Month: December 2020

Bambi is grateful to God because her mom and dad survived the Beirut port explosion.

In all honesty, even four months later, she still cannot understand how they were not even injured every time she looks at the picture of their destroyed place. Deep inside, she is convinced that is because it was not their time to go… as simple as that.

In life, we come to the world without even asking for it and we usually go not knowing when it ill be the time to start this one-way, luggage-free, trip (in Bambi’s mind, this is the best trip in a lifetime as she does not need to pack for it :)).

Seriously now, Bambi’s parents are still repairing their apartment, slowly but surely. Sadly, other neighbours were not as lucky. Many lost their lives on the streets, in their places, and in the nearby hospital. Some survived but lost they loved ones. Yet many more were badly injured whilst being homeless.

Well, out of respect for those neighbours who are grieving, Bambi’s parents decided not to decorate their balcony with their annual Christmas lights and red decoration. They just decorated their living room with their beautiful Christmas tree.

Today, Bambi, received a moving picture from them, along with a cute WhatsApp call to tell her about a Christmas tree that is uniting Canada, Acadie, and Lebanon :). At first, Bambi did not understand her dad’s comment. She thought they were watching a TV show or movie about Atlantic Canada. Well, it turned out that the small flags of Canada, Lebanon, and even Acadie, are in their own tree in Beirut, Lebanon! They kindly told Bambi the following: “Because you are not coming this Christmas to visit us from far away, we are honouring your country” (and their beloved second one too :)!).

Without further due, you can see this picture below (Bambi asked for the permission to share it).

Thank you mom and dad for honouring Canada and for having brought your family to safety to it during civil war. Without your move, Bambi would have not been able to call Canada home.

May your Christmas decoration bring you comfort, mom and dad.

May the Christmas spirit always shine in your hearts… and hopefully in those in charge of your country.

Bambi misses you. She hopes/trusts she will see you ASAP when that tiny yet mean virus gives our world a break!

First, here is Mr. Yves-François Blanchet’s tweet, including his Bloc Québecois (BQ) party’s statement:

If you do not understand French, here is a quick translation of the tweet above: “I am not that interested by the motivation of the Leader of the Conservative party to suggest that residential schools may have had another intention than the acculturation of the Indigenous people. Nevertheless, I wish that the real history, even if it is troubling, be admitted, known, and taught“.

Now, below, you can read the official statement of the BQ, as published in French first, followed by a quick translation into English for you.

Thank you Mr. Blanchet for your wise and straightforward words.

Bambi was curious to see the reaction of Ms. Jody Wilson-Raybould. As of 10:23 PM, there was no reaction on her Twitter account. Bambi will allow herself to say the following: Thank you Ms. Jody Wilson-Raybould for not playing politics over either mere stupidity (or malice?!) of your peers. As usual, you remain focused on the crying issues of your fellow Indigenous people, without any virtue signalling or pandering. Thank you for your authenticity, which is rare in politics!

Le Bloc Québécois s’inquiète des propos du chef conservateur sur les pensionnats autochtones

“Le Bloc Québécois s’inquiète des propos du chef conservateur sur les pensionnats autochtones

Shawinigan, le 16 décembre 2020 – Le Bloc Québécois s’inquiète des propos tenus par le chef conservateur, Erin O’Toole, devant des militants de son parti. La lecture historique que fait le chef du PCC est erronée. Yves-François Blanchet souligne qu’on ne peut pas ainsi confondre une volonté d’éducation des enfants autochtones et génocide culturel.

Le chef du Bloc Québécois prend toutefois acte de l’admission d’erreur du chef conservateur. Il considère qu’il faut plutôt saisir l’occasion et, au contraire, enseigner l’histoire réelle de la relation entre les Autochtones et le Canada qui, pendant des décennies, avait pour intention de faire disparaître un ensemble de cultures riches et diversifiées en assimilant les enfants autochtones dans un réseau de pensionnats administrés par le clergé.“

“The Bloc Québécois worries about the Conservative leader’s comments on residential schools

Shawinigan, December 16, 2020 – The Bloc Québécois is concerned about remarks made by Conservative leader Erin O’Toole in front of his party activists. The historical reading of the CCP leader is wrong. Yves-François Blanchet emphasizes that we cannot thus confuse a desire to educate Indigenous children with cultural genocide.

