Trashing Elatrash

Even when found in a journal of dubious quality, articles like your recent profile of Samer Elatrash are cause for concern [“Live from Concordistan,” Jan. 9]. Mr. Elatrash is clearly proud of the attention his group received for the riots at Concordia. He implies there will be more violence if others he disagrees with come to speak.

Yet Mr. Elatrash’s brutishness is not as troubling as your article’s implied approval of it. Mr. Elatrash promises to go back to Palestine upon completion of his heavily subsidized education. Good. He is clearly incapable of grasping the philosophy that lies at the heart of the liberal arts education he came to peruse. His taste for violence and disdain for free speech will fit in very nicely back home. What is difficult to understand is how a little paper like yours thinks itself immune from the thuggery that blights Concordia and lies at the heart of Mr. Elatrash’s belief system.

Perhaps one night a gang of men not dissimilar from Mr. Elatrash will come to trash your offices, peeved that your paper didn’t say what they wanted it to say. And when the glass starts breaking, the intimidation begins in earnest. Perhaps you will smile at the irony of it, but somehow I doubt it.

» Charles E. Anderson

Singh’s self-promotion

I was inspired—inspired I tell you—by Ken Hechtman’s recounting of noted human rights defender Jaggi Singh’s difficulties in trying to enter Israel [“Activist down,” Dec. 19]. (Sorry, I believe he called it Palestine.) Hechtman could have saved a lot of ink by just pointing out that Israel, like any sovereign country, can refuse entry to any foreigner at any time without explanation. In the end, they let him in, even though his avowed purpose was to investigate possible human rights violations by Israel—the existence of which is beyond all doubt in Singh’s mind.

I wonder what he discovered? His entry was allowed because Israel is both a democracy and somewhat self-defeating in its dealings with its non-violent enemies.

As I write, newscasts are reporting that Singh’s press secretary—fellow human rights activist and known practitioner of non-violence, Samer Elatrash—has informed the media that Singh has gone to the “occupied” territories in violation of the conditions of his visa. If caught, it is my fondest hope that Singh will be deported by the Israelis, but not to Canada.

Send him to Egypt to investigate human rights violations against Copts, or to Iraq to investigate human rights violations against Kurds and Shiites, or to China to check out Tibetan conditions, or to Chechnya, or even to India to check out how Muslims are doing in Gujarat, etc. Then let’s see what a warm welcome he receives from those host states.

Upon return to Canada, I believe he should immediately be awarded the Svend Robinson prize for self-promotion and championing the cause of peoples who never object to mistreatment by their own but prefer violence to compromise and negotiation with an opponent of a different nationality.

» Ken Frankel

Jaggi Singh’s extreme adventure trip to Palestine is courageous. Did he remember to take his radical teddy bears to show the IDF and the Palestinians? Many people go to Palestine to stand in front of tanks anonymously. In his report of Dec. 20, which can be found at www.montrealmuslimnews.net/jaggientering.htm, Singh writes “I” so many times one gets the impression that this is all about “I, Jaggi” in Palestine. Is there anything new in Singh’s report? Nothing.

The Palestinians, who continually face the Israeli murder machine, are demonized in Canada’s pro-Israeli newspapers and on our rancid CBC. Would Singh research and publish the names of Canadian public and private institutions that send money to the Brooklyn settlers in the West Bank and Gaza? Is there a financial link between some Montrealers and the murder of Palestinians?

» Julian Samuel

Omen dispatch

I am writing this from a town called Esfahan in Iran. I just want to thank the Canadian Government for endorsing the (eventual) war in Iraq. To think, I was going to be safe out here by explaining that Canada is not the USA. But now it seems that we are just interchangeable heads of the same war machine.

Thanks a lot and enjoy the snow.

» omen

Pinto posse

That’s enough nasty letters about Shiromi Pinto. We Pintos stick together.

» David Pinto

Keep cat in bag

I happened to read Matthew Hays’s review of Adaptation after I saw the movie [Cover, “Cooking the book,” Dec. 19]. Had I read it first, I would have been quite annoyed. Hays revealed something that occurs in the last 10 minutes of the film and I would have waited for this event to occur all through the movie—goodness knows it was tough enough to keep track of events as it was!

Generally, I read film reviews warily—maybe only the first and last paragraph with the hope that the reviewer hasn’t revealed too much. But if you had a policy that only the initial set-up of the film was revealed, I could read the whole review in advance! What an idea for a 2003 New Year’s resolution.

» Roz Paris

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