Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1994-04-13, Page 5THE CITIZEN, Arthur Black , WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13,1994. PAGE 5. Thought Police don’t wear uniforms Only the tiniest fraction of mankind wants freedom. All the rest want someone to tell them they are free. Irving Layton, the seed bull of Canadian poetry, wrote that many years ago. He couldn't have written it recently. The Thought Police would be all over him for using the heretical term 'mankind*. Only 'humankind' or 'personkind' or some other gonadless generality will do these days. The second scariest thing I know about the Thought Police is that they don't wear uniforms. Not external ones anyway. They come disguised as teachers and MPs, students and housewives, lawyers and labour leaders, right-wingers and lefties. And they don't ask for much. Just control of your mind. The scariest thing I know about the Thought Police is that they're attacking our writers. In Alberta, a Tory backbencher is calling for the provincial government "not to allow literature in the education system that is intolerant of any religion, including Christianity, or demean or profane the name of God and Jesus Christ." The MP thinks a good first move in his International Scene Eurodisney — unmitigated disaster I was travelling around Europe not so long ago; 1992 to be exact; and one of the main themes of the advertising prevalent at that time was that I would be missing the adventure of lifetime if I did not go to see Eurodisney - the theme park which had been constructed at great expense in the vicinity of Paris. Mention the word "Disney" to any child, or any adult for that matter, and the mind will conjure up all kinds of images, from Mickey Mouse to any one of the magnificent creations at the Disney parks in North America, which my grandchildren have been to but I haven't. Although Walt Disney Enterprises owned a minority of the stock in the project, 49 per cent to be exact, it was trumpeting the resort as "its most important commitment to a single new venture outside the United States for the remainder of the century." Well, I never did get there and neither apparently did a lot of other people since in less than two years this commitment showed a loss of the better part of a billion (yes billion) dollars U.S. Translate that into our currency and it comes in at well over a billion. Instead of talking about the resort in superlatives, Disney is trying to come up with enough cash to keep the place in operation until the 60 banks which financed the construction can come up with a financial restructuring. If that cannot be done within a few weeks, Disney will be looking for a way to cut the venture adrift. It is not hard to find reasons for the Holy War would be to ban the novel Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck. That would be the same novel that has been proclaimed an American classic, that has thrilled audiences in print and on stage, that preaches a message of tolerance and love. MP Victor Doerkson doesn't care about any of that. All he knows is the book "uses profane words 198 times in 118 pages." Could be, I suppose. Mister Doerkson is the only reader I know who's so obsessed by the dirty words he has to count them. It's happening elsewhere in Canada too. Recently, a group of Ottawa parents sent out flyers calling for a ban on Margaret Laurence's novel The Diviners.. The flyers complain that the novel "depicts sex...and many other choice four-lettered words." It would appear that the flyer floggers could use some remedial math lessons - sex is a three-lettered word, but no matter. The flyers even list specific page numbers so that people can look up the steamy passages in The Diviners without having to wade through the whole book. Last fall, W.P. Kinsella had to defend himself in front of a tribunal of Mohawks who accused the award-winning author of being a racist. Kinsella, you see, is a white guy, so how could he possibly write about life on native reserves? That would be as absurd as, say, some obscure English playwright from Stratford trying to write about Danish princes, Roman emperors or Italian lovers. By Raymond Canon decline and fall of the park. The first one would have to be the calculations that went into the amount that visitors would pay to get into the park and how much they would spend once they got there. Prices were too high all round and naturally met with a great deal of consumer resistance. Europeans may know who Mickey Mouse and gang are but they do not relate to them in quite the same way as do North American children and adults. Many people would go out of curiosity but little else. Added to that is the fact that France and just about all of western Europe were going into recession at about the time the park opened and too many people were worrying more about their jobs than they were about finding time to get to Eurodisney. Very little has happened since then to get them to change their mind. If anything, the recession is worse now in both France and Germany than it was a year or so ago and these two countries were expected to provide a majority of the traffic. The French government may admit that the theme park does contribute a great deal to a moribund French economy (40,000 jobs in all) but there is a bit of irony in all this government support. The French themselves like to think of themselves as in the front row of culturally advanced nations and they tend to look at much of American culture as pure kitsch. Grouped in this is the world of Disney and for this reason support from the French in the form of attendance has been something short of spectacular. With a nearby Paris being the center of "real" culture, the French have better things to do with their lime and money. The prospectus which was presented to investors (and the banks) seems to have been written in a state of euphoria. For openers there were ambitious plans to develop the area around the park and it was estimated Kinsella, to his credit, weathered the outrage well. In fact, he revelled in it. 