Bambi's Thoughts
This VERY short video produced by Dr. Gad Saad from Concordia University (Montreal, Québec) explains the story much better than Bambi would have done:
In all honesty, despite any good intention of the American politician in question and regardless of your own skin hue, does this idea make any sense to you?
If so, please write a comment on this blog for Bambi to explain your point of view ?.
Medicine is all about serving ALL patients with dignity and compassion.
Why are we asking the American Medical Association to recognize Black Lives Matter (BLM)?
In Bambi’s non-expert citizen opinion, especially following her second life in a country torn by civil war, medicine should be free of ideologies, particularly the ones which are radical and into racialization!
Medicine should be above politics, period.
This is a danger game. This is a potentially racist game even.
For healthcare providers, ALL lives should matter, regardless of a so-called skin colour of a patient. This includes black lives as well as all lives.
Ms. Roula Douglas is a Lebanese-Canadian journalist with l’Orient Le Jour, an author, a mentor (as a university professor and as a leader through the Global Thinkers Forum), a PhD candidate, a spouse, a mother, a daughter, a sister, and… simply a friend.
The Global Thinkers Forum (http://www.globalthinkersforum.org/) recently celebrated the World Kindness Day, which took place on November 13, 2020 (Bambi missed it. OUPS, she hopes she happened to be kind to her amazing spouse on that day ?!)
This organization published a report entitled “Leading with kindness in crisis and beyond“. It also highlighted the World Kindness Day by tweeting insights from interviews with leaders all over the world (based on that report).
Well, as a kind sister to Bambi, Ms. Roula Douglas accepted to share her insights about kindness with you through this blog. Merci Roula!
Before sharing her beautiful words, Bambi will remind us of two facts: First, Ms. Douglas knows the value of words well. She knows that words are acts. She is known for using the right word at the right time in her novels, articles, and social media. Second, if there is a country in the world who is suffering from multiple crises now, it is tiny Lebanon. Kindness takes all its meaning in times of survival and/or sorrow. Kindness is an act of of both love and respect. Kindness to each other. Kindness to oneself too. Kindness for the sake of kindness… just like love for the sake of love.
Without further due, here are Ms. Douglas’s own words, as taken from Page 41 of the report mentioned above:
“Kindness is wanting others to feel better about themselves, their day, life. It is treating them with compassion, warmth, understanding, and respect. For me, it is kindness that defines us as humans“, Roula A. Douglas, Journalist & Author, Lebanon.
Bambi discovered Mr. Hachem’s voice on the radio she listens to whilst working (he sings in English and Italian too). She hopes you will enjoy this beautiful song as much as she did (minus the tears it brought to her eyes).
Toward the end of the song, you can see some old pictures of the charming Beirut.
Well, perhaps Bambi is homesick now (first forthcoming Christmas where she will not be “jumping” to Beirut to see her family)? This may explain why she saw two people in those pictures who made her think of her own parents in their younger years 🙂 (miss you mom and dad… Hope to see you and see everyone as soon as possible in 2021!).
To be serious now, this song of Feyruz, was composed during the ugliest days of the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990). Beirut was totally destroyed at the time.
It is sad yet cathartic to listen to that same old song in 2020, knowing that its meaning remains full for Beirutis.
Yes, it has been almost 100 days since that surrealistic explosion which destroyed Beirut to the extent of a15-year-stupid war… but in just 15 seconds.
Thank you Mr. Hachem et al. for this beautiful performance!
Bambi would like to comment an article and a comment published by our Dear New Wark Times.
First, thank your Mr. Wark for reporting on how “Sackville Councillor raises questions about RCMP quarterly reports and opinion surveys“.
Second, Bambi is not surprised to read about the “general level of satisfaction with RCMP in New Brunswick” and thanks to this article for pointing for areas of improvement.
As far as Bambi is concerned, she is grateful to our police officers whose daily job consists of keeping us safe and sound.
