HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2006-11-02, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2006. PAGE 5.
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The spirits of the times
the front page of The New
or of The Citizen, for that
there was much rejoicing
recently among people of the Sto:lo Nation in
and around Chilliwack, B.C.
After much trial and tribulation they have
finally welcomed home a long-lost relative.
-No small thing. He'd been living in a display
case in a Seattle Museum for the past hundred
years. His name (and I'm glad this is not radio,
so I don't have to pronounce it)'is T'xwelatse.
He stands a little less than five feet high. He is
made of stone.
To you and me, that is. To the Sto:lo people
he is a living ancestor.
Back in the mists of time, legend has it,
T'xwelatse lost a battle of wits with a Sto:lo
deity and his spirit was imprisoned in granite.
The sacred stone was preserved for centuries
by Sto:lo elders until- it was `collected' by
white souvenir hunters in the late 1800s and
shipped off to the U.S.
Last month, after years of negotiation, Sto:lo
elders convinced the proprietors of the Seattle
Museum it was time to send T'xwelatse back
to his home here in the north.
Coincidentally, during much of the same
time Sto:lo people were endeavouring to get
their sacred idol back, natives on the South
Sea island of Tanna in Vanuatu were engaged
.n a similar exercise.
For the past 30 years they've been sending
letters of petition across the seas in the hopes
of contacting their 'god' and bringing him
home.
Their absent god is also entombed in stone.
Ontario has had its own version of Peter
MacKay calling former girlfriend
Belinda Stronach a dog, although it
may not have had quite as much bite.
The day before the foreign affairs minister's
petulance in the Commons, Premier Dalton
McGuinty's Liberals shouted down a New
Democrat woman MPP in the legislature so
she could not be heard.
What made this worse was Cheri DiNovo
was speaking in a Persons Day debate
designed so each party in turn could pay
tribute to those who led the fight.for women's
rights.
DiNovo, who had won a by-election and
been in the legislature less than a month,
started naming women in her party who
helped, and Liberal MPPs, mostly men, began
a barrage of catcalls — no dog here — that
drowned out her voice.
DiNovo protested "women are still being
shouted down by men" and Speaker Mike
Brown complained he could not hear what she
was saying.
The MPP was forced to stop twice more,
complaining she could not be heard, in a brief
speech of only two minutes.
Reporters in seats above the Speaker and
checking the legislature's videotape of the
debate could make out little of what was said,
although one was sure Health Promotion
Minister Jim Watson admonished "You're in
the big leagues now."
New Democrats sitting directly opposite
said they heard Liberals shouting "Sit down —
what do you know, anyway?" "Why don't you
be quiet?" and "Why are you so partisan?"
Brown twice called on Finance Minister
Greg Sorbara tostop interrupting and Sorbara
explained later he merely suggested the New
Democrat Should also mention Kim Campbell,
Canada's first- woman prime minister and a
Progressive Conservative.
This seemed reasonable except New
Democrats were sure Sorbara yelled in a
mocking voice, implying Campbell was one
in a matter of speaking. Except in this case,
it's Buckingham Palace. •
The god the people of Tanna bow down to,is
Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinborough.
Well, that's not quite true. They don't
worship Phil in the flesh. They revere
him as the human face of an ancestral
spirit. The Prince Philip Movement, as it's
known, is one variation of a Melanesian
Cargo cult. Cargo cultism is a religious
phenomenon that has flickered on and off in
various parts of the South Pacific for many
decades.
Its adherents are relatively primitive, with
little experience of the modern world. A long-
held tribal belief predicted that one day
ancestral gods would appear in the skies and
spectacular wealth would fall from above.
Then — incredibly — it actually happened.
During World War II South Sea islanders
watched with wonder as U.S. cargo planes
roared , across the skies dropping supplies to
American troops. To the natives the planes
were spiritual deities dispensing undreamed-
of wealth from the heavens.
The war ended and the planes stopped
coming, but the cargo cultists continued to
woman politician others dare not brag about,
because she bombed and lost government
within months.
NDP House leader Peter. Kormos, an MPP
for 18 years, said he has never heard such a
sustained, persistent attempt to shout down.
It was clearly an attempt to silence an MPP,
but was it because she is a woman? The
Liberals recently have tried to shout down
many critics, with their ministers joining or
even leading attacks rather than leaving them
to backbenchers. •
They have made DiNovo more of a target
than others. Later the same day she argued for
a bigger role for civilians in investigating
complaints against police and Liberal deputy
house leader David Caplan interrupted and
cautioned her condescendingly not to refer to
cases before courts, although she had not done
so.
The Liberals could be giving DiNovo a hard
time partly because she won a seat from them
in a by-election in which they were seen
dredging up personal history trying to keep her
out.
The Liberals could have it in for the NDP
because that party has recovered slightly in
polls, which could hamper McGuinty in
Final Thought
"Do not look back in anger, or forward in
fear, but around in awareness."
