Bambi's Thoughts
Bambi would like to wish ALL those of you who celebrate July 4 a wonderful day ♥️!
Who knows? Perhaps Joëlle is running today for her beloved America [or “Amérique”], as she does every year, ending the competition with her classical jump in the air :)?
Well, “Jojo”, jumping or not, if you happen to be reading this post now, your childhood friend wishes you much joy, mixed with love, across the miles. Enjoy Dassin’s song ♥️!
First, the title of this post is the first contradiction in this story. On one hand, our federal politicians tell us they care about our input. On the other hand, the government-funded media does not allow any expression of opinions or questions. Since there is no way of commenting on this media page, Bambi will do it on her own blog now.
Second, the CBC and Mr. Trudeau are insinuating that the English version of the Oh Canada could be changed from “Oh Canada, our home and native land” to “Oh Canada, our home on native land” (https://shorturl.at/hijAL). Of note, this article came out on Canada Day. It did not even wait until the fun of the long weekend was over. If this is not a patriotic kill joy, what is it then?
Bambi wonders if Mr. Trudeau had thought about her Indigenous fellow Canadian citizens who do not endorse this change. They will likely not be included in the consultation process. Who knows? If they are vocal, some of them could be perhaps silenced too, like the rest of us, by a radical left that lost contact with reason, tolerance, humour, and love (including patriotic love).
Third, Ottawa has increased its immigration threshold to 500 000 per year. Does it mean that Canada is into massive “colonization” now, with the suggested change of “home on native land“? When Bambi and her family immigrated to Canada in 1990, the embassy she escaped to in Cyprus was, and is still, called the Canadian embassy? To be congruent, will the name eventually change to something else now to reflect the change of our national anthem? Will the ideological politicians and elite push for such change too one day? To borrow Dr. Mathieu Bock-Côté’s own term, Canada looks increasingly like Wokanada.
Fourth, Ottawa is much into slogans and imposed ideologies, from top to bottom, like what is called diversity, equity, and inclusion. Ironically, although not surprisingly, what they seem to be resorting to is division. This time in a highly symbolic way on a highly symbolic day.
P.S: There is nothing wrong with a movement, like wokeism when it is a choice among others and even if it is the vision of a government. However, to become the religion of a government and to be imposed on us all, is a slippery slope in Bambi’s mind. In the meantime, change or no change to Oh Canada, the problem of clean drinking water on reserves remains unsolved, despite the hard work of the Government of Canada, along with First Nations communities (https://shorturl.at/uyU38) and the good online transparency, as shown below. With this regard, well done Canada. Why can’t the CBC be transparent with Canadians in the same manner?
Both Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Elie Wiesel died on a July 2. The former in 1778 and the latter in 2016.
A Swiss-born philosopher, writer, and theorist, Mr. Rousseau’s writings “inspired the leaders of the French Revolution and the Romantic generation” (https://shorturl.at/cHU46). Bambi studied Rousseau in high school. Indeed, she cannot think of him without remembering her inspiring fantastic professors of philosophy and French literature in Beirut, Lebanon. Of note, one of her older posts (shown further below) paid tribute to one of them, namely Ms. Nadia Jammal. May her memory be eternal.
As for Mr. Elie Wiesel, he was a Romanian-born American writer/philosopher, and university professor. He survived the Holocaust and authored 57 books, which where mostly written in French as well as in English. In 1986, Wiesel received a Nobel Peace Prize (https://shorturl.at/KMNOP). Bambi discovered this author, on her own, when she was in CEGEP (Québec’s college system). Her heart was profoundly moved by his deep humanity, despite his horrifying experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentrations camps. As reported in Radio-France (https://shorturl.at/KMNOP), he was “so close to death, so often…” . Indeed and thankfully, Wiesel survived the concentration camps where he had been deported in 1944. He was 15 years old at that time. However, tragically, he lost his mom, dad, and one of his sisters there.
