Thank you/Merci Ms. Annamie Paul for standing up for the Uighur Muslim minority in China

Many Canadian MPs have asked for the relocation of the 2022 Winter Olympics to denounce how China mistreats its Uighur Muslim minority. An open letter has even circulated. The latter has been signed by Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Bloc Québécois), Mr. Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (Liberal Party), Ms. Kelly Block (Conservative Party), Ms. Jenny Kwan (NDP), and Ms. Elizabeth May (Green Party). Thank you.

Below, you can see the virtual press conference on this topic by Ms. Annamie Paul, Leader of the Green Party of Canada. To conclude this post on a friendly note, Bambi has always associated the name of Ms. Annamie with the French word “une amie” (a friend) to remember it. Today, the latter has shown that she is a friend to humanity.

“Lipanan Im Yergir”: Mr. Elie Berberyan’s moving song for Lebanon in Armenian

Bambi fell in love with Mr. Berberyan’s moving song in which he expresses his love for his motherland, Lebanon. She is sharing it with you in a video where you can see the beauty of his tiny officially bankrupt yet always beautiful Mediterranean country.

Thanks to Mr. Anthony Rahayel for posting Mr. Berberyan’s song. Mind you, the last time Bambi watched Mr. Rahayel’s posts, they were highly disturbing videos streamed live immediately following the Beirut port surrealistic explosions of August 4th, 2020.

Even if the latter tragedy remains unaccountable (imagine!), and despite Lebanon’s other complex challenges, today’s post is about patriotic love, beauty, good memories, peace, and hope for brighter days for Lebanon!

To conclude this post on a lighter note, those who know Bambi closely may think that this man is related to her… Mmm, perhaps he would minus the last two letters of his family name :).

Mmm, is there is anything left that is not racist in Canada?

The list presented below could literally go on and on.

Indeed, for fun, just google “systemic racism” (or even just racism) and see the number of hits you will get. For fun, Bambi tried it yesterday eve. Although the number of hits is incredibly high, it remains much lower than the latest obsession (pre-pandemic, at least), which was “climate change“.

Bambi may be wrong but she believes that we will keep hearing about this systemic racism for a long time. However, unlike climate change, wokeism (as a radical ideology or obsession) has the potential to have a more negative impact on societies, especially in the long-term. Indeed, politicians who flirt with wokeism (or other radical ideologies?) are playing a dangerous divisive game. It can backfire on all of us one day, as Bambi had seen in other places in a second life. Trust her, if we are not lucid enough, tensions, and even a strife, can occur one day (no country is immune).

To come back to the racist list below, you will see that it even includes kids who thus need to be raised as “anti-racist” (as per the CBC News video at the end of this post).

The underlying idea of all these media articles is that Canada is deeply racist and we are the most racist citizens on the face of the earth. This is why, as shown below, some entities (i.e., Ville de Montréal) have recently created anti-racism, high-paid, governmental positions to find more (systemic) racism.

Bambi will stop her blahblahblah here to share some examples from her online list (to this, you can of course add all the pamphlets or posters that you see in real life). Before doing so, if she may, she will conclude this post with a question to our federal leaders, especially Mr. Trudeau in the top position. She recalls having already raised the question a while ago on the same blog: “If Canada is that racist, don’t you think that we need to either slow down on immigration processes, which are increasingly too slow, even if ambitious (https://pm.gc.ca/en/mandate-letters/2021/01/15/minister-immigration-refugees-and-citizenship-supplementary-mandate) OR… at least be honest with future newcomers to spare them a devastating cultural shock related to racial injustice upon their arrival :)?