— James Thurber
believe. They searched for ways to entice the
gods to return. Some went as far as to
construct ersatz `airports' with airstrips and
walkie-talkies made out of coconuts and straw.
Exactly how Prince Philip came to inhabit
the pantheon of Melanesian Cargo cult god
figures isn't entirely clear, but Buckingham
Palace has been receiving pleas, gifts and
entreaties from the Tanna islanders for the past
three decades.
Prince Philip, for his part, has gone along for
the ride. He hasn't actually visited the 400-
strong cult in Vanuatu, but his staff has sent
theme signed photographs of the Prince,
including one eight-by-10 glossy that
shows him holding a genuine Tanna Island war
club.
Am I making mock of Tanna's cargo cultists
or Chilliwack's T'xwelatse worshippers? Are
you kidding? I come from a religious
background that promotes belief in talking
serpents, encyclopedic orchards, immaculate
conceptions and virgin births. I have no
grounds to pass judgment on anybody's
religious beliefs.
Besides, I remember the story of the guy
who went to Mount Pleasant cemetery in
Toronto to put flowers on his late wife's grave.
As he was doing so, he noticed a Chinese
man placing a bowl of rice by the headstone of
a deceased relative.
"When do you expect your departed friend
to show up and eat the food," he sneered.
The Chinese man replied, "About the same
time your friefid comes back to smell the
flowers."
reviving an argument he used last election that
the NDP is weak and Progressives should line
up with the Liberals.
But they also tried to stifle a woman in a
debate staged to honour those who have
helped women gain a voice in politics and
encourage more to do so, in which she was no
more partisan than others.
The Liberal spokesperson earlier in the same
debate, Economic Development Minister
Sandra Pupatello, had boasted McGuinty has
improved the lot of women immensely, which
many would dispute.
The Liberals were the last party in trouble
for offending women in the legislature when
Liberal Shafiq Qaadri shouted and had to
apologize for saying another woman New
Democrat who criticized his government must
be suffering from a menopausal "hot flash," as
if no woman could possibly have the facts on
her side.
McGuinty's MP brother, David, also has led
the Liberal attack in the Commons on MacKay
for belittling Stronach. The premier should
know the dangers to his party of picking on
women.
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printed as space allows. Please keep
your ielIers brief and concise.
People are so nice
people are so nice. I've always known it,
but like the rest of the world, I don't
always give the fact its full credit.
It took a particularly dismal time for me to
state the obvious. I had suddenly found myself
sitting in an unfamiliar place. The world as I
had known it had changed and would never be
quite the same again. And in the midst of what
I was feeling there were the words and
kindnesses extended, until quite honestly they
overwhelmed me.
What this all comes down to is that people in
the norm, are a pretty good bunch. The
problem is that while the smallest example of
pettiness and nastiness can burn for hours,
modest gestures are more likely to bring a
glow that lingers, but eases away like a perfect
sunset.
As a result, the negatives are usually given
far too much attention in this life, while the
positives may be overlooked. That's why I was
pleased to listen to a proposal from one of our
area schools recently. I don't want to divulge
too much information at this point, but I will
say that the premise is to highlight a positive
attribute on a regular basis..
The idea is rooted in a school board
initiative. Having our young people recognize
and acknowledge quality character traits in
others has become a focus of the board. The
system goal is to "promote the development of
positive citizenship qualities" in the students.
The mission statement is to "cultivate a
community of citizens of good character".
As a result, a different attribute is chosen
each month and a student is recognized for
demonstrating it.
What the board refers to as character
education is an on-going process that is an
integral component of all curriculum and
learning. The attributes to be noted are
fairness, honesty, empathy, respect, courage,
integrity, optimism, compassion, perseverance
and responsibility.
Truly words to live by.
And for the most part, we do with a level of
success. You probably wouldn't need more
than a moment to remember a time when you
personally, have demonstrated each of these
traits. Another moment and you will be able to
think of a time when you have seen examples
of it in other people. Which is equally
important.
What is excellent about the school program
is that it doesn't just encourage each student to
take actions that exemplify each trait but also
to look for it in other people. It wouldn't hurt
if society as a whole made a concentrated
effort to pay attention to the strengths and
niceties of others.
While it's essential to do our best every day
to be decent human beings, it's also extremely
good for the soul to discover the good in
another. The world can be a tough place and
taking the time to fully acknowledge the
kindness and caring, the courage and humility,
the honesty and integrity that have been shown
toward you or another is nothing short of
restorative.
If anything has come from that dismal time I
mentioned earlier, it has been that I have a
different feeling for the folks around me. I
have been the beneficiary of some of the best
that can come from people, and it came in such
abundance and with such sincerity that I
couldn't ignore it.
It's really not enough to be your best. You •
need to look for it in others.
1t didn't make
York Times —
matter — but
„ . Woman trouble in McGuinty government