To conclude this post, which aimed to share with you seven quotes from Rousseau and Wiesel respectively, Bambi will end in music. The eternal song chosen is about our shared humanity. It is entitled Quand les hommes vivront d’amour [When Men Will Live for Love]. It is from the late Mr. Raymond Levesque. The latter Canadian singer-song writer died two years ago. May his memory and artistic legacy be eternal. The song is nicely performed by Mr. Jay Lemay in what looks like a slightly slower rhythm than the original. Bambi thanks Lemay for making his video not only public on YouTube, but also sub-titled in English for the convenience of her readers. May love have the final word in the entire world, including Canada.
Rousseau
“I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery”.
“It is much more valuable to always have people’s respect than to occasionally have their admiration”.
“What wisdom can you find greater than kindness?”.
“To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness”.
“To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written”.
“Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it”.
”Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong”.
Wiesel
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference“.
“Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems”.
“Someone who hates one group will end up hating everyone – and, ultimately, hating himself or herself“.
“Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the centre of the universe”.
“I’m a teacher and a writer; my life is words. When I see the denigration of language, it hurts me, and it’s easy to denigrate a word by trivializing it”.
“Religion is not man’s relationship to God, it is man’s relationship to man”.
“Religion is a very personal thing for me. Religion has its good moments and its poor moments”.
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Happy Canada day/long weekend to all ❤️!
Bambi was not only honoured, but also delighted to be a panel guest of True North‘s talented Andrew Lawton on his show, along with: (1) the clever Dr. Mark Milke, editor of The 1867 Project, the new book of the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, who is also the president of this promising new think tank, which “aims to renew a civil, common-sense approach to public discourse and public policy in Canada” (https://shorturl.at/rzEM1); & (2) the inspiring Dr. Lynn MacDonald who is a professor emerita in Sociology & a former New Democratic Party (NDP) member of parliament.
MacDonald, Milke, and Bambi (or Azar) contributed chapters to The 1867 Project, along with 17 other authors. The panel chat covered topics related to “Canadian history, identity politics, and the mob” (https://rb.gy/c2f48). The book is on sale now on Amazon: https://shorturl.at/aAIX6.
Following the YouTube panel video entitled “The Andrew Lawton Show/Why the activists who hate Canada are wrong“, Bambi will end by honouring Canada in music. The first chosen piece is our beautiful national anthem, which is performed by Ms. Lara Fabian in both French and English. The second song is Dalida’s Helwa Ya Baladi, which means my country is beautiful in Arabic. This song is performed by Ms. Hiba Tawaji.
Since her arrival to her adoptive country at age 17 (33 years ago– yes, time flies!), Bambi is happy to have lived in three beautiful Canadian provinces: Québec, Ontario, and New Brunswick. Note how Dalida’s song is about one country’s beauty. It is thus not about its perfection. The latter does not exist anywhere. After all, we are just humans. We can only keep aiming for the best, try to be forgiving (with both ourselves and others) while learning from the past and co-building the future hand in hand. Happy Canada long weekend everyone ❤️!
Bambi was honoured when she was interviewed by Mr. Kenny Xu on July 28, 2021.
She also read his very thoughtful book entitled “An inconvenient minority” (mentioned in the older post, shown further below), which she highly recommends to her readers. Of note, he now published another book, School of Woke; she looks forward to reading it too.
Mr. Kenny Xu, a second-generation American of Chinese origins and President/Primary Spokesman of “Color us United“, has challenged Harvard University for discrimination against Asian Americans. Bravo to him!
Today, his efforts were fruitful with some common sense coming from the Supreme Court. The latter said no to this prestigious university’s discriminatory admission program, which forgot about the value of merit; assigning a 95% chance of admission for an American with a black skin versus a 25% chance of admission to an American of an Asian background.
Despite any stated so-called noble intention behind the establishment of this program, called affirmative action, it does not bring fairness to anyone. It actually discriminates against students of Asian backgrounds while giving a rather sad message to the African-American student: you made it but only because we forced it, not based on your academic excellence, and thus, merit.
For Bambi, that was a piece of good news from today [yesterday rather, since it is midnight :)]. She wanted to highlight it in this post before going to sleep. Congratulations and thank you, Mr. Xu!
