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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1995-03-08, Page 5International Scene nit) THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 1995. PAGE 5. People would trade places with Canucks Patriotism: the last refuge of the scoundrel. H. L. Mencken When it comes to flag-waving I'm with the old curmudgeon of Baltimore. One of the things I always loved about this country is that we don't take ourselves over-seriously. Not for Canucks the my-country-right-or- wrong mentality of our neighbours to the south. Let the Yanks stamp their licence plates "Live Free or Die", swathe their mailboxes in bunting and send their kids to jail for wearing Stars and Stripes patches on their bums. Canadians suffer from a number of afflictions, but mindless Jingoism is not among them. We're a peaceable lot. Someone once defined Canadians as people who, if you step on their toes, they say they're sorry. All the same, there comes a point in the affairs of men beyond which even self- effacing Canadians should not trespass. I think it's time we stopped punching ourselves in the nose. It's an easy enough game to play — Canada bashing. Our dollar flutters spasmodically at the 60-cent U.S. level. Mostly because it suits international money markets to treat our dollar as a financial basket case. Corruption big business in Zaire I once wrote an article about corruption in Nigeria, an article that the Nigerian high commissioner in Ottawa took an instant dislike to. Any newspaper that published the article, and there were a few, received a strongly worded letter from him, claiming that my facts were wrong, my opinions distorted that I was guilty, among other things, of distracting tourists from his country. I suggested that he might like to revise this opinion since I had received the details from none other than the central bank of Nigeria. I was, I added, not aware that any Canadians considered for one moment going to Nigeria on a holiday. It has come as something of a perverse delight to me to watch, as I did recently, an expose by the respected CBC news program, The Fifth Estate, outlining the rampant corruption in Nigeria which, unfortunately, has involved a number of innocent Canadians. However, just to show that the Nigerians are not the only ones who can excel at the art of corruption, I would like to move down the African coast a bit to the country of Zaire, that part of the continent which used to be known as the Belgian Congo and whose current leader would rank with the biggest offenders when it comes to categorizing corruption. The leader, President (for life?) Mobuto Sese Seko, could write a multi-volumed text book on the art of corruption, graft and any other similar activity. It can be safely said that he has set the tone for the entire country since one economist, more conversant with Canadians play right along with the farce. We even call our dollar 'the loonie'. When Canada gets a national TV variety show, our critics join hands in an orgy of crucifixion of the host — Ralph Ben Murgui. From coast to coast to coast he is sniggered at and sneered over as hapless and hopeless. And why? Mostly because he's not David Letterman. And Quebec? Ah, Quebec. The Separatistes of Quebec decide that they're altogether too classy for this Vaudeville Act called Canada — they're striking out on their own. Corporate America has given up on us as well. That bible of capitalism, The Wall Street Journals recently pronounced Canada 'an honorary Third World nation' based on our national debt. The irony was The Wall Street Journal cribbed their arguments from an editorial in Canada's own Globe and Mail — whereupon the Globe cited The Wall Street Journal's assessment as proof that the original Globe editorial was right. How perfectly Canadian. Yep. Must be the end of the line for this sad sack of a nation called Canada. Unless you solicit some other opinions. Never mind what The Wall Street Journal and the Globe and Mail and Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard and sleazebag turncoats like Marcel Masse say about Canada. What does the rest of the world think? the situation I, claims that corruption is the oil in the machinery of the country. It could, he said, be considered as a type of informal sales tax. Almost any transaction needs something in Zaire to help it along and there is almost always someone to do just that. This someone is called a "protocole" which can be translated as a "professional payer of brides." This protocole surfaces almost by magic when there is any official procedure taking place. He has, he claims, any number of excellent contacts which are acquainted with the procedure and who will keep the bribes which have to be paid to a minimum. Naturally there is a little "bribe" for all the work which he has to do. But the protocole does not get all the business. Corruption, as you must now realize, is such a way of life that there are little bribes to be paid which are below the dignity, as it were, of any self-respecting protocole. The taxi drivers have to pay a certain sweetener to the traffic police in their area or else run the risk of being hauled off for some imaginary offence. Fishermen on any river that forms a border between Zaire and another country help their precarious living by smuggling things across the river. Naturally there are soldiers watching all this activity and just as naturally there is a small consideration to be paid by the fishermen to these soldiers. With annual inflation currently running about 8,500 per cent, it is not hard go guess what is going on in the currency markets. When Mobuto and his government need extra money, they just print it and the above mentioned figure is, therefore, easy to understand. It