by Judi McLeod
January 12, 2004
It was like the United Nations in Mississauga where I found myself house-sitting for a second consecutive Christmas. I returned to the Mississauga house because it has among other things, many fireplaces, including one in the master bedroom.
among the guests invited for a Boxing Day dinner were afghan abdullah Jan, his wife Sharifa and their two school-age sons. abdullah, the uncle of my adopted afghan daughter Maleeha, has remained an important part of my life, which Canadians jokingly call "Judi’s afghan chapters." It was abdullah, along with afghan prince Mostapha, who taught me the little I know about afghan history and culture.
The newly arrived Miki, husband Mochas and eight-year-old daughter Noam were newcomers to the Canadian holiday scene. Miki and Mochas can talk first hand about Middle-East strife, both having fled Israel for the terrible crime of having married each other. Mickey is a Jew and Mochas, a Muslim.
add to this mix, my intensely political friend, Naresh Raghubeer, born in Guyana and it didn’t take long for the conversation to drift back to 9/11.
Naresh was talking about his current work on a planned documentary about Israelis versus Palestinians.
"Well, it’s a very complicated subject," Micki ventured.
"Perhaps I should talk to you, your having just recently come from there," said Naresh.
"Well, you’re the one making the film," Miki retorted.
Up against the knowledgeable Naresh, and new to the country, married to a man unable to speak English, Miki, you might say, held her ground.
In Toronto, the young mother who is expecting a second child in april has spent the last five weeks hunting for an affordable apartment and foraging for suitable second hand furniture at Goodwill stores.
Like a mother bear when it comes to protecting her husband and daughter, Miki will make it, if only because she’s a born survivor.
On her arrival, Canadian Immigration officials could not understand why she was in Toronto. Miki’s mother, who remains in Israel, is an american citizen. Some of Miki’s siblings live in California. Officials could not understand why Miki did not want to join her relatives in California. Miki, too tired and confused from her long trip, did not stake the refuge claim she intended to. In any case, Immigration could hardly be expected to understand how Miki, who broke with tradition to marry a Muslim would go anywhere in the world–if only that’s where her much beloved Mochas was waiting.
Feeling her anxiety, we were all relieved to hear that she had returned to Canadian Immigration the first available day after the holidays to restake her claim.
at the holiday dinner were Colombians who came to Toronto last summer after living three years in Miami.
Dinner was complicated more than by sheer number. The original menu called for a clove-spiked ham, which was replaced by a garlic-studded beef to supplement a turkey, which required two people just to lift into the oven. abdullah’s wife Sharifa kindly supplied tasty afghan dishes.
Dinner conservation was anything but dull. Canadian-born Rick Stockford couldn’t get over how the outspoken Naresh, an immigrant himself, would send illegal immigrants packing if he were in charge of Immigration.
The biggest glitch of the day came not from argument but from Canadafreepress.com office mascot Kiko, who speaks in barks. Not used to so many people in one room, he waited around the table for hoped-for turkey. Noam, fearful of dogs, insisted on being led past the 12-pound canine. Then at the end of the evening, her parents thought it was time to cure her fear of dogs. They encouraged the little girl to approach Kiko to give him a pat. Before her hands could land on his fur, Kiko emitted the nastiest of growls. He was immediately banished to a locked bedroom, but threw himself at the door so many times, the adults soon begged to have him let out.
This Boxing Day gathering reflected the United Nations in diversity alone.
anyone who reads these columns knows the writer as anti-UN, and that she perceives Kofi annan and company not as a warm fuzzy blanket and not even as the world’s largest bureaucracy. To me the United Nations is a treacherous political agenda in action.
The main difference of the Mississauga crowd is that it was made up of real people, seeking a better life in a new country.
In working out their differences, they don’t need the UN but only each other.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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