HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1990-05-23, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1990. PAGE 5.
Arthur Black
Riding subway
has own atmosphere
When you ride the subway twice a day,
it’s difficult to think of the immortal soul.
Anonymous
This is the way it shapes up world wide.
There are only 40 in existence and/or on
the drawing boards. America has seven,
the Soviet Union has six, Canada has two.
New York boasts the biggest one. Moscow
has the cleanest, Montreal the quietest.
Toronto’s is nearly 40 years old -- but that’s
a mere pup compared to the one in London,
England which dates back to 1863.
People who use them every day curse
and roll their eyes at the very mention of
them, but when I was a little kid fresh from
the country, the thought of a ride on the
subway was the thrill of a lifetime.
Subways. It would be tough to explain
the concept to an ancient Roman, say.
“Well, Cicero, what we’re gonna do is
dig this long tunnel right under the city,
see. and lay in some tracks so we can stuff
people into long steel tubes and move 'em
around the city quickly - it’s sorta like an
underground aquaduct for working stiffs.’’
There really
are gypsies
BY RAYMOND CANON
There are a lot of people who find it
difficult to believe that gypsies even exist.
Either they think that they are simply a
figment of somebody’s imagination or else
they consider the name to refer only to a
specific type of person, perhaps even
someone on the same street, who refuses
to settle down but leads instead a nomadic
life. Perhaps it is time to set the record
straight.
First of all there are gypsies and lots of
them; they number in the vicinity of 10
million. I say ‘vicinity’ since it is under
standably difficult to get an accurate count
on them; they are really nomadic in nature.
I recall vividly my first encounter with
them in Europe which is where you are
most likely to find them since about
three-quarters of this 10 million live'on that
continent. There were two wagon loads of
them, a sort of motor home using horses
for the motor. We became fascinated by
them since we had never seen any before
but, just when we were getting up enough
courage for a closer look, they were gone.
Fascinating they may have been but
nobody seemed really sorry to see them go.
That may be partly because of their
reputation. The traditional belief was that
they were ail thieves which is why they
kept moving from place to place. I suppose
that this may be partly true just as there
are thieves in any group of people.
However much the police might like to
charge them with such things as vagrancy,
1 do not recall any charges of theft being
brought against them. More likely the very
fact that they were colourful as well as
different was enough to make people glad
when they moved on.
They had to come from somewhere and
the most likely origin is India in that they
are believed to be the descendants of a
Hindu caste that found themselves in
conflict with the Mulsim invasion of India
in the 10th century and decided that far
fields were not only greener, they were
more peaceful. At any rate they came west,
took up metal-working in the old Byzantine
Empire and finally split up into various
Subways are hideously expensive to
build, horrible to live next to, and, once the
thrill wears off, not that enchanting to use
-- but they are wonderfully efficient at
doing what they were designed to do -
ferry huge rafts of people quickly and
efficiently from one part of a metropolis to
another.
In fact, it’s hard to imagine how cities
like New York, London, Paris or Toronto
would even function if you took out the
subways. Surface traffic in those cities
already grinds to a halt several times each
working day. If the tens of thousands of
underground molepeople suddenly sur
faced, got in their cars and trucks or
started hailing taxis, the cities would go
into permanent gridlock. One has only to
stand by the door at Toronto’s Yonge and
Bloor Station about 8:30 of a weekday
morning watching the waves of commuters
changing subway trains to appreciate what
above-ground horrors the subway saves us
from.
Mind you, there is a price. On a personal
discomfort scale, riding the subway on a
hot day during rush hour is only about two
notches above root canal work. The wheels
screech like tortured souls. The drivers
time their lurches diabolically to catch you
off balance and send you tumbling into the
stolid Black Panther sitting across from
you. If you are shoehorned, sardine-like
into a standing room only car you discover
that the man wedged behind you is (a)
oversexed and (b) had onions for breakfast.
Which brings up one other hurdle that
groups. Certainly their language, Romany,
can be traced to Punjabi but it has broken
up into no less than 17 dialects, many of
which reflect the area in which they
currently wander. To cite one example, the
Irish gypsies speak a Romany dialect called
Gammon which has in it many Celtic
words.
Gypsies distrust outsiders as much as
the latter distrust gypsies and this mutual
distrust came to the attention of the Nazis
who proceeded to lock them up in
concentration camps where about 500,000
of them died during World War II. Some
older gypsies still have a “Z” tatooed on
their arms; this letter standing for the
German word for Gypsy which is
“Zigeuner.” Because of their high birth
rate (they are said to be the fastest growing
groups of people in Europe) the communist
government in Czechoslovakia is reported
to have sterilized forcefully no less than
8,000 gypsy women in the past five years.
Even if they do stay in one place, it is
frequently difficult to have their children
accepted in local schools and as a result
Letter^ to the editor
Affordable housing needed
THE EDITOR,
We would like to bring to your readers’
attention the role of the Access to
Permanent Housing Committee in Huron
County. We are a group of concerned
citizens who recognize the need for
AFFORDABLE and PERMANENT hous
ing for people of all ages in our county.
In a primarily affluent society we are
often unaware of the numbers of people
who fall through the cracks of the
programmes presently in place, geared to
assist in providing the necessities of life.
We’ve identified the following groups of
people as being particularly vulnerable to
homelessness in Huron County:
1) working poor
2) youths
3) elderly
4) women
5) single parents
6) psychiatrically disabled
7) physically disabled
8) social assistance recipients
Our society is fast becoming an aging
society and the rising cost of living
expenses will make it even more difficult
must be surmounted by every veteran
straphanger:
The olfactory factor.
