HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1991-03-20, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 1991. PAGE 5.
JiArthnr Black
The human
folly of war
in modern war, you will die like a dog
for no good reason.
Ernest Hemingway
I’ve been thinking a lot about war lately
-- as who of us has not? It was the lead item
on the nightly news for most of this sad.
short year.
Except it’s not much like war. this TV
one. The Nintendo War, someone called it.
That’s a good name. Some tiny unidentifi
able blip shows up on our TV screen and
Pacmanlike missiles or lasers or some
other newfangled incomprehensible gizmo
tracks it down and then it’s gone. “That’s
an Iraqi tank’’ (or radar station or bunker)
the MC in camouflage fatiques informs us.
Then, poof! It disappears from the TV
screen and hence from existence. No mess,
no fuss. Certainly no blood.
Except we know there is blood. There
always is. The calculated, deliberate
spilling of human blood is what war is all
about.
“Blood is just like money” a Vietnam vet
Policemen
I have known
BY RAYMOND CANON
I have frequently stated, to anyone who
would listen, that the point at which people
reach their highest level of virtue is when
they are followed by a police cruiser while
they are driving on the highway. There is
no getting away from the salutary effect
that the presence of a policeman has on
most of us. Having said that, however, 1
can vouch for the fact that the men of the
law have had other effects on me in
addition to the above mentioned one.
In thinking back over my experiences
with policemen, the one incident that
stands out in my mind took place in
Yugoslavia, more precisely Sarajevo. I
arrived there by train from Belgrade late at
night; if it was not midnight it was close to
it. At that time of the year 1 would not have
thought that there were a large number of
visitors to the city but for some reason
every hotel I approached claimed to be full.
Nobody was very helpful as to where 1
might find a room and, in desperation, I
walked into one of the local police stations
and explained my predicament. 1 speak
Russian but not Serbian; the two do have
considerable simularities and 1 was able to
pick up the gist of the conversation
between the two gendarmes on duty. The
upshot of it was that one of them packed
me into a car and drove off. In a few
minutes we stopped in front of a hotel,
went in and the clerk was ordered to find
me a room, any room. In a police state,
when the police order you to do something,
do it. The room I got will never go down in
my books as de luxe but it did provide me
with a place to sleep. I am eternally
grateful to those two policemen.
In Germany one time I stopped a
policeman to ask him where the best place
would be to hitchhike to Munich. He was
a bit suspicious of me at first and asked me
for my passport. Just by coincidence the
picture of me in it was taken when I was in
the Air Force. He asked about that and, on
hearing that I was a flyer, proceeded to
inform me that he had been in the
Luftwaffe. We had a pleasant conversation
and then he surprised me by telling me
that he was going to arrange a ride for me
\
once said. “It’s the currency of war. You
try to invest yours -- to get as high a return
as possible. And you try to spend the
enemy’s.”
The irony of this punchup is that the
Iraqi War Command talked like sharks in a
feeding frenzy and performed like lambs in
a slaughterhouse. The Allies talked like
namby-pamby morticians - and delivered
death and destruction with a ferocity this
old blood-soaked planet's never seen
before.
It’s hard to decide which posture is more
obscene.
Hussein: “The infidels will drown in an
ocean of their own blood.”
Allied spokesman: “We encountered
light resistance which was turned back
with minimal collateral damage.”
It’s a surpassingly strange human
phenomenon, war. I don’t believe there’s
another species on earth that periodically
masses in large numbers to maim, dis
member and murder its own kind. Military
analyst Gwynne Dyer (yes, the one in the
odd leather jacket) speculates that the first
time 5,000 male human beings ever
assembled in one place, chances are pretty
good that they are dogface soldiers. And
that it happened about 10,000 years ago,
give or take a millennium or so.
“It is an equally safe bet,” says Dyer,
“that the first truly large-scale slaughter of
people in human history happened very
soon afterward.”
