The Citizen, 2015-07-09, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2015. PAGE 5.
“Anybody who isn’t confused isn’t well
informed.”
– Anonymous
In that case, put me down as incredibly
knowledgeable. I’ve been mixed up,
clueless and in the dark since Liz Taylor
was married to Eddie Fisher. (Or was it Larry
Fortensky? Joe DiMaggio, maybe? No, that
was Marilyn...)
See what I mean? Things aren’t as black
and white as they used to be. Take... well
black and white. Take Rachel Dolezal. She
used to be president of the Spokane,
Washington chapter of the National
Association for the Advancement of
Coloured People (NAACP) until she was
‘outed’ by her white parents. For trying to
pass herself off as black.
On the other hand, we have Janice
Harvey, an English teacher at a Massachusetts
high school who’s been outed as a racist
by her own principal. Harvey’s crime?
She said that students and faculty at
the school were ‘colourblind’. In other
words, they didn’t judge people by their skin
tone.
Principal Lisa Dyer said that was a racist
statement and that the very idea of
colourblindness is a form of racism because it
denies students the right to “honour the beauty
of their complexions”.
Maybe there’s something in the
Massachusetts water, because authorities
at Mount Holyoke College in that state
recently cancelled what had been an
annual performance of The Vagina
Monologues. Reason: the script for the
show is not ‘inclusive’ enough. It covers
only the experiences of females who have
vaginas.
Funny. I thought having a vagina meant...
never mind.
Sexual/racial ambiguity is not limited to the
Codfish State – or even to North America. In
New Zealand, a kid’s book has been published
that features two cartoon penguins, Gus and
Waldo. Everyone thought it was a fun read
until a parent flagged a questionable
illustration. She claimed it showed the two
penguins “dressed in bondage gear”. Needless
to say all copies of the cartoon penguins have
been swept from the shelves and whisked away
from impressionable eyes.
Damn straight. Let those kids read books
that show normal penguins. You know – where
they all go around stark naked.
And then there’s Sweden, where the public
broadcaster, SVT, is being assailed by some
viewers for showing a 60-second cartoon
advertising an upcoming children’s series
about the human body. The cartoon features
dancing genitals.
No problem with the gamboling dangly bits
– this is Sweden, after all. It’s the fact that the
high-stepping penis features a moustache
while the vagina bats a set of long curly
eyelashes. Critics say the moustache and the
eyelashes only serve to “reinforce gender
stereotypes”.
I give up. It’s all too confusing. Take me
away, officer, I’ll come quietly.
I’m the one with the moustache.
Arthur
Black
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Every new piece of information I
uncover about the Tribute to Liberty
makes me think it sounds more and
more like something that should be happening
south of the border.
Not familiar with the tribute? Well, that
might not be surprising.
I’ve found that it’s both simultaneously over-
covered by the media and completely forgotten
at the same time.
How is that possible? Well the stories I’ve
found since its inception several years ago
seem to focus on the reactions to the tribute,
rather than the tribute itself.
The Tribute to Liberty is a memorial to the
victims of communism in the world, proposed
to be built in Ottawa and everything about it,
from its genesis, to its proposed location, to its
size and design has been challenged, some by
way of lawsuit.
I’ve got a bit of a problem with that right
from the get-go – Communism isn’t
necessarily a dirty word.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to
abandon the leftist paradise we have in Canada
for an even more leftist world in a communist
nation but, communism, at its core, is about
everything being owned and worked by
everyone. There are no social classes, no
owned assets and no cash, just everyone
receiving their fair share.
Now before people start throwing the word
“hippy” in front of my name, I’m not saying I
think it will work. People are just too greedy
for communism to ever be a real way of life in
this world. (Okay, now you can call me a
hippy.)
In all seriousness, we don’t have a problem
with communism, what we have is a problem
with leaders of countries that, at one point,
tried communism.
Communism doesn’t line people up and
shoot them. Communism doesn’t allow people
to be discriminated against based on their race,
religion or sexual identity. Communism is just
a system of governance in contrast to what
much of the first world practises.
Communism doesn’t claim victims.
Totalitarian governments and dictatorships
draped in the clothes of communism, however,
are guilty of the above atrocities.
So, to have something for the victims of
communism seems kind of silly to me.
I’m all for a monument to the people killed
by genocide, to the people killed by
dictatorships that were labelled communist, to
people killed because a leader wanted to
remake the world in his image, but claiming
that an idealogy has killed people kind of
makes Canadians seem a little slow on the
uptake.
The claim to be representing victims of an
ideology aside, the entire “Liberty” thing just
wreaks of an ideology that isn’t prevalent in
the Canada I know.
Maybe it’s just the media that I’ve been
subject to, but when I think liberty, I
immediately conjure up apple pie and various
other ‘American’ icons.
From the name of the monument to the name
of the smaller fundraising campaign for the
monument, “The Pathway to Liberty,” the
entire thing just seems like it isn’t something a
Canadian should be involved with.
As I stated, fundraising is ongoing for the
memorial. It’s being crowd-funded, in a way,
and has found donations from across the
country. It’s going to cost $1 million and the
board of the organization responsible has
challenged 999 people to donate $1,000 to
help with that goal. People can also buy bricks
in the monument and contribute to “The
Pathway to Liberty”.