Third, and this is what is the most shocking news to Bambi (again, thank you Mr. Wark for posting the comment). Yes, for a second, she thought she was perhaps in Iran, Saudi Arabia, or “Hezbollistan” when she read the following comment by someone she suspects she knows the identity of (although she has never met her in real life yet, she was delighted when she kindly commented on her blog in the past, thank you):
“A few times hysterical people online have had the RCMP ‘sent’ to my house to speak to me…. I have nothing bad to say about the local police. They are polite and courteous to me.. that’s more than I can say for a lot of badly behaved members of the overpaid chattering class around here… and no I don’t make a habit of phoning the police because of my hurt feelings.” (comment on the Warktimes by Kata List Productions).
Can you imagine? Sending the police to someone’s house because of her different opinions that she expresses online?!
What world our we living in?
Is this the Canada we want?
Bambi is sorry to learn what Kata List Productions had to go through :(.
Instead of challenging our own opinions with new perspectives.
We could have easily told ourselves: We do not agree with her.
We can even decide not read her comments or blogs.
We may even disagree and keep reading, even if we do not agree.
We may even learn that she is right on some issues, even if they are to the right.
Just to give an example not related to right or left, Bambi saw once a video posted by Kata List Productions that she had all the reasons of the world to consider shocking at the time.
It was about the Beirut surrealistic explosion of August 4th, 2020. As a reminder, 6000+ persons were injured, 200+ lost their lives, over 300,000 houses damaged, etc. Her own niece, brother-in-law, and childhood friend were injured (the latter cannot take the stairs yet). Her parents’ apartment was destroyed and dad’s shop also badly damaged.
Yet, the video tried to argue that the BBC images from Beirut hospitals were fake and the whole story did not exist (conspiracy of some sort that did not make any sense given the shocking reality in Beirut).
Anyhow, Bambi watched that video just for fun and told herself: Well that person talking in it should perhaps chat with Rania (Bambi’s sister) who visited three hospitals to find her badly injured spouse (whilst her daughter was being taken to yet another hospital by a stranger).
She looked into the faces of surely over 1500 injured citizens at one single hospital— bloody faces— to try to recognize her husband.
So, yes, those images that toured the world were real, even if they appeared surreal.
All this to say, so what?
People are free to think what they want about whatever topic they wish. They are free to believe stories or not.
Whom are we to judge that we are the only ones to hold the truth to the point of sending RCMP to people’s private homes?
Perhaps Kata List Productions fully endorses that video. Perhaps not. Whatever. Bambi did not mind (her feelings were not hurt!).
To conclude this post on a lighter note, Bambi did not have a visit of the RCMP… yet ?, but she agrees: they are “polite and courteous“!
First, we learned yesterday that Mr. Nasrallah, the head of the Hezbollah was so happy over “Trump’s humiliating downfall“, to use his own words (OK, this even if almost half of the American population voted for Mr. Trump :)):
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-election-lebanon-hezbollah-int-idUSKBN27R2UT
Many people, in the USA and around the world, were happy like Mr. Nasrallah. They were genuinely fed-up of Mr. Trump’s politics or pathetic personality traits.
Unlike Mr. Nasrallah though, they do not military control their country or its fate of war and peace.
Unlike him, they do not constitute a state within a state (the latter is is in a free fall now). They do not suffer from American sanctions whilst keeping to serve the interests of another country.
In other terms, they put their own state first.
Bambi wonders what Mr. Nasrallah thinks of the 80% devaluation of the Lebanese currency?
What does he think about the exodus of Lebanon’s brains?
What does he think about the Beirut port explosion that destroyed half, if not more, of his city?
As per the Reuters article below, “Hundreds of disillusioned doctors leave Lebanon, in blow to healthcare“. We can read the story of a few of them, including a pathologist returning to the United States with his family.
As the article describes, this is huge loss to teaching hospitals, as these physicians teach at Lebanese universities in addition to practising medicine:
When will Mr. Nasrallah stop playing with or talking the language of war?
When will he put his own country first, before serving Iran?
When will he show consideration toward his fellow citizens who are deprived of everything (i.e., lives, a government, access to their savings, housing especially post-surrealistic explosions, power, other governmental services like effective garbage processing, medication, decent healthcare, quality of life)?
When will he have enough humility to look in the mirror to see his own reflection, before judging the image of other politicians in other foreign countries?