And we’ve been at it ever since. This
to get me as far as I wanted to go that
evening. His friend proved every bit as
friendly and dropped me off right in front
of the youth hotel in Ulm. Two more
policemen to whom I am very, very
grateful.
Another time in Smolensk, Russia, 1
parked my car in front of the hotel at which
I was staying. The nearest traffic cop came
over to find out what I was doing there.
Imagine his surprise when he found that he
was talking to a Russian-speaking Cana
dian. He asked to see the engine of the car
and in very short order a crowd started to
gather. I would imagine that the others,
seeing the policeman there and not about
to arrest me, decided to come to take a look
at something different.
Before it was finished, we had a question
and answer period about Canada. It had to
be one of my finest public relations
exercises and, when the exchange was
over, I quietly thanked the policemen for
letting it all take place. After all, he could
have ordered me to park behind the hotel
with the rest of the cars. I gave him an
orange which were virtually unobtainable
at that time. We wished each other “Peace
and Friendship”.
I was cutting across the street on my way
to the railway station in Olten, Switzerland
when I was stopped by a policeman. He
People sa
Time to call it quits
THE EDITOR:
Three weeks ago Doug Trolloppe sent a
letter to you insisting that violence in our
society has come about as a result of ideas
promoted by churches and women’s rights
groups. 1 responded by sending you a letter
suggesting that part of the problem was
the hate literature contained in porno
graphy.
Again Doug responded by blaming the
Bible and now the Flintstones as well. I
don't want to waste valuable space in your
paper for the next six months going back
and forth. Perhaps Doug and I could get
together some time and I could convince
him of his error or he of mine. If indeed one
of us is right the medium responsible for
promoting violence should be stopped. So
the people in Blvth. Brussels and sur
rounding area will have to decide what will
year, all our attention has been on “The
War” - meaning the one in the Gulf. It’s
easy to forget that for millions of other
human beings in places like Sri Lanka,
Mozambique, Soweto and Cambodia
there’s another wholesale bloodletting
closer to hand. Indeed, at any time you
care to select there are at least a dozen
armed struggles going on somewhere.
How can we do this to one another? It’s
not for lack of knowledge about what war
really is. Read these words:
“Meriones pursued and overtaking
Pheraklos, struck in the right buttock, and
the spearhead drove straight on and
passing under the bone went into the
bladder. He dropped, screaming, to his
knees, and death was a mist about him.”
A little ‘collateral damage’ from a
conflict that took place 2,000 years ago,
described by Homer in “The Iliad.”
Modernize the language and swap a
‘bouncing betty’ for the spear and you
could be listening to a CNN correspondent
reporting live from Kuwait.
War. Birds and bees don’t do it. Neither
do amoebas or wolves or sperm whales.
But I did notice a small item buried in
the Gulf War coverage of my newspaper
last week. It says that Washington scien
tists have taught a chimpanzee how to
make and use a hand axe. “It’s the first
time a member of a non-human species has
learned to make a stone tool,” a spokes
man said.
To which I say oh, swell.
told me in German that I was jaywalking.
Now I understood every word but in
response I showed him my passport and
shook my head. He made the same
statement in both French and Italian and
again I shook my head. He then made the
accusation in English and this time I
replied. I figured that any policeman on the
beat who could speak four languages
deserved to be given the chance to take me
to task. I apologized and promised never go
do it again.
One other time when I most assuredly
did not play that game was when I was
coming out of a subway station in France.
The local gendarmes were in the process of
rounding up a few demonstrators and,
before 1 knew it, I found myself mixed up
with them. I whipped out my passport in
record time, showed it to the nearest
policeman and explained to him in French
what had happened. He replied, “Ah oui,
monsieur, Filez a toute vitesse.” (Get out
of here fast).
As you can see, I have had some
interesting experiences with the local
constabulary. However, regardless of the
country, they have, in the vast majority of
cases, been extremely pleasant and helpful
to me. That having been said, I am a
paragon of virtue when followed by a police
cruiser, regardless of its nationality.
best serve this purpose, by prohibiting the
Flintstones and burning all the Bibles, or
by putting a stop to the hate literature
contained in pornography.