——-

An extract for the online list in question (not in alphabetical order):

Basketball:

Technology:

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/canadian-tech-orgs-form-anti-racism-coalition-to-bring-diversity-to-innovation-1.1458050

Medicine/Healthcare:

https://www.cmaj.ca/content/193/2/E55

https://www.dal.ca/news/2021/02/04/racism-and-covid-19.html

Banks/Banking sector:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/ottawa-should-require-banks-to-share-race-related-data-on-services-business-groups-1.5298451

Justice system:

https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2021/02/03/tackle-systemic-discrimination-in-canadian-courts-justin-trudeau-tells-justice-minister.html

Construction:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/afro-canadian-construction-association-officially-launches-for-black-history-month-1.5894555

Environments/air/pollution:

https://www.halifaxtoday.ca/local-news/dalhousie-professor-asks-public-to-support-federal-bill-addressing-environmental-racism-2902737

School/college/university campus:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/when-antiracist-manifestos-become-antiracist-wrecking-balls/617841/

Entire provinces (i.e., Québec!):

Cities:

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/bochra-manai-named-montreal-s-first-ever-commissioner-for-the-fight-against-racism-1.5265539

Even kids…

Please Mr. Mark Carney, let us finish the Covid-19 pandemic before you scare us with your climate change blahblahblah

In the BBC, we can read an article entitled: “Mark Carney: Climate crisis deaths ‘will be worse than Covid‘”:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55944570

Mmm, are you China’s agent or lawyer now :)? Because this is what you seem to be telling us through the text of journalist Sharanjit Leyl:

Although China continues to build coal-fired power plants, and draws about 70% of its power from fossil fuel, the country is a crucial part of the solution.

“There clearly are issues in terms of coal in China, and the sooner China moves on that, the better for them and for the world.

“But China also produces 60% of the global solar photovoltaic panels. It is also the largest producer of electric vehicles. So China has many sides to this.

The US has the “largest and most sophisticated financial sector” along with the “engineering and technological expertise” to get to net zero emissions, he said.

Part of his role at the UN is to tap into this financial sector.

It is the “power of money” that will ultimately play the biggest role in combating climate change, he said.

“We’re getting the system in a position where, whether it’s a bank, or somebody who’s investing a small amount of savings in the market, or your pension, they can choose [how it is invested].

“They have the information and they can choose to be part of the solution, transitioning to net zero, or be part of the problem.”

So, Bambi will summarize your words with sarcasm: Climate change will kill us more than the coronavirus. Money redistribution is the solution. China is holy. The US will pay for the world’s sins.

Oh, the article did not mention Mr. Trump, perhaps the larger interview mentioned in the article would? Clearly, he was an obstacle to all this climate change saga and its proposed solution (i.e., Paris accord). He has been eliminated now. You have carte blanche to suck money out of the USA (with the agreement of the new US administration). So, why the need to still scare people like that?

What a dignified lady: An interview with Mr. Lokman’s Slim’s mother after his assassination

Bambi would like to thank her friend Mary for sharing this inspiring short interview with Ms. Slim. She is the mother of the brutally assassinated Mr. Lokman Slim. What a dignified mother. They broke her heart yet not her soul. Like her son, she is a free thinker, a writer, and a researcher (the journalist referred to her as “an encyclopedia“). Bambi searched the net and found what she believes to be his article in An Anhar. He signed it as follows: “We are all your children, Ms. Slim“.

Bambi did not know this distinguished woman before. She salutes her sorrow as well as her wise yet sharp words. Below, she will allow herself a free translation into English (the interview was conducted in Arabic). Before doing so, Bambi would like to cite Mr. Gibran Khalil Gibran who wrote: “Your Lebanon is not my Lebanon“… his words about his birth country are sadly still very relevant, perhaps today more than ever. Indeed, the Lebanon of the Slims is clearly not the Lebanon of those who ordered his killing or those who executed it, to use his mother’s words.

This being said, here are the words of Ms. Slim verbatim:

“… I say that they slaughtered me because Lokman, in addition to being my son, was my friend and my partner in thinking, reading, and debating… and what did they gain? They lost an energy that existed for Lebanon. I am not just talking about a source of energy for me. I am talking about Lokman as a man of knowledge, a man who reads, who writes, and analyzes. I am selfish. I am his mother. I need him. He is my son, but if they think of their country, they do not get rid of such sources of energy [= human capital]. What did they gain? They spent on him 5 or 6 bullets? Many thanks. Many thanks for their generosity!

