Poor predicament

Last week's "Tenants poorer than ever" story [The Front, Jan. 15] is no big surprise. However, the statistics are still much cause for alarm.

A lot of minimum wagers who work full-time simply cannot find affordable apartments anymore. The situation is worse for single moms, those on welfare and those with any kind of handicap. If 111,385 Québécois now spend over 80 per cent of their income on rent, that means hunger and malnutrition will reach or has reached crisis proportions among the poor. Food banks will face more and more shortages.

Why, in such a rich province, must so many choose between food and rent, or between food and medication? Many people may not have agreed with the tactic employed by the Anti-Gentrification Committee in planting fake bombs at condo construction sites. But the point somehow needs to be hammered home that more apartment buildings and social housing units need to be urgently put up. How about refurbishing many abandoned factories and rundown buildings and converting them into apartment units (instead of condos)? It is always harder to build something from the ground up - hence buildings that stand vacant in many neighbourhoods must be put to adaptive re-use.

Have you noticed how Hydro-Québec has increased its rates this January? The monthly bus pass also jumped by $5 this January. And Quebec is faced with a bitingly cold winter. The poor may be in for a triple whammy. But where there is life, there is hope - as long as people like Mike Harris aren't in power.

» Manish Patwari

Forgetting ancient mistakes

In Ken Frankel's "Two states the only solution" letter [Jan. 15], he recites a litany of history to justify the present take-over of Palestinian land by settlers who are essentially armed thieves with a holy-book in one hand and a shotgun in the other.

Stating that Jews have moved there peacefully over the last 120 years overlooks the recent history of expropriation of land by force while snubbing international law and human rights. One does not quarrel with the state of Israel as a fact, though created as a UN "mandate" for which the Palestinians had no voice. How wonderful it would be if all societies would somehow ignore the ancient history of "mistakes" (for which Frankel makes a big deal), its resulting vengeances (which are sadly being upheld), and dispense with sacred dictums ("Onward Christian Soldiers…"), instead engendering the ability to forget!

Frankel credits me with being a "Palestinian sympathizer" and of me being a fellow Arab. Yes and no. Indeed I am a sympathizer of human rights and justice; I'm also an animal-rights advocate. Eliminate zoos and eliminate illegal settlements! And no, I am not Arab nor Jew. Frankel should review his anthropology; my name is of Slavic origin (Croatian) and the last I checked, I should be a devout Catholic. But who cares?

Finally, both Frankel and I wish for peace, but we should beware. The world is awash with lovers of peace - peace on their terms. In fact, if one reads Hitler's Mein Kampf, he was doin' it for peace, too. The world is complex, and it's not easy to define the good guys from the bad guys.

» Edward Abramic

Heterosexist religiosity

Since I've been following The War of the Frankels [Letters, recent issues] for some time, I think it wouldn't be entirely inappropriate to engage in a little unorthodox Biblical exegesis.

Imagine, perhaps in the John Lennon sense, a world in which such heterosexist religions were no longer doing violence to people's minds and bodies - and I don't just mean monotheistic religions.

To begin the exegesis, imagine if "creation" really meant procreation and "Messiah" (from the Hebrew) or "Christ" (from the Greek) meant anointed on the penis by the vaginal fluids rather than by cooking oil on the head?

Hypothetically, any man could thus become the Messiah by this process and stop driving everyone nuts. And if Islamic men and women are equal, what are "honour killings" of any female relative who gets out of line about?

What, by extrapolation, is the God in heterosexist religions, if not orgasm, accompanied by the consciousness of oneself as a sexual being (read: heterosexual being, or else!)

Have I broken a taboo? Is it time for lies and secrets again, or what Sartre calls "Bad Faith" (literally)? Is it time to obfuscate obscurantism, so to speak, even to oneself? Good God!

If you doubt these proofs, try a few yourself. Or read the Bible, the constitution of heterosexist religiosity! Or try the Koran or any one of your dirty-minded sacred texts!

These old books cannot be dismissed out of hand, they must be explained away! They can, and they'd better be, if we value our lives, and our world!

It will take time, for sure, but some sunny morning, maybe optimistic, reason-based views of ourselves and our sexuality will be given equal time with centuries of superstitious mental bondage. Just imagine the possibilities!

» Gordon R. Seal

Correction:

In last week's story "Fast, free and anti-corporate," the Mirror misidentified McGill Linux Users Group (McLUG) member Michael Pereira. He's the one in the striped sweater. For more info on the install-fest and McLUG, visit http://open.mcgill.ca.

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