The New Brunswick Multicultural Association, a highly respectable para-governmental organization is launching a survey on racism. Mind you, it is advertised in the propaganda section of the CBC that is called “Being black in Canada“:
The survey is open to all and it asks us about the new buzz word of the century, “systemic racism“… of course, racism against the fancy umbrella term of BIPOC only 🙂 (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour).
It is as if racism cannot exist between these holy sub-groups or from these toward others or others among each other.
Anyhow, at least the survey has a room for some qualitative input, hoping all input will matter.
What bothers Bambi is not the survey as it is usually good to have surveys and, especially public debates. The question that begs itself is how will they (or our governments?) use the data generated by the survey?
More alarmingly, what puzzles Bambi is that usually science is supposed to be for the sake of science only or with a vision of scientific advancement and cultural progress. Sadly in Canada, science is becoming increasingly at the service of ideologies… and then we wonder why our latest and biggest scientific discovery remains insulin (which is huge for humanity, including Bambi’s own mom’s life, thank you Drs. Frederick Banting and Charles Best!). We are not even capable of producing vaccine for the coronavirus! Russia is now ahead of us. China too.
To come back to the topic of this post, we learn from the above article that the Policy Development Coordinator with the anti-racism project by this organization is Mr. Raymond Husoni also “an organizer with Black Lives Matter”, scoring the point about ideologies (Bambi has an earlier post about Mr. Husoni and BLM; see the bottom of this post).
Two questions here: (1) Who is funding such initiatives, especially in pandemic times? Our government? Federal? Or federal via the provincial? Or is it foreign funding (Mr. Soros et al. https://nypost.com/2020/07/14/george-soros-group-pledges-220m-to-help-dismantle-systemic-racism/)?); and (2) Why does it feel that we have the conclusion of the survey before its data outcomes? This does not sound like a scientific hypothesis to be tested and rejected, if not supported by the data. Bambi hopes she is wrong, but only time will tell.
Mr. Husoni’s own words are as follows: “it’s also important for white New Brunswickers to participate in the surveys to provide what they’ve experienced and learned about racism“. “Have they been bystanders to racist incidents? How did they respond? And what resources can we create to address this issue? Because it really poses a barrier to social and economic prosperity of New Brunswick.“
With all due respect to Mr. Husoni and his work, Bambi is afraid such racial ideologies (likely coming from out of the USA) will end up becoming the barriers, instead of bridges, between us New Brunswickers.
Plus, why is he referring to us as “White” & “Black”? Can’t he see that he is insulting both us and himself by reducing us to such limiting superficial characteristics, our skin colour?!
Why is he putting all the so-called “blacks” in the same bag? Why is he doing the same with the so-called “whites”? What is this non-sense? What about our ethno-linguistic major groups in NB (the silent majority/ties): Indigenous, Acadians, and English-New Brunswickers?
How does an imported ideology really fit locally?
This vision is actually contrary to the spirit of this organization that usually celebrates our culture(s) in our NB beautiful regions and communities?
Can we please keep putting the emphasis on what unites us instead of what divides us?
Of course, racism is bad. We need to name it and address it when we see it.
Racists will always exist in a society. In a sense, they have the right to exist (provided no defamation or violence) as much as radicals. It is just unfortunate that the latter are imposing their narrow-minded visions on all of us.
In Bambi’s non-expert citizen’s opinion, “systemic racism” is one of the silliest ideologies of our current insane times.
When will this insanity stop? When will funding of insanity stop?
Can we please preserve our sanity and our beautiful province?
Bambi would like to thank her friend Nayla for sharing this song.
Amazing as she listened to that same brand new song perhaps a night or two ago whilst listening to her Radio-Mount Lebanon (from LA) before going to sleep. She found the song moving and even told her spouse about it, repeating the lyrics… or translating them.
Well, here is the song, followed by its moving lyrics, first in Arabic followed by English.
Thanks again Nayla and love to Beirut… from Sackville, NB, Canada!
Lyrics
| كلمات
بيروت
… إنتِ الغنية المابتموت
صوت
الشوارع والبيوت
أجمل
صبيّه يا بيروت / يا بيروت
بعمّرها
… برجع أنا وأنت نعمرهابعمّرها …
ومن إيدُن نحنا منحررها
بيروت
إمي
بيروت بَيِّي بيروت إختي بيروت خيّي
بيروت
ملكي …… ردلّي هيي
إنتِ
الفرح وإنتِ الحُب
وهني
الوجع وجع هالقلب
رح
تتخطي الوضع الصعب … يا بيروت
إنتِ
الأمل إنتِ الورد
هني
الزعل وهني الحقد
رح
شيلك من إيدُن وعد … يا بيروت
بيروت
إمي
بيروت بَيِّي
بيروت إختي
بيروت
خيي
بيروت
ملكي ……
ردّلي هيي..
