Letter from Nigeria

Re: "Nigeria's demented minds" [March 20]: Your article reported that some exiled Nigerian activists were enraged when Nigerian trade unionists, invited by Canada's visitors program, toured the country selling [Nigerian dictator Sani] Abacha's program. It went on to say that the visiting trade unionists were apparently also "keeping tabs" on Nigerian expatriates in Canada. I have decided to respond to these scandalous allegations.

The trade union movement in Nigeria has been under a state of siege since 1994, following our strike to force the Abacha regime to hand over power to the winner of the cancelled presidential election. In response, the regime promulgated laws proscribing the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the two unions in the oil sector, appointing sole administrators for them. Two of these laws were specifically targeted at ensuring that Adams Oshimowole, who was deputy president of the proscribed NLC leadership and who led the two-person delegation that visited Canada in February, never became part of the new NLC leadership.

I was the other member of the delegation. But for the mischievous intent of the allegation in the Mirror article, one would have had a healthy laugh at the accusation of being an agent of the Abacha regime. Suffice it to say that one has been part of those who have continued to play their small part to get the military out of the political scene in Nigeria. To drag the names of those on the direct firing line back in Nigeria into disrepute is callous, despicable and utterly fraudulent.

For the avoidance of doubt, the Nigerian trade union movement is committed to the full democratization of Nigerian society. We have fought for democracy in the past and will continue to fight for its enthronement.

John Odah

Lagos, Nigeria

Editor's note: The Mirror recognizes that the Nigerian trade union movement has been a strong supporter of Nigeria's democratization and that the movement has suffered significantly under Abacha's regime. However, the Mirror reporter who wrote the story and attended the meeting with Mr. Odah and Mr. Oshimowole in Montreal reports that those in the audience were very disturbed by the supportive position voiced by the visitors with respect to Abacha's three-year transition program, which many Nigerian democracy activists have criticized.

Sasha: no theogian

Here's some free help for Sasha, who in her column "Raëlian love" [Sex Reporter, June 19] was unsure if she was atheist or agnostic: "Oh, fuck it, I don't know the difference." Here's the difference, sister: an atheist is someone who's too stupid to rationalize the existence of God. Agnostics are just as witless, but they don't have the cojones to denounce any God.

As for a church having no credibility due to witch burnings and the Inquisition, perhaps in a future column Sasha could refer to an incident from the last few centuries. I also wonder if she could find an institution, religious or otherwise, that has remained unblemished for nearly two thousand years.

As for Sasha mocking the Judeo-Christian creation myth ["Probably your religion has a more sensible tale of its conception, like talking snakes and evil apples"], that's not the way any religion was created; it is the way human frailty came to be. And in regards to a talking snake, I'm surprised that Sasha's so unworldly that she doesn't know what a metaphor is. Finally, the Book of Genesis has no reference to an apple, only a fruit. To boot, how can she impart a moral disposition, such as evil, to an inanimate object?

Bradley MacDonald

Waking Westmount

Regarding Paula McKeown's letter last week ["Flower power," (e)Mail, June 26]: I can't believe some people from Westmount were so upset by an anti-poverty march staged in their town that they felt compelled to write shocked letters to the editor. Judging by their outrage, you'd think there is really no connection between the fact that some people are rich and others (the vast majority) are not. The organizers of the protest are to be congratulated for their imaginative strategy, which has served to highlight the huge reality gap that exists between the servants of the system and the managers. What is really upsetting the not-so-badly-off Westmount citizens is the fact that their comfortable ignorance is being challenged.

The last straw was Ms. McKeown's comment that "Flowers are for everyone, rich or poor." Oh yes, indeed... but one can appreciate flowers that much more if one has both the stability and the lack of stress that comes with a reasonable standard of living.

Vincent Tinguely

American clueless

A note to Robert Feinstein, that annoying American character who keeps writing the Mirror to show off his cluelessness about Quebec and Canada [most recently in "American still doesn't get it," (e)Mail, June 19]: read a book, man.

Learn about 17th- and 18th-century Canada, the conquest, the insurrections of 1837-38, confederation, the Quiet Revolution, the repatriation of the constitution, etc. Then hopefully you won't be asking questions like "Why do federalists still want a distinct society clause?" (A partial answer to that, by the way, is that Quebec will never sign the constitution without one.)

What is in the water we drink is 463 years of tumultuous history that has to be known and understood in order to see a bit more clearly in the great big mess we're in.

Nicholas Langelier