Mind you, not any country.
A country he regularly calls for its death, like the Iranian regime chants (“death to America“).
Why can’t he turn this chant into “life to Lebanon” instead?!
Contrary to the USA which sees one administration leaving and another one replacing it (the beauty of democracy, even when imperfect!), the tragedy of Lebanon is the following:
Unlike Mr. Trump, Mr. Nasrallah is not potentially changeable after four years.
Unless the Iranian regime changes, he seems to be there forever (there was a reason why the US has been aggressive toward Iran and his group/allies).
In other terms, even if this man retires (from terror, politics, or… life) today, other mini future Hezbollah leading clones will fast replace Mr. Nasrallah.
This is the toxic ideology and reality behind Mr. Nasrallah’s group.
Lebanon deserves much better than this warrior mindset… and hegemony.
Lebanon deserves dignity, democracy, prosperity, and peace.
Citizens criticize our town (Sackville, New Brunswick) for many good reasons. However, today, Bambi would like to pause and thank the Town of Sackville for having remembered to honour our veterans with beautiful banners on the streets (many weeks ahead of November 11)!
In our current sad times where we seem to constantly put down our history, heritage, and values, such a gesture of thank you to our veterans is even more appreciated.
To conclude this post, below you can find: (1). A picture of a painting Bambi took last year in nearby Amherst, Nova Scotia (taken from last year’s post). It moves her heart every time she drives by it; and (2) an older post about Remembrance Day in Sackville from last year (2019… yes, pre-pandemic times).
Like Bambi, Ms. Ensaf Haidar believes that religion is a personal matter.
Apparently like Bambi too, Ms. Ensaf Haidar respects the choice of a majority in a society.
Bill 21 is Québec’s choice (with its majority government).
It is not up to a Canadian Prime Minister (hello Mr. Trudeau :)!) to impose his own approach to secularism on this distinct society.
As a reminder, this is not any society. It is made by, of, and for one of the three founding peoples of our country. It deserves our respect!
Immigrants who arrive to Québec choose it because of its secularism. Read this translated article below and you will understand.
Bambi’s own sisters and friends chose a French school for their children when they moved back from Québec to their birth country a few years ago, precisely because of the culture of secularism of that particular school. They did not go for a religious (i.e., Christian) school.
Like Bambi and Ms. Haidar, they believe that religions are a private matter. This regardless of any particular religion and with all due respect to all of them (tiny Lebanon has 18 religions or sects of religions).
To come back to Québec now, bill 21 includes a “grandfather” clause, which allows existing public servants to keep any religious sign in their positions of authority. In other terms, no one will be losing his or her job because of this new bill. How clever and thoughtful. How moderate too. Too bad that many Canadian media articles “forget” to mention this clause.
We may or may not like bill 21. We may not like how Québec’s society has chosen to live. That’s fine. However, at one point, we must accept that this is its own choice.
If we do not like this historico-cultural approach to secularism in the public sector, well we look for a job in the private sector.
Plus, as mentioned above, when immigrants (and Bambi is an old one) come to Québec, they know how Québeckers live. Again, they chose to live in the Belle Province because of its way of living.
If we absolutely cannot stand the values of this secular society, perhaps it is time to move to live elsewhere (rest of Canada, the UK, or the USA, with its different approach to secularism, called multiculturalism). Bambi has lived in three different provinces. Each part of our country has its own charm.
Further below, you can find a quick translation of an article published today in the Journal de Montréal by Mr. Erika Aubin (with Mr. Michael Nguyen) featuring Ms. Ensaf Haidar who supported bill 21 in court:
tps://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/11/09/la-femme-de-raif-badawi-appuie-la-loi-sur-la-laicite
Thank you Ms. Haidar for being both congruent and fair to Québec, unlike Mr. Trudeau… and sadly the rest of Canada.
In Bambi’s non-expert citizen’s opinion, if our PM keeps pushing thus far his disrespect of Québec, he should not be surprised if people end up rekindling the sovereignty movement.
This being said, Ms. Haidar’s support to bill 21 on the state’s secularism is significant given the tragic and unfair story of her spouse, Mr. Raif Badawi.
