistan won't accommodate it because it isn't safe, why the heck should we?) BTW--the ban applies to all kite flyers, even the non-fighting ones, because, well, that's the Ontarioan way.