The journalist then asks her if she has a message to share. She replied: “What shall I say? Here, we have been raised that education is the most important thing, same for the thoughts, and for the good manners. And then when the world may contradict us, we retire home, we read, write, and analyze. There is no need to expose ourselves. Life is tough, but people should not become criminals. I am not just talking about those who executed the crime. I blame more those who ordered/incited it. There is someone who incited and those who incite are to be blamed more than those who committed the crime. Those who execute crimes are usually like a machine. They just deliver. It is like a kitchen’s mixer. I may program it to make it work. It works, but who is the responsible? The cook making it work, the cook inciting it. I can only say that he is the responsible only. That’s all I can say.”

The journalist asked Ms. Slim if she is accusing anyone or leaving the matter to the justice system. She replied: Of course, I am leaving this to the justice system and this afternoon my son Hady is arriving [to Beirut] and he is a lawyer who teaches in France. He is the one to look at all the laws or the investigation, etc. However, what matters is to find a solution because, if I recall, when Mr. Kamel Mrouwa was assassinated, my husband was his lawyer and that story remained unaccountable. Me, I refuse that they do the same with the case of the murder of Lokman. This I refuse it!”

To conclude this post, bless your broken (“slaughtered“, to use your own term) heart, Ms. Slim. May your son rest in peace. Thank you for having raised your beautiful family with such wonderful values, with courage/dignity, and with the most precious gift in the world: Being/remaining free thinkers (despite the pressures, threats, and criminality). May your final words be heard: May impunity finally ends in Lebanon!

Conformity: Isn’t it easy to be a rebel/activist when we are on a governmental payroll?

We read the same pieces of so-called journalistic opinions almost recycled, word by word, from one mainstream media to the other.

We see and hear intellectuals and public figures of our country repeating the same mantras of trendy ideas. Some seem convinced. Some sound like machines.

We read and hear university professors, writing in their profiles that they are “white settler scholars” living and working “on the unceded and unconquered land of…” or “…”.

We hear sport associations and scholars in Montréal totally forgetting their own history and repeating clichés or mantras that are not even accurate, but who cares? Science and facts do not matter nowadays. Only ideologies and select lived experiences are important. It does not even matter if the “lived experience” truly took place sometimes. What matters is a whole mob using it to destroy and an artist’s reputation or cancel an author, etc.

And then ironically and hypocritically they tell us that conspiracy ideas are to be banned.

Jesus would have said:“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

In other terms, why the double-standards and why can’t we see our own contradictions? Why do we project on others our own faults or why we only focus on theirs?

Some scholars go out of their way to tell us how bad “whiteness” is. A weird term, isn’t it? We should ban whole fields, such as Classics because of it. Thankfully, there are voices of reason who still dare to question and write before being perhaps cancelled one day (https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-the-classics-d60). If Bambi may, she would like to thank her good friend/relative who shared the above. Some people do not see the absurdity. Some people already have a justification handy for each absurdity.

We are sadly becoming a society too dependent on our government. Is this ideal in life for creativity or entrepreneurship? All what we do is conform and repeat. Re-repeat and conform… whilst calling ourselves activists or rebels?

Does anyone still recall the wise words of Mr. John F. Kennedy’s: “Conformity is the jailor of freedom and the enemy of growth”. What would he have thought about all this had he still been alive, Bambi wonders?

And what about Mr. Martin Luther King, Jr.? Chances are he would be turning in his grave now after seeing what is happening to his dream? Yes, his beautiful dream that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”.

Now character and merit are being presented as being the product of privilege (some parents on some American school boards call the standards of merit and excellence racist. Does that make any sense to you, if you happen to be a parent killing yourself to provide an education to your children?).

Sadly, in Mr. King’s country and in Bambi’s, society and political elites want us to only focus on our skin colour/hue and interpret everything through the lens of race, racism, anti-racism, and “racialization”. But isn’t it ironically racist when we are too obsessed with race to begin with? Plus, do you really believe that this will bring more justice to the daily life of ordinary Americans and Canadians?

To conclude this post, with an example that may seem too exaggerated to you. To describe the irony of the conformity of our society’s elite on the government’s payroll and the hypocrisy/uselessness of this phenomenon (despite any individual good intentions), imagine the following: Canada is Lebanon and the governmental elite there is like our activists here: From the morning to the evening and in each meeting, they denounce the state’s corruption and the Hezbollah’s hegemony on the Lebanese institutions.

