ICMYI this week ...
And Nov. 11! What is it good for?
Back in 2002, I remember very well singing at the Georgetown Remembrance Day concert. It was one of my last once before I left home. We were at Holy Cross church (which doesn’t exist any more) and I’m pretty sure we sang Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem.
I had sang this concert for a decade. Which, for an 18 year old, is a lot of time.
But it was at that Remembrance Day that I remember the tone changed from previous ceremonies. We were all of a sudden a country at war. No longer were war dead a thing of the previous decades — Canadian soldiers had died defending our freedom in Afghanistan (????) — we were now back at war. And therefore, Nov. 11 wasn’t so much about Lest Us Forgetting but instead more about supporting the troops. The shift was so obvious to me that I left that night vowing to never again be sucked into the pro-war rhetoric cloaked in fake anti-war sentiment that marks Remembrance Day all across Canada.
And here we are again — where people wearing a red poppy have no problem also advocating for Israel’s right to murder and destroy. Tonight, I had dinner with someone who came to Canada for a research project from Gaza. He can’t go home. His family is waiting for him, his house has been converted into rubble and Israeli tanks patrol the streets of his former city. He talks about what was before in the present tense. Lest We Forget, except we instantly forgot. Hell, most people aren’t smart enough to realize that John Mccrae was a basic propagandist for a rich’s man war, fought over nothing and for nothing. But hey, the dead will always throw their failing torces on November 11.
Today, it’s November 12. I don’t know if I can think of a more lacklustre, a more irrelevant or more damming November 11. Back in 2018, I said everything I had to say about November 11, so I’ll share that with you here.
But back to tonight’s dinner. My friend: he cannot go back to Gaza. Hell, Luftansa wouldn’t even refund his return flight this past week. His wife and five kids cannot leave Gaza. What options does he have? Short of a miracle, he’s looking at 3 years for an asylum claim (and giving up his passport) or meeting his family in Egypt (which would be a disaster) or, inshallah, they are able to come to Canada. But when? In how many years? Regardless of the option, it’s all ethnic cleansing.
Here are the stories that I talked about on this week’s Daily News podcast. And folks — the quality of local news this week was very bad. See how few local stories I had to mention …
You can listen to the podcasts here.
Saskatchewan
Members of Shania Twain's road crew taken to hospital after bus rolls in southeastern Sask.
Ontario
We know transit disruptions affect your life
Visa denial forces family to delay funeral for man killed in horrific crash 3 months ago
TVO workers reach tentative deal with employer, ending 11-week strike
Unions announce 3 more strike days as 420,000 Quebec public workers walk off the job today
Québec
'This is not Montreal': Mayor, police denounce shootings at 2 Jewish schools
11 taken to hospital after school bus crashes into Burnaby, B.C., home
British Columbia
‘Real nightmare’: Avian flu strikes 7 Fraser Valley farms, wildlife centre overwhelmed
Saik'uz First Nation calls for help after 2 people disappear in matter of months
Canada
Companies are a lot more willing to raise prices now — and it's making inflation worse
Despite climate pledges, Canada and other fossil fuel producers set to scale up production: report
What Is The Canadian Military Up To In Israel?
Ottawa paid nearly $670,000 for KPMG’s advice on cutting consultant costs
Feds promise to build more homes on public land as fall mini-budget looms
Greenpeace calls for Canadian forestry giant to lose its eco certification
International
Live Election Results: Top Races to Watch
Guinea’s escaped ex-military leader recaptured, back in jail, says lawyer
Nigeria : une explosion au haut-commissariat du Canada fait deux morts et deux blessés
Former Catalan politician shot in face in Madrid
Portuguese PM quits over lithium, hydrogen corruption probe
Thanks for this Nora. For several years now I have not worn the red poppy. There is too much of a celebration of war about it. In one of his books Kurt Vonnegut commented about the renaming of Armistice day as Veterans in the US along the lines of taking a day dedicated to celebrating the end of a war and giving it to the living. "Remembrance" day is not quite as bad but it has a similar deliberate ambiguity conflating manifestly unjust or problematic wars... WW I, the Vietnam war, the war in Afghanistan, the Korean war with WW II which was -- regardless of the reasons that countries entered into it -- a war against fascism. The mainstream media is blithely unaware of this. There was a CBC report the other day reporting on "Armistice Day" in a European country referred to it as "their" Remembrance day thus eliding the difference in meaning. Criticising "Remembrance" day is certainly a taboo subject and as you point out is hypocritically celebrated at the same time as watching Israel and tacitly supporting war crimes and possible Genocide in Gaza.
"And here we are again — where people wearing a red poppy have no problem also advocating for Israel’s right to murder and destroy." I began to wonder about the hypocrisy of wearing the poppy in the early '60s when people wearing one had no problem advocating for the Yanqui right to murder and destroy, in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and elsewhere ever since. This year with what is happening in Gaza made it clear to me. The "Poppy" and "Remembrance Day" are nothing more than cons to assuage the evil humans can and will do to one another.