Mr. Badawi is still in jail in Saudi Arabia. As a reminder, he was sentenced to 1000 lashes, a 10 year sentence, and a fine of 200,000 Saudi Arabian riyals (CAD $69,381).
Why? Well, he was writing on a blog, just like Bambi! His writings were considered offensive to Islam. By our own Canadian standards, his posts would be simply “benign” (https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/what-did-raif-badawi-write-to-get-saudi-arabia-so-angry).
Bambi prays that Mr. Badawi will be finally free so he can enjoy living with his family in secular Québec, free to be secular or observant!
Because Bambi grew up in Lebanon where Islam is largely moderate, thankfully her experiences or observations are different from Ms. Haidar or the other persons who also testified in court. However, these citizens are courageously pointing to the real issue underlying Islam in many countries unless this religion manages to reform like others (i.e., judaism at one point in its history): In Islam, there is no distinction between private and political life. In Québec, there is.
Which laws should apply in Québec: Sharia, Trudeau’s rigid multiculturalism, or simply Bill 21?
Logically, bill 21 in Québec, according to Bambi.
In Canada, it is multiculturalism.
As simple as that…
——–
Beginning of the article in question:
“Raif Badawi’s spouse supports secularism bill. She testified Monday in Montreal at the trial that seeks to invalidate this bill.
The spouse of political prisoner Raif Badawi, a refugee in Québec since her spouse was sentenced to 1,000 lashes in Saudi Arabia, came out in favour of the secularism bill on Monday at the trial to invalidate it.
“The veil is not religion. Teachers are the leaders for children. We are not going to implicate religion”, Ensaf Haidar told the court.
According to the woman who has become a symbol of freedom of expression, the hijab is a political rather than a religious accessory. To support her claim, she cited Iran as an example, where the wearing of the veil has become compulsory for women in public.
With her testimony, she hopes to convince the judge that the law on secularism is “the only solution to live without religion“.
The law prohibits the wearing of religious symbols by government employees in positions of authority while performing their duties, including judges, police officers and teachers.
Religion, a personal choice
“I left [Saudi Arabia] because it is difficult for a woman to live a normal life there. I’m a Muslim, but religion is personal”, she argued.
Ms. Haidar moved to Lebanon before settling in Sherbrooke in 2013 with her three children.
Her spouse, a freedom of expression and gender equality activist, has been jailed since 2012 in Saudi Arabia. In addition to being sentenced to 10 years in prison, he was also sentenced to 1,000 lashes.
Lawyers who challenge the law, formerly known as “Bill 21”, have not ventured to cross-examine her, unlike witnesses who followed it.
The hijab at the heart of the debate
Since the beginning of the debate surrounding this bill, the hijab has aroused passions.
Last week at the civil trial, teachers testified that it was inconceivable for them to remove their veils, even in a professional setting.
After Ensaf Haidar’s testimony, two other Muslim witnesses addressed the court on Monday to oppose their child having a female teacher wearing a veil.
“The veil is a pernicious Islamic symbol. This is a message that the woman cannot be respectable if she does not wear it because her hair is part of her nakedness, argued Algerian Boushi Laoun.“This is not an education that I want to pass on to my two children“.
A mother from Algeria then explained that she sees the veil as a symbol “which testifies to the inferiority of women“.
“I experienced the arrival of fundamentalist [Islamism]. I saw my freedoms trampled. I could no longer walk the streets [without a veil] without being called names. They wanted to tell me what to wear, even inside my own home, ”she told Judge Marc-André Blanchard.
In 2011, she chose Québec as a land of welcome to, among other things, offer secular education to her daughters.”
Corruption is a human temptation.
Up to a certain point, many politicians, even in so-called developed or high-income countries, may be tempted to receive bribes or a favour in one form or in another.
Luckily, there are ethical and legal processes to avoid or deal with conflict of interests.
Ultimately, it is the people who decide that someone does not deserve their trust anymore as a public servant.
In the Lebanese revolution, people revolted against ALL their leaders (“all of them means all of them”) upon the Lebanese financial crash (i.e., banking fraud) on October 17, 2019.