“Beirut, you are the rich who does not die
You are the sound of streets and homes
You are the song that does not die
The most beautiful lady, O Beirut– O Beirut
I will re-build it, we will re-build it together, I will re-build it
From their hands, we will liberate it
Beirut is my
mom
Beirut is my
dad
Beirut is my sister, Beirut is my brother
Beirut is
mine, give it back to me
You are the joy
and you are love
They are the
pain, the pain of my heart
We will
overcome the difficult situation … O Beirut
You are the
hope, you are the rose
They are the
sadness and they are hatred
We will take you off their hands it is a promise… O Beirut
How sad and ironic that, in our collective insane times, contemporary radical activists are behaving like the authoritarian Catholic church in Québec’s history (before its“silent revolution”):
It is refreshing to read Mr. Legault’s words on his FB page (shown below). Here is a quick translation for you:
“We will be frank with each other: The decision of the Association of Québec Booksellers to withdraw my reading suggestions did not make any common sense. One cannot accept that a handful of radical activists trample our freedom of expression to defend their dictates. It is going way too far.
I am reassured to see that the Association finally backed down.
I was of course angry
when I heard the news yesterday.
But I was also sad. I am
a big lover of reading. I take great pleasure in reading every evening before
sleeping. And I make it a point to share my passion.
The beauty of books is
that there is room for all voices. Reading transports us to points of view that
are sometimes far from our own, but which always enrich us.
But we must not miss the
target either.
We have to denounce censorship.
One must never let our
guard down on our freedom of expression.
However, we should not penalize
our independent booksellers who have nothing to do with this story. It is hard
enough for them these days.
So I will repeat the same
request that I made to you in the video for booksellers: Go buy a Québec book
during the holiday season. We must encourage our authors. This is the best
response we can offer to those who want to silence them.
Your prime minister.”
End of Mr. Legault’s quote.
Mind you, Bambi was already planning to purchase Dr. Mathieu Bock-Côté’s most recent book (the target of this absurd censorship). She just did not have the time to do it yet. Well, this will be her Christmas gift to herself ?:
First, in all honesty, do you trust the quality of a Chinese (or a Russian?) vaccine as much as you would trust vaccines from the USA, France, or the UK?
Well, let Bambi speak for herself. With all due respect to the science in all countries, her answer is no (for many reasons from rigour to ethical considerations, etc.). However, this is Bambi’s personal opinion and it is not the precise focus of this post.
The focus of this post is on Mr. Trudeau’s leadership and choices. Is he the PM of Canada or of China, we may wonder at times?
Ironically, Lebanon (but not Canada :)!) picked two American pharmaceutical companies for the vaccine. Yes, we are talking about the same Lebanon that is hijacked internally by the Hezbollah (and externally by its master Iran) and the latter is now financially corned by the USA.
Will Mr. Trudeau blame his predecessor, Mr. Harper, again for his own choice :)?
Well, to use the term of the official opposition leader, Mr. O’Toole, for putting “all the eggs in one basket“?
Was this a wise choice and especially approach during the vaccine negotiation strategy, given the outcome: the delayed onset of vaccination in Canada, compared to MANY other countries in the world (who knows? Perhaps even including tiny bankrupt and “third world” Lebanon? That was meant as a joke, but you never know…)?
Ms. Awad (as shown in the picture below) is one of the
most lucid and straightforward persons Bambi has ever met in her life (her own
mom shares these qualities).
In our last chat, Ms. Awad described the double crises of Beirut, the financial tragedy combined to the coronavirus pandemic. Six months later, the August 4th’s Beirut port surrealistic explosion took place. Its images shocked the whole world. Beirut’s port nightmare was devastating to say the least: 200 people lost their lives, 6000+ were injured, 12+ are still missing, 300,000 are homeless, half of the capital destroyed including food or medication storage, hospitals, schools, etc. Many citizens are still living in their damaged/risky homes (it is now the rain season in Beirut and snow season at higher altitudes). In addition, there are those still struggling with the trauma’s after-effects and/or with survivor guilt.