For me, it’s easy, hatred promotes
violence and pornography is full of hatred.
However if it makes more sense to blame
the groups promoting peace and under
standing then so be it.
However, I really don’t see that Christ
ianity or any other religion fits into this
topic. Suggesting that any segment of our
society enjoys being victimized makes this
a political issue, one of human rights.
Thank you editor and your staff for doing
such a good job and allowing Doug and I
the opportunity to voice our opinions in
vour paper.
LESLIE COOK
BRUSSELS
Letter
from the
editor
Canadians
can laugh
BY KEITH ROULSTON
Our Canadian inferiority complex con
tinues to make us see the world through a
sort of warped lens. Sometimes we build
up our accomplishments out of all propor
tion while other times we don’t credit
ourselves nearly enough.
A Canadian movie director recently was
commenting on how Canadians always
think we aren’t funny. His comic movie had
drawn reviews that over and over again
remarked in surprise that his movie was
actually funny. It’s been a given fact for
years that somehow we don’t have a sense
of humour but we must have a sense of
humour or we wouldn’t elect Brian
Mulroney and Mike Wilson at the federal
level then put a socialist government in
Ontario just to see how their opposing
policies will collide.
Aside from the dirth of good Canadian
situation comedies on television I’ve never
been able to figure out where this myth
came from. Sure sometimes our artists are
so busy being unlike the “commercial”
Americans that they insist on being deadly
serious and entertaining people as little as
they can, but we’ve got so much proof of
just how funny Canadians can be. Right
now, for instance, many of Hollywood’s
biggest names in comedy are Canadian
from John Candy to Dan Ackroyd to Martin
Short and Rick Moranis, many of them
graduates of the famous SCTV show that
was a big hit in the U.S.
The big name on TV comedy is still
Saturday Night Live which was created by
Canadians. Behind movies like Ghost
Busters were Canadians like Ivan Reitman.
Canadians are behind many comedy series
on U.S. television as well.
In writing, a whole line of writers from
Stephen Leacock to Farley Mowatt has
tickled our funny bones.
A couple of weeks back 1 had the
pleasure of watching Charlie Farquharson
in person at the annual convention of the
Ontario Community Newspaper Associa
tion and watched as people laughed so
hard the tears came to their eyes. There
are some I’m sure, even Canadians who
think that Charlie first came to life on the
U.S. show Hee Haw but in fact he’s been
around for 40 years, dating back to that
great Canadian comedy tradition Spring
Thaw, a satirical theatre review that
started before Canada virtually had profes
sional theatre. In fact, we’ve always had an
interest in political satire in Canada.
Remember the songs of Dinah Christie on
the old “This Hours has Seven Days”
television show?
Anyway, as I watched Charlie I remem
bered his close relation, actor Don Harron
and how if things had worked out
differently, we mightn’t be laughing at
Charlie today. Shortly after Spring Thaw
and the birth of Charlie there were two
other significant developments in the
history of Canadian entertainment: the
founding of the Stratford Festival and the
beginning of CBC television. A lot of the
actors from Spring Thaw and other early
theatre showed up on the Stratford stage
and the television screen. It was the
springboard for many like Lome Green and
William Shatner to launch Hollywood
careers.
It almost was for Don Harron too. I recall
sitting up straight in my chair one night as
1 watched a 1950’s Hollywood movie and
saw a very young Don Harron in a
co-starring role, looking very serious. But
the young Harron decided Hollywood was
not for him. He returned to Canada and,
among other things, co-authored the
musical “Anne of Green Gables” that
became, next to farming, the biggest
industry in Prince Edward Island.
And he brought Charlie Farquharson
back to life, sniping away in his bumbling
way at politicians and the high and mighty.
Along the way there have been numerous
books and television appearances and
Continued on page 6