Going down “The Pathway to Liberty” (on
the Tribute to Liberty website,
tributetoliberty.ca) is actually kind of scary.
There are plenty of people who have bought
bricks (actually, as of writing this, 5,897 bricks
have been purchased) and while many of them
feature tales of people facing the adversity of
persecution, some of them equate communism
with pure evil.
Like I said, I don’t believe communism will
ever work. I do, however, know that Kim Jong-
un and the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea are not communism as it was envisioned
by its creators. As a matter of fact, if you can
find a better example of a totalitarian
dictatorship style of government, I would love
to hear about it.
Some of the tales are definitely ones worth
reading. They tell tales about how Canada is a
place where many people come to escape
totalitarian governments and dictatorships.
The fact that we have welcomed these people
so they can tell these stories should be a note
of pride for any Canadian.
That said, I still feel that this monument is a
folly.
While others complain that it’s too close to
government buildings representing justice, or
clamor for a reduction in size (which was
granted), my problems, as listed, are about
blaming an ideology for so many evils in the
world instead of the people who used it to
justify their atrocities.
The communists that people like to point
fingers at in the stories (the Russians, the
Chinese, the Vietnamese and others, according
to “The Pathway to Liberty”) weren’t
enforcing communism when they fought or
hurt people.
They were doing what they were told to do
because, if they didn’t, they or their families
would face death. That’s not how communism
works.
Like I said, I’m all for recognizing the
people killed by dictators who took over
countries. Their stories should be told.
However claiming some blanket term like
communism robbed them of their lives, well
that’s just silly.
Canada has made a name for itself
fighting the evils of the world. Once upon a
time we were known as a formidable
fighting force and I’m forever grateful that
Canadians fought and died for our right to live
our lives the way we see fit. We weren’t
fighting communism though, we were fighting
evil.
Maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but we weren’t
fighting communism, that’s for sure.
Communism doesn’t call for armed takeovers,
it calls for people to work towards a common
good.
So, again, memorializing those lost to evil
ambitions is a good thing. Claiming an
ideology based around working together
claims the lives of victims, well, that’s where
this idea falls off the rails.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
The Dukes of History
One of my mom’s favourite stories from
my childhood began with The Dukes of
Hazzard. I was very young and we
were at a party at a friend’s house and I spoke
with a southern accent. Not because I was
from the southern United States, mind you, but
because I was obsessed with Bo Duke and
Luke Duke, the boys from Hazzard County.
“Is he from the south?” one woman at the
party asked the host, to which she responded,
“He’s from across the street.”
I learned a lot from that show. One thing I
didn’t learn from it was to be racist. So to hear
that re-runs of the show are being pulled across
the United States was a little disheartening on
the surface when I first heard the news.
This comes as a result of the recent uprising
against the confederate flag (while this is far
from the first time people have suggested that
the flag is racist), which adorns the roof of the
General Lee, the famous car Bo and Luke drive
around in whilst saving the day.
According to recent polls conducted by
CNN, 72 per cent of black respondents from
the south felt the flag represented racism,
rather than the poll’s alternative, which was
southern pride. In nearly a mirror image of
results from the black community, 75 per cent
of white respondents from the south felt the
flag represented southern pride, while a
quarter of them felt it was racist.
The Duke boys, and their (my) beloved
show, are between a bit of a rock and a hard
place. Through all that I’ve read, certainly no
one is suggesting that the show itself is racist –
that its subject matter or episodes go against
the black community at all. But the car, on
which so much of the show is focused, is a
travelling symbol of racism to many,
specifically American slavery, easily the most
shameful period in North American history.
Put a Nazi flag on the roof of that car and
there’s no way that show is on television
anywhere anymore. You could try an ISIS flag
too and expect a similarly frosty response, no
matter the political climate of the day.
As I said, it’s an unfortunate situation for the
show; a show that brought so much joy to so
many young men my age. But perhaps, like
many things from that era, the Dukes – or
rather, the car they drive – have worn out their
welcome through no fault of their own.
There is a rather poignant strip comic
making its way around the internet – a
commentary on the evolution of society that all
in just one week the confederate flag made its
way down the flagpole, while the gay pride
flag made its way up. In just four comic panels,
it shows the world advancing out of the past
and the horrors of slavery, while at the same
time accepting gay marriage in all 50 states (it
has been legal across Canada since 2005, as
most likely already know) catapulting North
America into the future.
There are some who argue that the show
should be taken off the air. Pro golfer Bubba
Watson, who has a fully-functioning 1969
Dodge Charger General Lee, says he will paint
over the confederate flag on his car. There are
others, however, who say that picking the low-
hanging fruit like pulling re-runs of The Dukes
of Hazzard is detracting attention away from
the real issue of racism in the south.
And perhaps Bo, Luke, Daisy, Jesse, Boss
Hogg, Rosco, Enos and everyone else from
(the fictional) Hazzard County, Georgia are
just collateral damage in this debate – neither
right nor wrong, The Dukes of Hazzard
perhaps simply can’t exist in a 2015 where the
world has moved beyond them, specifically
what’s painted on the roof of their car.
Other Views
Befuddled, mixed up and clueless
A memorial doesn’t fix the problem