Of course, there is still no accountability concerning
this crime or criminal negligence.
Keeping all this in mind, here are a few questions
that Ms. Awad generously accepted to answer:
Bambi: Thank you Nayla for your time.
Bambi’s first question is as follows: Can you describe to us life in Beirut
today, end of November, 2020? How does it compare to life before the explosion?
“Life was already awful and disastrous before the explosion due to the financial collapse and money devaluation, which triggered the people’s revolt (since October 17, 2019). The explosion did not change anything in the sense that it is still a disaster.
What
has changed since is the following: The Beirut blast brought instant, massive, and
unbelievable level of destruction to the capital. This means more damage added to
the already awful situation Lebanon has been in.
Of course, in addition to families who lost
their loved ones and all the injured citizens, there are all the material costs
to repair what needs to be fixed. It is only yesterday that we were able to fix
our doors [4 months post-explosion]. We are lucky. Some other
people, like where your own parents live, like Gimmayze, Mar Mikhayel, etc. are
still living in their destroyed homes. People do not have money for repairs.
The explosion was the death blow. A death blow, morally and financially speaking.
The morale is usually affected by finances. Both!
What is hard is to still not have financial support after this tragedy. The Lebanese army visited residences to estimate the costs [and in some devastated neighbourhoods, they distributed food boxes]. By large, not much came out of this governmental initiative. At times, the army wanted to help and it did manage to do so in some rare cases. The problem is that you do not understand the operation’s logic. Based one what criteria? How much? Why this family? Why not another one? For instance, a close relative whose house was damaged (seriously although not as much as others) received 1 million Lebanese pounds [the equivalent of CAD$858]. She was happy. Same for another old neighbour [Bambi’s childhood neighbourhood].
All this to say that there are devastating
costs to the explosion, coupled to hyperinflation triggered by the financial
crash that began before the coronavirus pandemic and its many lockdowns/measures.
The Lebanese people went into a revolution, massively taking the streets for months (over a year now). No one listened to them. People lost their savings, their jobs. People were put in jail. People were silenced. And the regime did not change. We discovered that we live under a dictatorship. Some people were beaten or tortured. Some thrown in jail. Some even have criminal records now.
It is in this context that the explosion took place (in the middle of the pandemic too).
Since the explosion, so many people have already
migrated. Many are planning to leave Lebanon for good soon. There is no more
hope. Some desperate citizens are even leaving by boats from Tripoli in
miserable conditions like what we used to see in the media about other less fortunate
countries (e.g., Somali refugees, etc.). We are now there. A father had to
throw the body of his dead son in the Mediterranean Sea. Can you imagine?!
No, we do not see the light at the end of
the tunnel. We live day by day. Today may be a dark day. Tomorrow, we do not
know. Lebanon’s situation is highly volatile.
The worst is that we are stuck with the government
that resigned after the explosion but which we did not want in the first place.
It is now acting as a caretaker government. The formation of a new government seems
quasi-impossible. There doesn’t seem to be any hope, as we speak. As citizens,
you do not understand all the shenanigans between those in power. Some say as
long as there is the actual President with Hezbollah allied to his son-in-law
(Mr. Bassil), things cannot move forward”.
Bambi: Where were you when the Beirut
explosion happened? How did you react? What thoughts came to your mind then or
following this tragedy, if you feel like sharing?
“I was in the car, driving and my son with
me. We were in Bourj Hammoud. Thank God, a wall protected us. By a miracle,
glass did not explode in our faces. I even managed to drive us back home in the
middle of this chaos. The sensation I had was that we were going to die, both of
us in the car. This is our end. I spontaneously thought it was an Israeli
aviation airstrike. There has been a rumour circulating in the country for a
while that a war with Israel was going to break out in August. Even for a whole
week following the explosion, I was still left with the same sensation of an
air strike. As I mentioned earlier, my first sensation was simply our death.
Then, whilst driving on the bridge to get to our neighbourhood, I was again convinced
we were going to be hit by those airplanes. In the past, bridges were hit by the
Israelis in earlier wars (e.g., July, 2006). I was driving seeing bloodied
people walking and walking, almost everywhere. Some were lying on the streets. I
was seeing endless destruction and death all the way. I do not know how I kept
driving until we reached our destroyed street and damaged building. I saw my
husband and daughter outside of the building, in a state of shock and worried
about us. Shattered glass was everywhere. Again, more bloodied injured people. When
we reached our apartment, we realized that was also quite damaged. We were speechless.