The leader of the Bloc Québécois, however, takes note of the Conservative leader’s admission of error. He considers that one must rather seize the opportunity to, on the contrary, teach the real history of the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Canada, which for decades intended to wipe out a set of rich and diverse cultures by assimilating Indigenous children into a network of clergy-run boarding schools.“

Bambi would like to begin this post by congratulating the winners Biden-Harris.

She is officially congratulating them, even if deep inside she remains skeptical about the voting process of this election (as an observer from far). She is saying so, not because of Mr. Trump’s legal battle or some American States’ suits. It is rather because these elections have world-wide high stakes. As Bambi’s spouse has always said: “In politics, things are often not what they seem to be”.

So, could Mr. Trump be perhaps right about systemic cheating, even if he is a narcissistic President? Or is he a lunatic freak who does not know how to acknowledge loss?

Anyhow, with all due respect to all the lawyers of the world (she is in love with one of them ?), she does not trust them much, as politicians. She wonders sometimes whether other professionals may not be more trustworthy as public servants (the latter thought has even influenced her own vote in the past).

Related to the law profession, let’s focus on Ms. Harris now (ie., a lawyer who is married to another attorney, by the way). Here is what is puzzling for Bambi about this politician: In 2019, she told American citizens that “she believes the women” accusing Mr. Biden of rape/sexual harassment. A few months following this statement, in 2020, she told them that she “believes in Joe” whilst endorsing his campaign.

In which statement was Ms. Harris authentic?

In the first or in the second?

What has changed in Mr. Biden from 2019 to 2020? Chances are he is still the same man (either innocent/wrongly accused or guilty/responsible of his acts).

Chances are Ms. Harris too, the same woman who is playing the game of politics. In Bambi’s non-expert citizen opinion, she may be an arriviste… but all the media of the world are only putting the accent on her being a woman or a “coloured” woman.   

At one point, Ms. Harris endorsed the BLM movement and that too was far from being authentic or wise, at least in Bambi’s own mind. Mind you, interestingly, the authenticity of this endorsement was later questioned by one of the co-founders of this movement. BLM supporters reported feeling “used” by Biden-Harris, to use their own words. Bambi is citing and agrees with them, even if she is not fond of this group herself. Perhaps this is called “pandering” to groups of interests? Sadly, this is a Canadian speciality in politics. For instance, check how both Mr. Trudeau and one of his ministers, along with Mr. O’Toole, Chief of the Opposition, all made a statement about the 84^th birthday of Mr. Agha Khan. The question is not about the goodness of this man full of philanthropy and beautiful universal values, such as pluralism (he is an Imam for a world minority Shia Muslim group called, the Ismaili: https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2020/12/13/statement-prime-minister-birthday-his-highness-aga-khan).

The question is why should we appear like losing all self-respect when it comes to people or countries with power (i.e., money)? Can’ we be respectful of philanthropists and visionary leaders, without going out of our way in what looks more like pandering?

To come back to Ms. Harris, Bambi was curious lately. She searched her Twitter account. She read that she describes herself as “She/Her”. Bambi could not help not to wonder: Is she being authentic in her description? If so, good for her for being assertive. In other terms, does she believe all this? Or is she rather a compulsive compliant with societal trends? Or, even worse, is she an arriviste who knows how to say the “right” (politically correct) thing, without conviction?

Only time will tell Bambi if her intuition about this politician is right or wrong.

For now, she will say the following: Between Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris, Bambi trusts Mr. Biden more.

Between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, she does not trust anyone of them, even if she may have more sympathy for Mr. Biden.

Yet, she thinks that Mr. Trump’s elections would have been better news for her birth country, than a Biden-Harris team with the same establishment of earlier years. Why is she saying so? Well, in her mind, if Mr. Biden is a continuation of Mr. Obama’s legacy, this is not promising for tiny Lebanon (Mr. Obama said all the beautiful things in the world, but the actions were rather useless). Sadly, Lebanon is under the total grip of Iran… to the point that it is increasingly isolated by Arab countries (ironically, many of the latter are now closer to Tel Aviv than to Beirut).

The question that matters the most to Bambi is the following: Will Mr. Biden (and/or Ms. Harris) offer Lebanon to Iran on a silver platter?

Or will it be Mr. Macron/the Europeans who will be the ones responsible for such a deal?

Of course, all this would not be possible had MANY corrupt Lebanese politicians (along with some connected citizens) not been blindly cheering for or benefiting from the alliance with Iran?