does however, create a powerful black market in foreign currencies with the two most desired currencies being Well, a recent survey by a Swiss company ranking the world's best cities to live in is instructive. Three of Canada's cities — Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal - placed in the top ten. We had four in the top 12. No other country came close. The nearest an American city could get was 30th. The United Nations regularly publishes surveys about quality of urban life on this battered planet, and regularly Canadian life places either first or second on the Most Desirable Place to Pitch A Tent sweepstakes. The United States isn't even on the chart. Life is far from perfect in the Great White North. It's less glittery than Hollywood, less exciting than New York, less ritzy than Las Vegas or Rodeo Drive. But you see fewer people sleeping on steam grates, not as many recovering from gunshot wounds, hardly any crack houses and not a single chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. We love to bitch, we Canucks. We bitch about the weather and the taxes and the cost of living. But if we stopped whining long enough to hear the voices of the rest of the world, we'd discover that most human beings, given their druthers, would love to trade places with us. Not a bad thing to remember, as we lurch towards yet another showdown in the national divorce court. Especially good to remember if your name happens to be Parizeau or Bouchard. either the American dollar or the Belgian franc, the latter due to the fact that Zaire was once a Belgian colony. If one gets tired of trying to make a living on the black market in currency, one can always get into diamond smuggling. Zaire is, it should be pointed out, very rich in natural resources, including diamonds and there is a real trade in this commodity along the border with Angola. What all this has done is ruin the middle classes. A good education currently stands for nothing; all a college graduate can hope for is to become involved in one of the above mentioned activities and hope that some profit can be made. Meanwhile Mobuto and his hangers-on continue to live high off the hog. But for how long? So far there is no light at the end of the tunnel but in such circumstances what goes around has a habit of coming around. The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Go ahead and kiss a few frogs You have to kiss a few frogs before you find a prince. At least that's what they, those experts on everything, have to say about the chances of finding the ideal mate. Lately, however, they seem to be saying, at least the feminine part of the group is, that when it comes to guys those perfect princes are greatly outnumbered by the atrocious amphibians. One thing I know for certain, is that I'm glad I'm out of circulation. Listening to young girls and single women, I am discovering a certain disgruntlement over the man/woman interaction thing. Today's men, don't want commitment, the women say. They are perpetual children dominated by testosterone. To be fair to the male contingent, today's female seems to have a pretty tall order when it comes to filling her date wish list. It's not enough to find a man who's attractive and fairly decent; the dreamboat of the 90s must be a sensitive, yet masculine chap, a knight in shining armor, who not only dazzles with his manliness, but is in tune with his feminine side. And being as the bars seem to be the hot spot for meeting people, I can certainly see why the girls are having problems finding this type of fella. This past weekend I watched the movie It Could Happen to You, about the chivalrous, endearing cop who gave half his lottery winnings to a waitress as a tip, and I'm pretty sure most girls wonder where guys like him are. I'm also pretty sure, he doesn't hang out in bars. I think that most of the people who grew up in my generation would agree that being with someone, committing to them, didn't seem so difficult back then. Because for one reason, I don't think our expectations were as high. Being myself no princess, I never expected to find a prince. If I thought a guy was cute, if he could make me laugh and at least tried to understand me sometimes, I was happy. But, while courting gave us time to discover the princely traits, dating in the 90s can be a touch and go affair. According to a Maclean's story the ritual of holding hands on the first date, hugging on the second, kissing on the third and French kissing on the fourth, has been accelerated so that now many of those steps are covered in one night. Too bad. Prolonging the mystery could be a heady experience. Relationships are now embarked upon cautiously. While teenage pregnancy was a worry 30 years ago, it certainly never threatened our existence. Today, falling in lust can be deadly. There is no question that AIDS has changed so much of dating's spontaneity. People are afraid to date someone they don't know; a first encounter in the 90s resembles a job interview, complete with personal references. Then there are others shying away from becoming involved because of uncertain futures and financial struggles. Many quite simply say they can't afford to date. I am an idealist. I believe in, if not princes, then at least, in their close relatives. I believe in happily ever after and in love. But in an era where emotions must be governed by factors not of the heart, these things aren't going to be easy to find. If kissing a few frogs leads you to it, however, then it will have been worth it. Arthur Black Your opinion means a lot The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. They must be signed and should be accompanied by a telephone number should we need to clarify any infor-mation. Letters may be edited for content and space.