Much has happened in Lebanon since the official end of its civil war in October 1990.
Regardless of the latest tragedies and crises, April 13 is an unforgettably sad day in the collective memory of this tiny Mediterranean country.
Bambi would like to pause now and offer her birth country a Fairouz’ song called “Chadi” (symbol of this bloody 15-year-long war). By extension, this song is also dedicated to all the civilians of the world who find themselves taken hostages in armed conflicts beyond their control.
Following this moving song, Bambi would like to wish her childhood friend Rita a Happy Birthday! Bambi loves you beyond words, dear Rita ❤️. She thanks you for being in her life across the miles.To make you smile, below is a celebration song for you :). Bambi is grateful to the person who posted this personalized and public song on YouTube.
To conclude this post by integrating the sad and happy memories of the day, it is Bambi’s wish that love, friendship, dignity, humanity, and peace of mind will prevail in everyone’s lives!
Bambi posted the promising news from Québec about its will to come up with a bill to protect academic freedom at its universities, as per the post shown further below. This bill is called Bill 32.
On which planet does CAUT seem to live to say the following: “For academic staff, the strongest protection for academic freedom in Quebec and the rest of Canada has been through labour law. The legislation should not jeopardize that legal foundation.”
If academic freedom foundation is that strong in today’s Canada why are we increasingly observing cases of censorship (suspensions, terminations, final firing, etc.)?
Jointly, across all the known cases of attacks on academic freedom, we can even wonder if being a tenured professor in our Canadian colleges and universities still concretely mean anything today?
To come back to CAUT, the latter seems to consider that, with the proposed bill 32, a potential concern would be the following: Universities may become dependent on the provincial government… but Bambi feels like reminding CAUT that education is a provincial jurisdiction precisely, not a federal one. Is CAUT equally concerned about the dependence of our universities on the federal government, through funding of certain programs? It is only natural to become too loyal to the hand that feeds us in life. Plus, some of such programs may, directly or indirectly, relate to the mindset underlying many of the attacks on academic freedom (regardless of the cause célèbre of the moment).
To conclude this post, unions must be fully transparent with their members, and the general public, about what they do not like in Québec’s proposed bill 32 and why.
First, two of Bambi’s older and old posts, respectively entitled “Why don’t we just… smile?” and “What is happiness for you?“, are shown further below. Second, Bambi will be brief today. It is her wish that the music and/or lyrics of the chosen songs will entertain you, hoping that they can also make you smile :). Enjoy!
Bambi adores this old French song entitled “ça fait rire les oiseaux“!
This English song that Bambi just discovered is also about happiness, taking another approach to it (more spiritual).
This adorable French-Canadian song, entitled “Demain matin, Montréal m’attend” reminds Bambi of her mom. She would like to dedicate it to her… as well as to Bernadette and Claire.
“Comment ça va?”, an award-winning German song (with French and English content) that Bambi listened to it and sang like a frog SO many times. She was 11-year-old at the time… What a nice break from the absurdity of the civil war.
“3 heartbeats” [“3 dakat”!]: This Egyptian love song does not need any introduction! All Bambi’s close friends know how much she loves it. She wants to dedicate it to each one of them now :).
“La ballade des gens heureux“: Mr. Gérard Lenorrman’s beautiful French song is meant for happy people.
This superb Lebanese song is entitled Let’s rejoice in Arabic. Bambi dreams to dedicate it to the people of her birth country when their worries will finally be history…
This French (Acadian) song is offered to Louis, along with Antoine and Robine. To our great memories on the Magdalen Islands :)!
“C’est bon pour le moral“, another joyful old French song by la Compagnie Créole!
“Il était une fois des gens heureux“: What a great French-Canadian song (from Québec). Thank you Ms. Nicole Martin!
This beautiful French song was featured in one of the earlier posts below. Thank you Mr. Christophe Maé for wondering: “Where is happiness”?
“Ya Mustapha” OR “Chérie, je t’aime, chérie je t’adore” is an old yet still famous joyful Egyptian love song (French and Arabic content; https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ya_Mustapha). It reminds Bambi of her parents and their friends. The singer is called Mr. Bob Azzam. He is Egyptian of Lebanese origins. Of note, there is funny version of this melody that kids used to sing, with part of the lyrics related to food, including potatoes :)!
Thank you Ms. Nana Mouskouri for your unique interpretation of Oh Happy Days!
Cyprus is a beautiful island near Lebanon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprus). Indeed, Cyprus is so close to Lebanon that it literally takes only about 20 minutes for an airplane to reach this island from Beirut airport.
Tragically, the Lebanese economic boat has been sinking fast for over three years now.
Luckily, Cyprus is around. The latter is perhaps the only “normal” country of the Middle East. With all due respect to all the countries of the region, by normal, Bambi simply means peaceful… of course despite the very old and unresolved issues (Cyprus and Turkey).
This being said, Bambi adores Cyprus and is happy for this small country if the two initiatives will result in more economic growth and international visibility in its higher education sector. You can imagine that this country must have been hit hard by the pandemic (i.e., touristic sector) and needs to re-invent itself. Well deserved!