If she may, Bambi would like to post a comment by a sarcastic reader of the CBC of an article entitled “Higgs facing carbon-tax squeeze from Ottawa“. The article title is referring to Mr. Trudeau’s announcement of a $170/tonne carbon tax by 2030 (on Canadian oil (i.e., Alberta). If Bambi understands well, this carbon tax does not apply to imported foreign oil though (e.g. from Saudi Arabia). How fair is that to the citizens of Alberta?

First, although Bambi did not read that article in details, she could not help not to think: Oh well, only Mr. Higgs is facing this squeeze? Not every single citizen will do so, especially in our tough economic times? Bambi is asking because the title of this article seems to insinuate that, minus our NB Premier, we are all lovers of taxes. How could we not be fond of taxes when when they have appealing name? We would be bad citizens otherwise.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/higgs-facing-carbon-squeeze-1.5841001

Second, below you can read the funny comment that comes from a citizen called Mr. Dave Shimla. Bambi could not help not to laugh when she read it, with all due respect to our federal government’s green (or so-called green?) policies:

“I love carbon tax, I’ve noticed a lot less carbon in the air since I’ve been paying it. Thank you government for this additional tax on almost everything I buy. When can I expect to pay a covid tax? or are you combining it with the carbon tax? ”

To conclude this post, entertaining our sense of humour as citizens is our best medicine. At least sense of humour is still tax-free :). Thank goodness!

Ms. Kinda Khatib is just 20 years old.

Her first sin: She believed in a new Lebanon where she can live in peace, study, find a job, love, and be free. Like MOST of the Lebanese population, she was active in the revolt and took the streets to demand justice when the financial crash occurred on October 17, 2019.

Her second, and perhaps most fatal, sin was to tweet making fun of the President of Lebanon, Mr. Michel Aoun and the Hezbollah (the two are close allies). Her tweets are still available and Bambi was able to read and watch. She also tweeted a picture showing how the Hezbollah returned the remains of an Israeli solider to his family, from Syria if Bambi understood well. She wrote in Arabic: When is the turn of the hundreds of Lebanese people jailed in Syrian prisons to also return home?

In Lebanon, you cannot criticize those truly in charge (the groups of the two allies above). You can criticize anyone else (or all of them together), but not point to those excesses or abuses. If you do so, you are a traitor.

For now, it is prison with hard labour. Tomorrow, what would it be? Executions like in Iran (with the poor journalist called Mr. Zam. May he rest in peace… https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/iran-ruhollah-zam-1.5839054):

Bambi does not know Ms. Kinda Khatib, but she was moved by her story when she was first jailed in April (hence this earlier post shown below).

Today, a coward judge accused her of collaboration with the “Zionist” enemy, as per two articles, one in the Naharnet (further below) and the other in Hezbollah’s own Al Manar:

https://english.almanar.com.lb/1221717

By doing so, they would scare her and scare others through her.

The truth of the matter is that citizens are too lucid to be fooled.

So, Hezbollah, you may perhaps have an interest in questioning your methods and listening to the voices of young people. They are telling you something: They want a change. They want to live in dignity and safety. They want to love and live in peace. Is it too much to ask for?

As for Mr. Aoun, with all due respect to his position, he is neither a king nor a saint. He is a politician. As a politician of his senior age, he must have a thick skin by now. So, enough of deception and stupidity for God’s sake!

To conclude this post, Bambi will end with a little prayer: May Mr. Biden (assuming he is now officially the President of the USA) end up surprising Bambi by being both lucid and courageous when it comes to Iran ( https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/14/iran-says-rejoin-nuclear-deal-within-hour-us ). Lebanon’s fate, including Kinda and many younger and older people, is hanging on it!

Thank you.

Kinda El Khatib, a young Lebanese activist, is accused of «collaboration with *the Israeli enemy* and violation of the bill on boycotting Israel»

Bambi would like to thank Ms. Roula Douglas who re-tweeted this moving picture shown below. It consists of a large candle with all the 200 names of the citizens who were torn from their loved ones in the surrealistic Beirut port explosion of August 4th, 2020.

As a reminder, two of the Beirut victims were toddlers. This is their first Christmas as “angels”, so to speak. Ironically, had they been still alive, they could have been enjoying watching or playing near a Christmas tree like the one in the background of the candle.

May all the victims of the explosion rest in peace and may their families find the courage to keep moving forward in life.

May all those still without homes find warmth in this forthcoming winter season (initially, the estimated stats were 300, 000 families. Yesterday, Bambi heard on France24 news a number as high as 700, 000).