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The 1867 Project was reviewed in National Post by Mr. Corcoran
“The 1867 Project is an intellectual eye-opening collection of essays by a group of 20 writers who dig down into mainstream Canadian negativism and expose most of it as the product of twisted ideologies and misunderstandings.”
Bambi [OK Rima Azar :)] is honoured to be mentioned in this book’s positive review by Mr. Corcoran. If you wish, you can read his review of The 1867 Project here: https://tinyurl.com/2hne38nc
Dr. Mark Milke’s chat with YouTuber Aaron Gunn
If you have the time, you may wish to listen to this 16-minute-thoughtful conversation between Gunn and Milke in which the latter shared the vision behind The 1867 Project.
Again, Bambi is proud and delighted to have her chapter, entitled “I know What Identity Politics Does to a Nation: I’m from Lebanon” mentioned during their chat: https://tinyurl.com/2h5ddvnd
To conclude this brief yet exciting post, you may be interested to know that the 1867 Project is now on sale on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/yv49apb3 . More updates about interviews (or reviews) to come. Please stay tuned!
Eid Al-Adha is all about Abraham’s story of willingness to sacrifice his son.
This “Eid” or celebration is highlighted by both Muslims and Druze.
Bambi would like to wish her loved ones a Happy Adha. May it be blessed and fun too!
It is usually a lovely and noble idea to celebrate everyone’s cultural heritage, perhaps especially when we have a shared “glue” bringing us together.
However, when it comes to today’s Canada, we do not seem to be simply “Canadians” anymore. Indeed, as Ms. Emmanuelle Latraverse expressed it well in Le Journal de Montréal (https://shorturl.at/cjyA7), a few days ago in an article about New Brunswick specifically and about Canada in general, we are now “Italian-Canadians, Afro-Canadians, Indo-Canadians. We are white, black, female, refugee, disabled, 2SLGBTQI+, as if each label grants extra points in the diversity lottery”.
Ms. Latraverse is referring to what looks like the diversity-obsessed (secular) religion of the official Canada. A religion, not only endorsed by our federal government, but also imposed on us, from the top down, whether we like it or not.
To understand the above in more depth, Dr. Bruce Pardy’s article, published in the National Post, is a very informative reading (https://shorturl.at/vxKQ5), regardless of whether you will agree with it or not. Of course, Pardy’s thoughtful text is meant for those of us who are still interested in thinking (before conforming). Thanks to him for the explanation. Thanks also to all the readers who wrote thoughtful comments (luckily comments were welcome). The latter show us that our collectively insane and intolerant times are no longer funny. Can we just have our unified country back, please?
Instead of unity and reason, we now have to live with, and at times economically, professionally, and socially survive, the excesses of this institutionalized, dogmatized, and highly divisive practice of identity-politics: a form of modern sectarianism called sugar-coated names like diversity, equity, and inclusion. Of course, almost in every sector of society (education, health, federal research funding agencies, banking, politics, unions, legal and other professional, associations arts, private sector, etc.), we claim to celebrate all diversities, that is of this or that group; yet we sadly ignore individual intellectual diversity. Indeed, we seem to only be expected to be trapped (and trap others) into identities and/or sub-identities. Plus, who said we should all repeat the same religious mantra like that? Why do we do it? And where are we heading with all this divisiveness?
In our aspiration to supposedly collectively honour this or that group, how sad it is to “forget” about the richness of each unique individual. Instead, we seem to insist on putting others (and they put us, in return) into boxes with a certain label. Sadly, we seem to be increasingly forgetting about our shared humanity. She does not know about you, but in Bambi’s mind, pluralism that does not welcome intellectual diversity and individual creativity is not a genuine one, despite any noble intentions.
With all the above in mind and into context, The House of Commons of Canada recently adopted a a new act “respecting Lebanese Heritage Month“, which will be the month of November. Indeed, this bill received royal assent on June 20, 2023 (https://shorturl.at/cnDFT). Similar heritage months exist for all groups: Asian, Filipino, Italian, Arab, Jewish, etc.