'Tve wanted to have my books banned for years. It puts me right up there with Margaret Laurence and J.D.Salinger." No to mention Salman Rushdie. Thankfully, this is Canada, not Iran that we're talking about, so nobody's issuing death threats. Yet. But you can't help wondering...After all, even as I write, the Government of Ontario is toying with a policy of "zero tolerance of harassment and discrimination at Ontario's universities." Zero tolerance. What does that mean? Can a history prof mention the barbarities of the Inquisition if there's a Spanish student in his class likely to take offense? Nobody's quite sure. My hunch is that, academics being the non-boat-rockers they are, they'll play it safe and spoon out scholastic Pablum. And our kids will get a safe, government-approved, politically correct education free of annoying kernels like Laurence, Steinbeck and Kinsella. And what kind of a future English Newspeak does that mean? Future, nothing - it's here, chum. Here’s a correction that ran in a Fresno, California newspaper recently: "An item in Thursday's 'Nation Digest about the Massachusetts budget crisis made reference to new taxes that will put Massachusetts 'back in the African- American.' The item should have said 'back in the black.'" that such development would contribute about $300 million to profits by 1996. That has turned out to be something of a mirage. In addition, costing of the operation has turned out to be nothing less than wishful thinking. Labour costs, for example, were estimated to be a modest 13 per cent of revenues; by last year they had turned out to be about three times that. And so it goes! As I write this the 60 banks involved have come up with a refinancing package which totals about $3 billion. However, a spokesperson for the banks said, "Disney got us into this mess and it's only fair that it should play its part in finding a way out." Accordingly Disney will be expected to put up half of the restructuring package. With such harmony in the ranks, it will be worth watching further developments. Paul’s Perspective Continued from page 6 sign policy is applied uniformly throughout Ontario to ensure motorists' safety. Not only does it ensure safety but it avoids the clutter of signs that often detract from the countryside in many areas of the United States. The action of the MTO should not be seen as an attempt to muzzle free speech. The Ministry of Transportation is enforcing rules which have been in place for several decades. I GOT A 1 BEEF? Write a letter to the editor. The By Bonnie Gropp Curling up with an , old friend I spent this past weekend getting reacquainted with an old, almost forgotten friend. My first introduction to this person came in the 60s and we spent time together on many occasions throughout the next decade. She kept me company when I was lonely, was my source of entertainment when, for one reason or another I was unable to go out and helped me take my mind off troubling things. It was through my association with her that I came to know and admire many of her peers. A fickle friend, I moved on to them, getting caught up in their individual styles and personalities, until eventually the many hours of enjoyment and satisfaction I found in her company were a thing of the past. It was while visiting some family members recently that I happened upon some books of Agatha Christie's and was reminded of what a big fan of her writing I once was. A book lover for as long as I can remember it was the works of Dame Christie that proved to be my initiation into adult reading. I "discovered" them in my early teens (when I was in the thralls of Beatlemania and everything British was "fab") and was captivated. I was charmed by the locales she wrote of and impressed by the subtleties of her crimes. Nobody could plot a diabolical murder as intricately, and cleanly, as Dame Agatha. By the time I'd read nearly every book she'd ever written I was at the time in my life where romance was definitely the priority, at least in my choice of fiction, so I developed a passion for the historical romance novels where the brawny swain first wars with, then woos and captures the beautiful siren. I determined that if I was absorbing a bit of historical data with the sexy, trashy, stories I hadn't completely sold out. And a little smut can be fun to read; the beauty of books is that there are so many varieties from which to choose that you can usually find one to suit every mood. I have found through the years that while my reading choices would be subject to personal fads, my fancy inevitably swung back to well-done, well-written murder mysteries. The one problem I have been finding lately, however, is that modem who-dun-its are a little more gruesome, a little more intense than the clever yams spun by the earlier experts like Dame Christie and Ellery Queen. Whereas their work inspires me to keep going and, as Hercule Poirot would say "use my little grey cells", the former tends to make me want to run, hide and stop thinking. I find myself trying to avoid the grisly conclusions. Not a real problem, but certainly not a good way to relax, either, which has always been my motivation for reading. I remember a few years ago being so terrified by one of the modem storyteller's offerings that I had a difficult time of convincing myself to unfurl from my chair, shut off the lights and go upstairs to bed. A good book is like that, though. It will take you to places you won't see and introduce you to people you'd sometimes rather not meet. Coming to the end of a story can be bittersweet, like saying goodbye to someone you've enjoyed spending lime with, but know you will likely never see again. I'm glad I decided to look up my old friend for a second time.