Let’s also remember the 6000+ who have been injured, including many children who lost an eye.

Of course, everyone else has been affected, whether directly or indirectly by hit by this tragedy. Some are geographically closer. Others are miles away and yet their hearts exploded with Beirut on that day.

To remember means to honour loved ones.

To remember is to support all the families and small businesses directly affected by the explosion.

To remember is to demand justice for the victims and their families.

To remember is also to refuse to blindly find excuses for negligence or criminality.

To remember is to wonder: Can the authorities guarantee that such tragedy will not happen again in Beirut or anywhere else in the country?

To remember with both a personalized spiritual symbol (a candle) AND a fun seasonal decoration (a Christmas tree, poinsettia, lights) is a message of hope in the middle of sorrow.

To remember means to re-choose life instead of despair and… to remain connected, through an artistic piece of collective memory, to loved ones who died too early. For what? For whom? Does it make any sense?

Christmas is all about love. Christmas is about the hope of renewal.

Let’s hope the new year will know how to bring brighter days for tiny Lebanon… and for the whole world struggling with the coronavirus pandemic and its economic impact, including us here in Canada.

In the Globe and Mail, we can read an opinion article by a columnist, called Ms. Erica Ifill and entitled “Ottawa claims diversity is our strength. So why is it being sued by Black civil servants?”

First, here is the article in question:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-ottawa-claims-diversity-is-our-strength-so-why-is-it-being-sued-by/

The article is full of funny claims, such as the following:

First, notice the language: Black deserves a capitalized B, but not white :).

Plus, what does she mean by black and white? Are all blacks or whites (or Blacks and Whites :)?) interchangeable? Is their hue colour the only identity characteristic that matters here? For instance, how would this author classify one of Bambi’s former peers who happens to be both African (with a black skin) and Lebanese. Where does she fit? As a Québecker? Canadian? Human being? Herself, period…. or from ancestry from both Central Africa and Lebanon? Yes, she has a black skin, but she was (probably still is) wise enough in order not to fall into the trap of reducing the richness of her individuality to just a skin colour!

Second, the author uses the term “racialized”. This terms is heavily charged with a connotation of victimhood, to begin with. So, these federal employees in question suing the government are not Canadians like the rest of us? Are they just holier because they are “victims”… Therefore, they are. Just because of that, they would deserve to go to the top of the pyramid fast and faster than any other hard-working colleague? Bambi does not know the details of this story. This article seems to be telling us that they are suing our federal government now for the sake of or in the name of equity.

Now, equity is usually a good concept or value in life. However, one must be mindful of the equity of what? For example, the equity between people? Or the equity of the outcomes (of a sport competition or of a career milestone or a merit-grant competition)? Or the equity of success of a business in life?

In this particular situation and beyond it in a society, is it the equity of outcomes or of opportunities of public servants? If it is the former (i.e., outcomes), this is unrealistic in life (on paper, it may sound appealing like communism, but this is not feasible… and likely not even desirable from an evolutionary perspective). If it is the latter (i.e., opportunities), Bambi is all for it. Providing basic rights to all, respect for all, opportunities and training to employees to help them further their skills, etc.

Perhaps MOST importantly to our public servants, we need to fix their Phoenix pay system to pay them all on time and with the accurate amount. To be truly fair, we need not to be paying those at the top of the pyramid (our own PM et al.) with a different functional system than the rest of the public servants at lower positions in the hierarchy of services with Phoenix. This being said, Bambi has not followed updates about the latter problem for some time now. She hopes the problem has been finally fixed now.

Third, and related to the point above, what happened to hard work in life? What happened to ambitions? What happened also to personal and family choices? Not everyone wants those jobs at the top as they come with more leadership responsibility. Plus, are these employees suing our government now ALL competent and fit for the positions they are claiming they have been prevented from getting because of the so-called “systemic racism”? Perhaps some are. Perhaps some would be with more equitable opportunities (e.g., training, more professional development skills, and support from their managers, etc.).

So, no Ms. Ifill, not everything in life is to be blamed on what you call “intersectionality” of victimhood. If there is one thing that life has taught Bambi thus far, is that she refuses to see herself as a victim. She takes full responsibility for her choices in life, both professional and personal. If we start playing the victim card for any unfair situation we find ourselves in, we fall in the trap of narcissism in life. We risk becoming the abusers of those we claim we have been abused by. Of course, by no means, Bambi is saying that people should not seek justice for themselves! However, she is just saying the following: no one is immune to such a trap, no person, no group, no society or part of a society.