Yes, we survived (grateful to be alive… others
did not have this luxury), but, make no mistake, we are still dead inside. We exploded
with that explosion… Our country exploded. We have been robbed spiritually, physically, mentally, morally…
and financially yet again…” [Nayla explained that after
four months, she is able to say all this without crying… It is Bambi who could
not contain her tears at that time of the interview. Nayla joined her. Mind
you, the latter lost many friends in that explosion. Anyhow, after pausing for
seconds to wipe away their tears, they continued their Zoom interview].
Bambi: Where do you see Lebanon in the
shorter and longer-term?
“Hell. In the short and long-term. No
hope. Even before the explosion. I will tell you I had that feeling 20 years ago
(it is not new) and this is what made me immigrate then. They weakened and destroyed
Lebanon from within and from the outside. Both! For me, it is like a conspiracy
plan against this country. To use the words of the Lebanese Maronite [Roman
Catholic] Patriarch, “they have weakened Lebanon to the point of threatening
its existence”. They have impoverished it. People cannot afford educating their
children anymore. Some schools are literally destroyed. And we are sinking
lower and lower in misery, day after day.
Every external solution, the Lebanese
politicians made it fail, starting with Mr. Emmanuel Macron’s initiative. It is
as if there is a plan, both internal and external, to turn Lebanon into a
failed state. I will re-use the words of this same Patriarch, people are now impoverished,
without their savings, immigrating to avoid being killed. There is no hope.”
Bambi: What words of comfort or what piece
of advice would you give to Lebanese youth of the same age of your children?
“Get the fuck out of here!”. This is what I tell them. This is what I tell to myself too. I daily repeat it to myself in my mind. I feel for those who want to stay, those who have to stay, or those who cannot leave. I am afraid that, in order to survive, they will have to build an alliance with the corrupt thugs in charge.
Bambi, I cannot end our conversation on a
positive note. I wish I could.
No one feels this hope, Bambi… Well, maybe
there is a former politician who has resigned, Mr. Hikmat Fraim, who is among
those who believe in Lebanon and still do so. According to him, there will be a
new movement and a new system in this country one day. Although I usually like
listening to him because of his optimism, I admit that I do not see this hope… Not
anymore.”
Thanks to a tweet by Dr. Mathieu Bock-Côté, Bambi learned that Greenpeace Québec is now promoting ideologies of racialism, along with a funny yet toxic concept called “white fragility”:
Why are we allowing our societies to become “infested”
with racial (+ racist) ideologies?
Bambi is disturbed by such ideologies because she
knows well how destructive to societies they can be (she escaped her birth
country precisely to avoid such ideologies).
Well, in addition to Greenpeace, imagine that a very serious scientific journal like Science is now into similar ideologies. Why doesn’t it focus ONLY on science and the scientific method?!
One may wonder how such serious institutions become hijacked from within by ideologies. Bambi’s hypothesis is that all what it takes, as a very first step, is funding (here is just one example of someone who may be working for his own pocket whilst perhaps also serving the interests of other larger and likely foreign entities: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/us/politics/george-soros-racial-justice-organizations.html).
Although Bambi may be wrong, money can tempt and potentially corrupt any institution even respectable ones (perhaps more so in tough financial times), especially when leaders are not lucid, and perhaps courageous, enough.
In the longer term, funds are no longer needed. Social contagion is enough.
First, why is a $21,000-funded Calgary-based task force in Alberta pretending that Bill 21 in Québec “has impacted religious minorities across Canada since it came into law in 2019”?
Second, and perhaps more alarmingly, why is the CBC mischaracterizing Bill
21 once again?
The CBC article falsely informs us that “the secularism law bans
religious symbols, like hijabs and turbans, prohibiting public teachers,
lawyers, police officers and civil servants from wearing religious symbols
at work, effectively preventing them from working in their chosen fields”.
Indeed, here is the truth about Bill 21 (this blog has
many posts on the topic):
It is about the representatives of authority ONLY. Not
all employees.
Bill 21 has a “grandfather” clause meant to allow existing public servants in
position of authority to keep serving (protecting their jobs).
Whether we like this bill or not, it is made in Québec,
by Québec, and for Québec. It came after 10 years of a public debate on reasonable
and unreasonable accommodations.
When are we going to finally respect the specificity
of Québec?
By the way, this CBC article is no longer about
journalism. This is mere propaganda.
If we truly want to address racism in our country, let’s
start by respecting Québec’s democratic choices, including this bill.