Subways, to put it gently, stink. Or
rather a significant percentage of the folks
who ride them do. A regular subway
communter encounters more B.O. than the
towel boy at a World Wrestling Federation
tag team match.
The city of Madrid has an appallingly
pungent subway system called El Metro.
Garlic is a particularly popular commodity
in Madrid - much more popular than, say,
underarm deodorant. Officials handle the
resulting problem in a particuarly forth
right way. About three times a day, a guy
strolls through the subway trains with a
spray nozzle in his hand a cylinder of cheap
cologne on his back. Everybody gets
hosed down and you know what? You’re
grateful.
In London’s Underground, they’ve taken
to popping little sachets of sweet smelling
fragrances under the seats to mask the
malodorousness of the clientele.
I don’t know if officials in Toronto or
Montreal plan to fumigate their rolling
stock, but they have my vote.
In the meantime, let’s you and I do our
bit. Let’s make a pledge to bathe or shower
faithfully before we ride any city’s under
ground rails. Do I have your word? Thank
you. That’s an approving smile you see on
my face.
You just can’t see it because of the gas
mask.
only about 30 per cent of these children
attend school anywhere on a regular basis.
This spring the World Romany Congress
was held in Warsaw. Although this was the
fourth congress, it was the first one to be
held in Eastern Europe which can thus be
put down as yet another ramification of
glasnost. From all reports any journalists
who covered the meetings came away
convinced that gypsies are anything but
alike. While some were inside discussing
the 17 dialects, others were outside selling
carpets. They are not only not alike, they
do not even agree on everything. One of
the most nasty discussions at the congress
revolved around who did and who did not
collaborate with the secret police of the
Romanian dictator Nikolae Ceausescu.
Another bone of contention was over which
groups had benefitted from handouts from
the West German government in the form
of war reparations. All of them agreed that
these handouts should be more than they
have been so that some form of cultural
and political centre can be constructed.
Yes, Virginia, there most definitely are
gypsies!
for low-income people in all walks of life to
avoid becoming part of the growing
number of homeless. We need to address
this problem immediately.
A survey is presently being circulated to
assess the situation in Huron County,
giving us a complete picture of our area.
This will provide us with the numbers
necessary to deal with and explore the
problems facing the homeless which our
community deems appropriate.
We would like to encourage the public to
assist us in identifying the barriers which
may limit housing options available in
Huron County. We invite you, the people
of this community, to help us educate and
develop a plan to provide PERMANENT
HOUSING to all persons not presently
living in acceptable, affordable housing.
Further information can be obtained by
phoning 524-5333 or writing to Access to
Permanent Housing Committee, Box 334,
Goderich, Ontario, N7A 4C6. Public Infor
mation meetings will be held in your area
in the near future. WATCH FOR THEM -
HELP US TO HELP YOU!
Julie Lee,
Huron County Access to
Permanent Housing Committee,
Letter
from the
editor
Voice of people
needs to be heard
BY KEITH ROULSTON
1 don’t know about you but I’m not sure
I’m happy sitting back watching 11 men
negotiate the future of my country as is
now happening with the last-minute Meech
Lake rescue operations.
We’ve been watching this kind of
arguing go on for decades now under
several different administrations but
things don’t seem to be improving.
The problem is that everybody, particu
larly the provincial premiers, likes to think
they speak for the people. Premier Robert
Bourassa, of course, figures he speaks for
Quebec while Grant Devine figures only he
can speak for the people of Saskatchewan.
We keep hearing, for instance, that
Quebec was “left out” of the 1982
constitutional accord but the main leaders
of the federal side of the negotiations were
all from that province and they proved they
were popular in the province.
You and 1 vote for three different levels
of government: our municipal leaders, our
provincial members of the legislature and
federal members of parliament. If you
voted for both Jack Riddell and Murray
Cardiff does the fact Mr. Riddell repre
sents you at the provincial level make him
more representative of your ideas than Mr.
Cardiff? If closeness of the politicians to his
or her constituents is the main criteria to
whose vote should have the most say, then
maybe it should be municipal leaders who
are negotiating this new constitution.
Back when Canada faced its last consti
tutional impasse in the early 1980’s and the
provinces refused to come to an agreement
with Prime Minister Trudeau on proposals
for a new constitution, there was an
intriguing proposal from one neutral
observer. Perhaps, he said, there should
be a special constitutional conference
called to represent the people. People
would be named to this conference from
ordinary walks of life and they would
decide what the constitution should say.
It would be interesting to see what a
conference like that might decide. It would
certainly eliminate the protection of turf
that goes on at federal-provincial conferen
ces. If Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, for
instance, hadn’t had to buy the agreement
of premiers by giving them more power,
would the Meech Lake proposal have been
such a mess? When David Peterson goes to
such a conference is he really representing
my interests as an ordinary Ontarian or is
he really protecting the power of the
provincial politicians and civil servants of
Ontario?
If I could sit down with a roomful of
farmers and truck drivers and homemakers
from Quebec and hear them tell me they
must have a “distinct society” clause for
their culture to survive, I’d be much more
likely to agree than having Robert Bour
assa tell me, given that what’s best for
Robert Bourassa usually seems to be
utmost in his mind.
I have this feeling that if I could get
enough ordinary Canadians of good will,
both from Quebec and the rest of Canada,
together in one place, a new vibrant
Canada could be worked out that would
keep the country going another century at
least. The problem is we only get to speak
through politicians who have their own
games to play.
Speak your mind
Write a letter
to the editor