Indigenous rights?

[Re: “Talking no use,” Letters, March 12] Regarding Mr. Dawson’s claim that “some of the same people that are fighting for indigenous peoples’ rights here…are also fighting against the indigenous rights of Jews in the Middle East.” I quote from Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister: “In our political argument abroad, we minimize Arab opposition to us…[but] let us not ignore the truth among ourselves.” 

And that truth was that “politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves…The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country…” (The total Jewish ownership of land in Palestine in 1947 was 6.6 per cent of the total land.)

What ensued was the terrorizing and attacking of the Palestinian population that led to about 800,000 of them going into exile. Their homes and land were then taken over by the Jewish state. Over 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed, with no trace left of their previous Arabic names or identity as Palestinian villages. They were not allowed to return. This is called ethnic cleansing. So much for indigenous rights.

>>Mira Khazzam, member, Independent Jewish Voices Montreal

Wise man wanted

We are living in a time of great upheavals, with clashes of civilizations, crashes of economies and great strain on our personal and family lives. With the introduction of computers, BlackBerrys, and other technologies, we’ve become more efficient, we live faster and we endure more stress. We have less time for relaxation and enjoying downtime with our loved ones as the rat race goes faster and faster.

Sure, we’ve put aside the cold war of the ’60s and ’70s, only to be confronted by an even more insidious struggle with gangs, mass killings (École Polytechnique in 1989, Dawson College in 2007 etc.) and abuse of all kinds. Poverty is widespread, pollution abounds and ideological and religious differences cannot be bridged.

Islam is out to conquer the whole world, using terrorism, intifada, threats, and any other means to obtain its stated goals. Capitalism has taken over much of the Western world with its greed, sexual excesses and its craving for pleasure and wealth. Hinduism and its right-wing fundamentalist Hindutva philosophy wants to try to eradicate all other religions from India. Christianity is tarred with the Crusades and the Inquisition. Germany has to live with the memory of Hitler and the Holocaust.

Fascism, totalitarianism, al-Qaeda, the Taliban and many others have plagued our world in recent memory. Global warming and pollution may finish off the human race if the financial meltdown doesn’t do it for us.

Is there any hope? Where can we go to find a peaceful solution? Can we pull back from the abyss of the above giants? The United Nations seems to be moving to an ever more one-sided agenda. Each religion or philosophy or worldview seems to be bent on massacring its opponents. What is the world coming to? Is there no wise man to show us the way?

>>Ed Hoyer

Some good news

[Re: “Quebec’s declining suicide rate,” News, Angel, Feb. 5] I was happy to read that Quebec’s suicide rate has dropped again for the ninth straight year. It’s encouraging to read that the erection of a suicide barrier on Jacques Cartier bridge in 2004 has helped prevent some 30 suicides since then.

I would also like to point out that in 2008 Montreal reported only 29 homicides, a sharp reduction from the year before. Montreal must be the envy of Vancouverites who are dealing with a very sharp spike in drug-related homicides.

Amid the relentless drumbeat of negative news, it’s occasionally good to swill one’s coffee and read the positive.

>>Manish Patwari

Know you’re your grammar

[Re: “Boner of a lonely heart,” News, Riff-Raff, March 12] Did you seriously just miss that “you’re” for “your” misspelling in this week’s column or was it intentional? Is there some subtle humour in it that someone was supposed to get? Is it an attempt to be cute by adopting Internet memes?

I want to know if you’re going to start using “teh” for “the” or graphic attrocities [sic] such as “me n jim went to the store2 get casn of Soda for bob and i.” Or maybe you should take this problem down to copyediting and put your foot down, if you’re a real man.

>>R.M.

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