Despite this, Mr. Gibran Bassil’s name came over and over in songs, jokes, in anger statements or cries of despair on the streets, etc. He was Minister (of Energy… and there is still no power, mind you!).
Without knowing him (since Bambi has left her birth country over 30 years ago), she can recognize his style, which represents both arrogance and arrivism. There is also of course nepotism (which is sadly too common in Lebanon).
You may think: Oh well, isn’t this what political leaders are all about anywhere :)? Maybe, but there is a significant difference in corruption magnitude (in addition to civilized versus uncivilized societies). The extent of corruption is notoriously higher in developing countries… Perhaps, even higher in states heading toward failure?
Perhaps states fail when corruption is taken to endemic levels, without any accountability. Only power talks, including the power of both weapons and elitism. So, imagine when both go hand in hand (i.e., mutually protecting and strengthening each other).
Sadly, in addition to its mafia-like politicians, tiny Lebanon has serious issues (e.g., geopolitics, internal divisions or wars, regional armed conflicts, refugees, financial frauds, pandemics, ammonium nitrate-related surrealistic explosions, etc.).
Is Mr. Bassil the only corrupt figure? Of course not, but he is surely a symbolic figure of Lebanon’s tragedy.
This is why it is not surprising to the people of Lebanon to see him hit by the USA for “corruption”:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-54823667
Below is what Mr. Bassil said on TV, as per 961:
Below is a video by Ms. Dorothy Shea, US Ambassador in Lebanon. It is a statement meant as a reply to Mr. Bassil’s own press conference.
To conclude this post, just for the fun or re-watching this, below is an interview where you can see Mr. Bassil in Davos (January 23, 2020). He had a funny exchange with the Dutch Foreign Trade Minister, Ms. Sigrid Kaag related to his “friends” who privately flew him to Europe 🙂 (as a former Minister).
Iran’s President is already calling for Biden to return to Iran nuclear deal:
If the Iranian regime wants to go back to that deal, what does this tell us about it?
Is this good for any hope for peace in the region, both short- and long-term?
Is this good news for Lebanon (i.e., strengthening Iran and, thus, Hezbollah’s influence over it)?
Is this good for the innocent Iranian people in the longer term (i.e., one day seeing a change of their awful regime)?
The truth of the matter, whether we are allergic to Mr. Trump’s personality or not, Lebanon had imminent hope to be saved from the hell it is FAST diving into.
For example, the USA tried to do something for the corruption in Lebanon (and Syria).
Recently, the USA helped Lebanon in the process of negotiating its Maritime borders with Israel, opening the way for gas production. This is like a miracle by itself. Thank you Mr. Trump’s administration as this can bring much needed prosperity (of course assuming it won’t be stolen by the political corrupt elite).
It is Bambi’s hope that Mr. Biden will be lucid enough in order not to reverse all what his predecessor’s administration did. Not everything was bad, even if it was signed by Mr. Trump.
Yes, he is a big mouth, a vulgar man, a narcissist, and much more! Yet, if Bambi rises above all this, she sees that many of his policies/positions (or rather their effects) made more sense than his awful personality and what the intellectual elites of our world and the media want us to believe.
With all due respect to Mr. Biden (she will leave out Ms. Harris, as this is a different story for a different post), if only to save what is left of her birth country, had Bambi been American, she would have voted for the populist Mr. Trump (perhaps she would have voted differently with other candidates at the other governance levels).
Why is Bambi saying so? Because she is personally fed up of hearing all those who say the good yet empty words in life or blindly follow all the globalized trends without much thought. She is thinking here of our own Mr. Trudeau (et al.). Mr. Biden may be a more powerful or a smarter version of our own Mr. Trudeau (same for Mr. Obama, mind you).
Mr. Trump is a bad boy and a bad loser. However, at least, in his own bad way and with his own family clientelism and pandering to Israel or rather to Christian Evangelicals, he worked for his own country (Canada economically suffered from this). He truly put America first and genuinely wanted to make it great again.
Will Mr. Biden do so concretely and not just in beautiful words? Time will tell. Congratulations to him and best wishes to his administration!