Had you been a Lebanese citizen not connected to neither the government nor to powerful militias (the majority), do you take them seriously? Perhaps you would do, if you prefer to live in denial (comas may be more reassuring). If you don’t, you may perhaps be living in a parallel world to survive (disconnected from politics and the news). Who knows? If you can afford it, you may be spending your time in the lineups in front of embassies, dreaming of immigrating. If Canada is one of your dream destinations, to make an informed decision, you may wish to educate yourself about what Bambi is describing in this post. It may not match the romanticized idea you may have about our luckily still beautiful yet deteriorating country.

You know that Iran is pleased with the USA when Ms. Kamala Harris’ book is published in Tehran in Farsi

Well, Bambi was curious to see what the Iranian media is saying about the US administration, namely Biden/Harris, etc.

Whilst searching the net, she came across an article in the Tehran Times (January 6, 2021) about Ms. Kamala Harris’ book. Yes, it is now available in Farsi. It the “first Persian translation of “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey”.

Well, when her autobiography arrives to Iran in Farsi, you can guess that Iran is pleased with the USA’s foreign policy (https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/456674/The-Truths-We-Hold-by-Kamala-Harris-comes-into-Iranian-bookstores)!

Now the Iranian people can read in Farsi what Ms. Harris wrote about her journey in Montreal during her teenage years :). Remember, it was rather an insignificant part of her book (a couple of short paragraphs only and she did not like winter, in addition to struggling with the French language).

Note that the official statement of Mr. Justin Trudeau, following their conversation, notes that “she recalled fondly her years spent in Montréal” (https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/readouts/2021/02/01/prime-minister-justin-trudeau-speaks-united-states-vice-president-kamala). Perhaps she did say so during their phone conversation (verbatim), but does this sound authentic? Perhaps in Farsi it does :).

Note also that Mr. Biden and her both phoned Mr. Trudeau, but neither of them called Mr. Netanyahu, as per both l’Orient Le Jour of Lebanon and the Israeli media (https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1251064/au-moyen-orient-biden-prend-ses-distances-avec-les-plus-proches-allies-de-trump.html).

The Middle East is indeed changing…

Taken from the Tehran Times

Obsession with “systemic racism”: Why can’t Ms. Anamie Paul and the mainstream media leave Québec alone?

When will the rest of Canada leave Québec alone?

All what Mr. Trudeau wants is to “kill” Bill 21. For him, only one way of approaching secularism is valid, and it is his dad’s concept of multiculturalism. He forgets that Québec is a distinct society that has chosen its own approach to secularism, based on its own history, culture, and a 10-year-long public debate.

Ms. Anamie Paul, what is her problem? Is she virtue signalling? Or trying to increase her vote base in la Belle Province? Her Green party of Canada wants to recruit “young “progressives“, based on her own tweets. Mmm, is this is a winning strategy?

She does not know about you, but Bambi is sick and tired of politicians using invisible and visible minorities to advance political agendas. Bambi is not talking about Ms. Anamie Paul in particular. She is talking about anyone across party lines and across borders. For her, this obsession with race, religion, gender, or whatever other part of identity politics is a turn off.

Mr. François Legault may not be perfect (no politician and no human being is). He probably already made or will make political mistakes, but on this one, Bambi will applaud his wisdom and consistency in pushing back against wokeism.

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/green-party-leader-tries-to-convince-quebec-premier-of-the-existence-of-systemic-racism-1.5298629

https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/2021-02-06/la-chef-des-verts-a-discute-de-racisme-systemique-avec-legault.php

Ms. Monika Borgmann’s first tweet since her spouse’s murder consisted of two words (in Arabic): “Zero Fear”… echoed by the courage of Beirut citizens

Ms. Monika Borgmann’ first tweet after the horrible assassination of her beloved spouse, Mr. Lokman Slim: “Zero fear” (in Arabic)

Today, several Lebanese citizens gathered in downtown Beirut, braving the coronavirus (with all its strains, including the deadlier British one), the curfew, and… the Hezbollah.

They are all Mr. Lokman Slim and they denounce this coward yet barbaric assassination (please count Canada’s Bambi among you).

Look at the painting held by the lady at the centre of the picture. Look at her mask.

Is there any need for more words…?

A picture taken from l’Orient Le Jour