Beryl Wajsman

Kip

I’ve often said that the word vacation doesn’t exist in my life. I feel privileged to be able to do advocacy and journalism . You get used to not having normal routines. Perhaps I never wanted them in the first place. So you live your life out there – on the edge - available, attackable, accessible. And you get used to pretty much all sorts of tragic stories and appeals. But every now and then there is one that not only ignites a fury that propels you to act, but also floods you with sadness that moves you to reflect.

Tehran matters

The pictures flood us. They flood us with pride, poignancy and pathos. A people struggling to be free. The images come from around the world. From citizens of Tehran confronting the terror of theocratic tyrants, to students marching in the streets of Paris to Montrealers — some using walkers — standing up and being counted. The palpable reality of mankind’s transcendent yearning for redemptive change.

The arrogance of authority

We have written passionately and often about the demonization of Montreal’s citizens by city authorities. The usual subjects concern nanny-state rule and regulation that seek to change our personal behaviour and taxes it through fines if we misbehave. The rules pummel us into infantilism and self-abnegation to the point where some of us actually think we are guilty of something even when we are not.

Tour de WHAT?

Amidst the cattle corral cacophony that pervaded much of Montreal the past several weekends, serious questions arise about the salubriousness of bicycles and the sagesse of elected officials who champion their use — and abuse.

Where will it stop?

We have railed against the control state mentality of government for quite some time now. We have warned that the slippery slope of politically correct social engineering policies and politics is steep and swift in its descent into nothingness. Our use of the term nanny-state has become so ubiquitous that many said we were out of touch with the “new” Quebec.

Montreal’s demonization of Bela Kosoian

When we crawled out of the mists of the jungles of history to create communities – villages, the origin of cities - it was not out of what today’s politically correct zeitgeist would consider a noble purpose. It was done out of selfishness. As it happens, one of mankind’s more creative instincts if husbanded properly.

They don’t even pretend anymore

Though we can’t be surprised anymore, we still need to condemn. The World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, commonly called Durban II, opened Monday in Geneva. Durban I, eight years ago, at least had the veneer of “respectability” however quickly disabused by the contents. This year’s incarnation didn’t even pretend. How could it? Two gangster regimes — Iran and Libya — co-chaired and co-organized it. The result was as anticipated. But the date was filled with pathos.

Canada in Afghanistan

It was a mistake from the beginning to allow the recognition of state faith into Afghanistan’s constitution. It was an even greater error to allow the organization of faith-based political parties. Now the west’s encounter with Afghanistan will be put to an important test. And Canada has a profound role to play.

Broken promises: The Ala Morales affair

We can assume that the intentions of legislators and regulators have some socially redeeming intent. Our problems as citizens occur when laws and regulations are passed and the details of implementation are left to bureaucrats.

The Israel ‘Apartheid’ lies

”Israel is not South Africa” ~Prof.Edward Said, author of “Orientalism” "The false equation of Zionism with racism is simply an Arab ploy to take the focus off of the real enemies of humanity. Zionism is a healthy form of nationalism." - Edward H. Brown, Jr., former chief United Nations representative for the Congress of Racial Equality

The illiberal democracy of collective rights

Montreal lawyer Stéphane Handfield represents a U.S. citizen who is Cuban-born and who applied in English for immigrant status in July after arriving here from the United States. In December, he hired Handfield as his lawyer.

The rock of our recovery

Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote that, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and adversity.” The same could very well be said of society. And particularly of our society today amidst the financial tribulations we face.

Let’s help real people, not fund fake profits

The current frenzy of economic stimulus packages sweeping around us like so many forest fires will not — and more importantly, should not — work. The reasons are threefold. First, they are stimulating the perpetuation of a false economy that has caused nightmares for tens of millions. Second, the packages are based on outdated Depression-era models without taking into consideration today’s much different realities. And third, they provide insufficient protection to get people through the tough three to seven years that are to come.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

So, the Montreal police would like a by-law to enforce respect for them, especially at those nasty hours in the middle of the night when the clubs let out. It must be a harrowing experience to be called bad, bad names by inebriated citizens. My, my, my.

Echoes of darker evils


“A little sincerity is a dangerous thing and a lot of it is absolutely fatal.” ~ Oscar Wilde The next time labour leaders in Canada want to know why there is such antipathy to their agenda in many quarters, they need look no further than the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ Ontario wing. Over the past ten days its president, Sid Ryan, has been up to his anti-Israel agitation for the second time in 30 months. This time he wants a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

Let’s not copy Ontario’s liquor laws

“Those who would trade permanent liberty for temporary security will, in the end, have neither liberty nor security” - Benjamin Franklin On July 3 2008 Tyler Mulcahy, his two friends and girlfriend, all aged 19 or 20, left the restaurant at Muskoka's Lake Joseph Club golf course. Information suggests the group had consumed 31 drinks over several hours.Soon after leaving, Tyler’s car lost control and flew off a winding road, landing in the Joseph River. He and two others died.

Days that sear our souls

This week and next, we would do well to pause and reflect on the solemn and universal backdrop against which this period of time unfolds every year. It is a period that reminds us of those historical encounters between governors and governed, when every act of the authorities exasperates the people and every refusal to act excites their contempt. A period of 12 days that should rend our souls asunder with searing intensity and pierce our hearts with rape-like violation.

Reasonable accommodation? How about accommodating reason!

The spate of pro-Hamas demonstrations in Montreal over the past weeks raises questions that should bother us as a community regardless of where one stands on the conflict in the Middle East. My headline to this article is not meant to suggest that there ever be any legislative restriction on what people can say or write. Short of incitement to violence, freedom of expression should be absolute.

Israel fights west’s war again

This is not 2006. In Israel’s second war with Lebanon, arguments were advanced that Lebanon’s physical integrity should not have been breached since the aggression against Israel was committed not by the government but by Hezbollah. Yet under international norms when a government acquiesces in the violent acts of a group operating from its territory it is equally responsible. Hairs cannot be split this time.

The Montreal Hamas Rally

“A totalitarian culture treats mere opponents as subversives; a democratic culture treats subversives as mere opponents. The reason is that the latter seeks never to betray its principles, while the former has none to betray.” ~ Jean-Francois Revel