To those who do not know Québec well, it is one of the
most welcoming places in the world!
Québec is far from being perfect. Indeed, no place is
perfect. Same for any system or society.
Like anywhere else, there is racism in Québec (e.g., Bambi keeps thinking of Ms. Joyce Echaquan’s widower and their children. She lost her life in a cruel way ironically at a hospital ☹).
However, to say that Québec makes its citizens suffer from systemic racism, just because it has a majority that still openly respects itself (in our collective insane times), would be unfair.
It would be even racist to once again (“systemically”?)
refuse to accept others’ culture.
Residents of Québec who may be too triggered by Bill
21 are free to move to Calgary.
Those who are vocal about Bill 21 whilst living miles
away from Québec are respectfully invited to educate themselves about this bill
and about Québec’s history.
Second, NB Media Coop keeps publishing articles
about” “the hypocrisy of the Liberal
nuclear policy”, how we should “cease
funding and support of the Small Modular Nuclear Reactors program”, and about
the bad choices of “NB and the federal government” in “funding
prototype nuclear reactors”?
Bambi is far from being an expert of nuclear energy.
Yet she has enough lucidity to distinguish between the potentially good and evil
use of this energy.
Examples of good use are electricity production, medical use, water desalination, agriculture purposes, and perhaps even space scientific explorations, etc. Of course, an evil use would be nuclear weapons/wars.
None of the articles published in NB Media Coop
explains to us why such energy would be bad for Canada, for our province, or at
least present a list of the pros and cons.
What about job creation that would benefit all communities,
including Indigenous ones?
What about possibly lower costs of energy?
What about self-reliance on a more efficient energy sector?
Of course, we need to have the most optimal conditions
to ensure public health safety.
Bambi knows what she is talking about when it comes to safety. She was a teenager when the Ukraine’s Chernobyl’s tragic accident happened (she recalls the “cloud” that reached the part of the world where she grew up).
She also recalls barrels of nuclear waste that arrived to Beirut, from Italy through the port of Beirut in the middle of a destructive civil war (1975-1990), five of which were located or stored not far from where she used to live. Perhaps someone received money or weapons in exchange of such dangerous materials ((https://www.wrmea.org/1995-june/waste-dumping-during-civil-war-ignites-debate-in-lebanon.html)? Perhaps those, and/or other, unethical persons told themselves that tiny Lebanon was already burning anyways? How can we minimize awful gesture with such money-oriented logic (assuming they had any consciousness)? What about the population’s heath?
Who knows? Perhaps related to the latter saga or not, Bambi
happens to have a personal interest in one’s protection from extra radioactivity.
Those who know her closely know why she is saying so.
Yet, despite all this, she is pro-nuclear Canadian energy.
How could she not be so when she is pro-economic development and scientific
advancement.
She just wishes our anti-nuclear activists can explain
to her the whys of their position, not just repeating clichés. Perhaps they can
help her see their perspective(s) in a clearer way?
Sadly, without clarity, she is left to wonder whether
they may be anti-economic progress (and anti-civilizational growth?), instead
of being true environmentalists. Could it be?
To borrow the words of Dr. Mathieu Bock-Côté, “the world ahead of us is charming, isn’t it? It is not about appreciating or not the ideas of Jordan Peterson. It is rather about watching how censorship functions nowadays“.
What else could be said about our sad times of collective insanity?
You do not like an author’s work, do not read it or criticize it in a smart way. Do not burn it or cancel it, regardless of the book (which, if it is like his earlier book, will be a pleasure to discover, by the way :)).
Regardless of Dr. Peterson’s ideas or perspective in life, why are we doing this to him and to ourselves? Why are we turning our beautiful Canada into “Fascistland”?
Enough is more than enough!
As Dr. Saad said in the video above well, the price of living in a democracy is to have everyone’s voices in a society. Those whom we agree with as well as those who challenge our ideas.
As Bambi wrote on this blog once, even radicals like Islamists (who recently chopped the head of Professor Samuel Patty in France) have the right to exist in a free society and express their opinions. The problem is of course when they call for violence or act on it like in this barbaric tragedy. The problem is also when they resort to defamation.
In Bambi’s non-expert citizen opinion, all this saga is a defamation of Dr. Peterson’s character and intelligence. You may disagree with him, fine (Bambi does not agree all the time, but she has the utmost respect for him). However, he has the right to be published, as much as other so-called scholars are. We have the right to read them or not, to find them inspiring or not, etc.
