Blog about politics (mideast and pro-Israel, Canadian and local Montreal), world events, and random thoughts.

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The World I Know is updated on a semi-regular basis by segacs.

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11:49 PM
We're going to the finals!

It used to be called the Canada Cup. And tonight, our boys demonstrated why. In a tense nailbiter, we edged the Czech Republic 4-3 in overtime. Once again, Vinnie Lecavalier, the golden boy from Ile Bizard, was the big hero.

Bring on the Finns!

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11:45 PM
Nuclear blast in North Korea?

Witnesses saw a mushroom cloud. Little else is known so far.

Update: Both the US and South Korea are saying it's unlikely to be nuclear. Which, of course, begs the question of what it was.

Update #2: North Korea says it was for a hydroelectric project. But this is North Korea we're talking about, so the credibility of that statement is somewhat suspect. Just look at their statement:

Paek, who was providing the first North Korean word on the explosion, said it was part of a construction project to build a hydro-electric dam in the remote mountainous region of Ryanggang on the Chinese border.

The BBC said that when Paek was asked why North Korea had not explained earlier about the blasts he told Rammell Pyongyang had not done so because all foreign journalists were liars.

I suppose that's a good reason... if you subscribe to the North Korean version of logic.

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1:26 PM
The end of the innocence?

That's what people call September 11th, 2001. Three years ago today. They say it's the end of the innocence of the world. That, when the towers fell, three thousand people died. But what also died was our faith in the goodness of people and our sense of security. That it, too, lay in the rubble.

But it wasn't the end of the innocence, of course. Not really. Maybe the end of the delusion, but that's it. Human beings have never had a true age of innocence. We've been warring with each other, killing each other, and destroying each other's civilizations since time immortal.

It's the third anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, true. But, even considering only the latter part of the 20th century until today, it's also:

• Thirty-two years since 11 Israeli athletes were massacred by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Olympics.
  
• Twenty-one years since 241 American Marines were killed in a suicide attack in Beirut, Lebanon.
  
• Sixteen years since Pan Am flight 103 crashed over Lockerbie, Scotland after being hijacked by Libyan terrorists, killing 259 people aboard.
  
• Eleven years since the last World Trade Center bombing that killed six and injured more than 1000 people.

And let's review what we have learned since then:

• October 12, 2002, over 200 killed in a terrorist bombing in Bali, most of them Australian tourists.
  
• November 2002, a bombing in a hotel in Mombassa, Kenya targeted Israeli toursts. 13 people were killed.
  
• May 12, 2003, bombing attacks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killed 34 people.
  
• March 11, 2004, over 190 people were killed and nearly 2000 wounded when bombs exploded on commuter trains in Madrid.
  
• Last week, hundreds of children and adults were killed as a school siege in Beslan, Russia came to a horrifying end.
  
• More than 70 major terrorist attacks in Israel have claimed 400+ innocent lives since 9/11 alone.

These are just a few examples. Here are many more. The thing is, evil has been present and trying to take over for a very long time. It's not the end of the innocence. Maybe it's just acknowledgment that innocence never existed in the first place.

Despite that, we have not been defeated. Despite all the attacks, all the lives lost, we continue to flourish.

Which is why, today, I propose not just sadness and rememberance, but also celebration. Celebration that we're alive, that we're free people living in a free country. Rememberance not only that we're fighting, but what it is we're fighting for.

If that's the only lesson to come out of 9/11, maybe it's enough.

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9:06 PM
Powell uses the G-word

Colin Powell called a spade a spade today, when he used the word "genocide" to describe the horrible mass killings that have been going on in Darfur, Sudan for months:

In the strongest U.S. statement to date on the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell today said for the first time that "genocide" has been committed there and that the government of Sudan and Arab militias "bear responsibility."

[ . . . ]

Powell's use of the word "genocide" for the first time in describing the situation in Sudan followed a strong debate within the government. On one side of the argument, some human rights officials contended that a declaration of genocide would be a powerful statement that would draw world attention to Darfur and promote efforts to halt mass killings there.