Bambi is usually not a social kill-joy in life. On the contrary, not only she is for the live and let live, she loves everyone. Yes, she loves to celebrate people’s rich individuality. She adores cultural or other events where she can meet new people, discover new food, dance, chat, etc. As you can guess, from reading this blog, she is VERY proud of her Lebanese heritage while knowing how/when to thank Canada when it supports her birth country. Yet, this time, she wants to say no, thank you, Ottawa. We do NOT need another flag and another month heritage celebration, even if it is the turn of the Lebanese one from now on (every November of every year).
Regardless of our respective group heritage, it is about time to come together, all of us as Canadians, in order to celebrate our shared humanity, shared values, and… shared love for Canada.
Canada is filled with amazing singers. Garou, who is celebrating his 51st birthday, is one of them (https://shorturl.at/bovLZ).
To honour this artist’s talent, this strictly musical post will be brief: the first performance you will hear is Belle from Notre-Dame de Paris. The second performance is A toi [For You], originally by Mr. Joe Dassin. For your convenience, both songs include the lyrics in English (among other languages).
May Garou’s inspiring musical performances keep bringing people together. May the passion in his voice keep entertaining and inspiring all his fans, including Bambi. Happy birthday to him!
It is SO hard to imagine you dead, Mr. Claude Barzotti, even if life goes by too fast and death is an integral part of it (https://t.ly/AibG). In your case, life has ended too soon. Indeed, you were just 69 years old.
To begin with, and if she may, Bambi will send her heart to your grieving family. What a DEEPLY sad loss for the latter… and for the entire world of music, including your career manager, colleagues, partners, and fans around the world. Condolences to everyone impacted by your death and enriched by your life.
Despite the shared sadness in her heart now, Bambi is reassured because a singer with such a warm voice and a generous provider of emotions, like you, is surely eternal in the collective memory of life’s beauty. The man dies, but not the artist. Indeed, your singing voice will forever echo in our ears, moving our hearts and souls.
Mr. Barzotti, thank you for having honoured our large and beautiful country with a lovely song (shared below). As per your own words, you had the blues for Canada, which you actually visited several times over your career. Of note, Bambi and her sisters took their mom (or was it the other way around :)?) to your concerts several time when they were living in Montreal in the 1990s. Merci encore!
Furthermore, you visited Bambi’s birth country, Lebanon, many times as well (https://t.ly/4PKR). Like in Québec/Canada, Lebanese fans adore you. How could they not to? You even wrote a song for Lebanese women entitled Ma Libanaise (also shared below, with English sub-titles)?
This being said, perhaps your most famous song ever is Le Rital? A melody, which moved the hearts of all your fans in Europe, and around the world (especially in North America), because it is about your deep attachment to your Italian roots (as a Belgian singer; https://shorturl.at/pzDFQ).
For those who regularly read this blog and/or listen to its music, they may perhaps recall that Bambi has featured your songs within more recent posts. Among your musical legacy, there are two songs, which remain fresh in Bambi’s memory. One of them is about a break-up and it is Je ne t’écrirai plus [I won’t write to you anymore]. The other song is about a lady you often think of, Mr. Barzotti. Bambi’s spouse has often heard her singing this melody (with her frog’s voice, of course). It is entitled Souvent je pense à vous Madame [I often think of you, Madam]. Since he did not know you as well as she did, almost every time, he asked the same amusing question: “C’est qui cette Madame, Bambi” [Who is this lady, Bambi]?
To conclude your little yet heartfelt tribute, Bambi will end her post with Mr. Andrea Bocelli’s Amazing Grace prayer. MANY thanks for having loved the French language with such passion, Mr. Claude Barzotti. Indeed, you have enriched the francophonie with your unique songs. May your memory be eternal and may God comfort your loved ones, especially your daughters, Vanessa and Sarah et al. Same for your manager, Mr. Roger Comtat (https://t.ly/KTZ0R). You will be missed greatly by your human and deer fans alike, even if your songs will outlive us all ❤️.