So, a piece of advice to all of us or anyone of us, human or deer citizens of Canada: Enough of cultic levels of wokeness, whether we are truly illuminated or pretending to be so to either keep one’s job or de-stress (like perhaps your media employer or our institutions, etc.). Why don’t we take a break, at least until the holidays to see more clearly. Perhaps this pause will help us in realizing that we are ruining our country with our own stupidity.

Bambi would like to thank her friend Leila for sharing this thoughtful short video of Ms. El-Yafi on the Beirut explosion in which she shared her thoughts, along with a couple of moving stories.

Bambi recalls having listened to Ms. El Yafi in an interview with European media immediately following the explosion. What an articulate and clever Lebanese political adviser who holds a Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She speaks fluent Arabic, French, and English.

According to Ms. El-Yafi’s own words (+ tears…), “… Justice is the cornerstone of healthy nation-building. We will strategically pursue it, and we will achieve it. Onwards”.

Before sharing this video with you, Bambi cannot help not to wonder about the following (after watching the video, she is even more puzzled…!).

What happened in Beirut on August 4^th, 2020?

Was the port blast (or blasts?) due to criminal negligence only?

Or was it criminal?

Or both?!

Who is behind this tragedy?

Did Israel attack by airplane or was it a coincidence that airplanes may have been flying over Beirut then (mind you, they regularly fly at low altitude and scare people)?

Did Israel know about the ammonium nitrate? Or just about the other stuff, called weapons, that explodes too?

Did they attack the port (first explosion at least?)? Why and why then?

Did a third unknown party attack?

Did anyone attack?

What is the role of the Hezbollah, which is notoriously known to control this wharf of the port?

Or was Beirut’s surrealistic explosion a stupid accident merely due to the incompetence of the ruling mafia-like elite of tiny bankrupt Lebanon?

Who knows? Perhaps this tragedy was not related to neither Israel nor Hezbollah? Or just to the former, but not the latter? But if that is the case, to cite another good friend of Bambi, why are both Israel and Hezbollah silent about each other (no one is blaming the other)? Since when?!

So many questions and yet no answer is possible without an international investigation…This being said, the tragedy of tiny Lebanon is that it just had the ultimate evidence that UN tribunals can be jokes (as per Bambi’s earlier post today on Hariri’s killing). Sadly, the UN seems to be at the mercy of powerful entities (today the latter are perhaps China along with the Islamists of our world).

To conclude this post, sadly, regardless of any justice for the victims of the Beirut explosion, as Bambi’s own mom told her today, “This explosion brought us SO MANY years backward…”.  

Bambi read today that the UN international court sentenced the killer of Lebanon’s Hariri to life in prison. As a reminder, this explosion of February 14, 2005 killed not only the PM, but also MANY Beirutis. Lebanon has contributed half of the funding for this Special Tribunal. How is that fair to the Lebanese taxpayers?

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20201211-international-court-to-sentence-killer-of-lebanon-s-hariri

Of course, there is also the question of whether that scapegoat killer will be handed over by the Hezbollah, but this not the focus of this post.

This post is about the lucidity of Lebanese citizens… and their sarcasm.

Bambi read in Naharnet readers’ comment section the following exchange:

One individual wrote: “Only one guy carried out this entire assassination? Why not sentence the head of snake?”

A woman replied: “Actually, it was a snake with two heads: Assad and Nasrallah”.

In this short exchange, you have the whole truth… If you do not believe Bambi, you can re-read this 2010 CBC article to refresh your memory:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/cbc-investigation-who-killed-lebanon-s-rafik-hariri-1.874820

May Mr. Erakat rest in peace. Bambi was sad to hear about his death a month ago.

She respects these two Palestinian diplomats who devoted their career and life to the Palestinian cause.

Both are highly educated and love their nation. They would have loved to see it sovereign… Perhaps it is not too late for Dr. Achraoui? Is there still hope?

It is Bambi’s hope that, as Dr. Achraoui wrote in her letter of resignation (as per her Twitter account), more youth and women would be involved in politics.

How about elections also?

Of course, according to Bambi, it would be nice to see more secularism in the Palestinian public life (i.e., the Islamism of Hamas) and more independence from Iran’s influence.

As for Israel, is it too complicated to stop colonization and make Jerusalem shared for both co-existing nations?