What about Lebanon now? Bambi has mixed feelings: both sad, for sure, and also perhaps promising news. Sad to see the Lebanese brain drain, as a direct result of the country’s financial tragedy (this in addition to the Covid-19 pandemic and the large brain drain that followed the surrealistic Beirut port explosion of August 4, 2020). Just to give you a single example, at another university, Bambi heard that 35 of the close colleagues of her cousin already left the country!
To end on a more promising note, the students who can afford to study in Cyprus or those who may have scholarships will benefit greatly from those initiatives. The location of this country is geographically convenient. The students’ adaptation will likely be easy (weather, food, kindness of people, culture, maybe families not too far, etc.).
To conclude this post on a musical note, here is an example of traditional (Folk) music from this superb island for you for fun. Congratulations to Cyprus… Opa!
With the help of her faithful friend Google Translate, Bambi took the time to translate it for you, inserting a couple of her comments here and there.
Dr. Bock-Côté’s article begins here:
“Positive discrimination” programs are based on a thesis that is false, but which is nevertheless treated as official truth by the dominant ideology: Western societies practice systemic discrimination against “minorities”.
It would therefore be necessary to put in place reverse discrimination mechanisms to allow “disadvantaged” groups to obtain positions to which they would not have access.
Injustice
This flawed sociological thesis is an absolute falsehood, and even more so when we talk about Québec [Bambi happens to agree].
We must get rid of certain commonplaces such as that “white men have monopolized power for 2000 years” [Despite the good intentions of many of the people endorsing this view, Bambi finds it sad, and even absurd, to divide people according to their skin colour or, mind you, any other identity-based characteristic like religions, etc. She prefers to focus on our shared humanity and on the uniqueness AND richness of each person we encounter in life. We walk together a certain journey, short or long, and we learn from each other].
Who affirms this spreads without embarrassment his/her non-sense [“sa bêtise” in the original French text] and lack of culture.
Some reminders here: The significant demographic presence of “racial” minorities is more than recent in the history of Québec. Therefore, social organization could not be based on their repression.
French Canadians, white as they were, were themselves treated as negligible numbers at home. To see the world through the prism of race, we forget that countries are not interchangeable [Bambi agrees], and that Québec is not a state in the southern United States [indeed. In turn, this state is not Québec].
Advocates of affirmative action keep repeating confusing statistics they don’t understand. They also forget the fact that a statistical disparity is not necessarily explained by a discriminatory system [related to this, Bambi recommends the excellent book of Mr. Kenny Xu, “An inconvenient minority”; For instance, there are also culturally-based preferences, which have nothing to do with discrimination, like for instance Lebanese youth seen massively more in an Engineering program than in a psychology program. Are they being discriminated at in psychology? No, they are not. We can also think of Québeckers who happen to be of African origins found more, and excelling, in running or those with a black skin present in the music genre called jazz, etc.].
Québec
There is no systemic racism in Québec [Bambi happens to agree; she has lived there for over 15 years]. But there is systematic discrimination against white men in particular, in cultural and intellectual circles, as we have seen at Laval University [How sad, again despite any noble intention]. This racial discrimination against white men is trivialized and widespread.
Let us recall an elementary principle: refusing a black man because he is black is racism. Refusing a white man because he is white is racism too [absolutely; same analogy with what happened during the Lebanese 15-year-long war to civilians of all confessions: Muslim, Druze, Christian, Jewish, Atheist, etc.].
Those who defend positive discrimination defend a racism that they consider acceptable because it targets white people [again, despite the stated, or maybe even heart-felt good intention, such programs come with long-term social toxicity… Of course, Bambi can be wrong. However, from her second life in a country with religion-based quotas deeply rooted in its political sector, she is convinced of the following: racial-based policies may lead to social tension. Little by little, this tension may result in a strife. Pushed to the extreme, this can destroy a country…].”
Of course, in an ideal world, we would not need governmental intervention to protect academic freedom of university teachers.
However, as per ICI RDI’s media article, given the increasing “slippery slope” of self-censorship, Québec plans to better define and protect academic freedom with a legislative framework.
Québec’s idea is that no word is off limit while teaching in the classroom.
Of course, we need to wait to see what this legislative framework would look like to fully rejoice. However, Bambi feels like saying, just like her two friends: Way to go Québec! If she may, she would like to offer la Belle Province a song. Tonight, it will be “Gens du pays” of Mr. Gilles Vigneault :).
Lebanon has many brilliant chess players. Some win tournaments abroad. Some participate in domestic tournaments, even post-explosions and in pandemics.
It is refreshing to finally read a piece of happy news related to Lebanon. Bravo Kari and “Mabrouk” to you and to your proud family from Bambi :)! Keep up your passion, talent, practice, and attitude!
Of course, Bambi cannot conclude this brief post without a song to Kari and his parents. Guess which song? Of course, it is the Mabrouk song to their/our champion :).