However, some in the U.S. government argued that the explicit use of the word might alienate the Sudanese government and limit U. S. ability to pressure its leaders to halt marauding Arab militias, which have killed, raped and tortured black African refugees in the region.

Right. The Sudanese government. The people who armed the Janjaweed in the first place. Let's tiptoe around because we certainly wouldn't want to piss them off.

U.S. Congress already declared the situation a genocide, but the White House has been reluctant to say so until now. However, that's better than the United Nations and the European Union, both of which are running scared from the term, because it would imply that action would be required by the international community.

Tens of thousands of people keep dying in Sudan. And the world refuses to do anything about it. Now that the Bush administration has used the G-word, will it really change anything?

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7:49 PM
Traffic nightmare

It's days like today when I'm really glad I no longer live in West Island...

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7:45 PM
Jeff Jarvis reflects on two years after the twin towers fell:

But our stock-taking as a nation and as a civilized half of the world is troubling this year, for we are fighting with each other, not with our enemy.

And that enemy has only dug down to new depths of atrocity: from jets filled with innocents killing innocents, down to children strapped up as bombs, down to bombs in backpacks on trains, down to beheadings on video, down to schoolchildren captured and killed. They fall deeper and deeper into hell.

And we just yell at each other: left v. right, Kerry v. Bush, Swift v. Kerry, Moore v. Bush, France v. America, America v. France, Iraqi v. Iraqi, damned near everybody v. Israel.... We fight all the wrong fights and wrong enemies and meanwhile let our real enemies invent new evil and drag us down with them.

We're all falling.

(Via Allison).

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11:23 AM
September 9th: Two Years Later

September 9th, 2002, when this was the scene at Concordia:



The riot forced cancellation of Benjamin Netanyahu's speech, but that was just the short-term effect. It brought a campus war to a head, resulting in endless finger-pointing, international media attention that dragged Concordia's name through the mud, and all-out political dissention that devolved into a CSU fight against Hillel. Concordia became known as "Gaza U", as a hostile campus environment for Jewish students, and as a school that had pretty much hit rock bottom.

So what's changed in two years? In March of 2003, anger at the CSU for the Netanyahu debacle was partly responsible for an upset victory for the moderates in the CSU elections. This was repeated in 2004, and the two years of relative calm have done a lot to help the student atmosphere. Activism is still alive at Concordia, but moderation is trumping extremism, and, on the whole, students are free to go to class without harassment. Speaking to friends who are still students there, I'm told that the difference between the atmosphere of two years ago and today's campus atmosphere is like night and day.

But has progress really been made? Or is it just another sort of defeat? Could Hillel bring a pro-Israel speaker back to Concordia now, or would the event be shut down - not by violent protest, but by insinuations that they shouldn't "rock the boat"? Is that really better?

For the past two years, the goal has been to ease tensions, cool everyone down, and neutralize the campus atmosphere. A lot of progress has been made on that front. But come March, if the extremists get elected again, things could go right back to the way they were. Unless the next step is taken: that of standing up for what's right. Students need to be able to express their opinions freely, and not suppress them for fear of being provocative. They need to be able to do this in an atmosphere where they have the freedom to say what they think, without the risk of violence or being shut down. They need to be able to wear their support of Israel with pride, not hide it away because it's not politically-correct.

There's still much work to be done. Luckily, the new crop of student leaders seems to be rising to the challenge. I wish them luck and strength.

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11:06 PM
PETA hits bottom, digs

Never satisfied to merely be tasteless and shocking, PETA decided to cross the line to completely appalling a long time ago. Today, the group took its absolutely disgusting Holocaust on your plate campaign to the Montreal streets, where it would be as visible as possible to piss off as many people as possible.

The thing that gets me is not that they use shock to advertise. The marketer in me understands that. But what gets me is that they're so goddamn self-righteous about it. Instead of admitting to being cynical media hounds, the PETA people want us to believe that they're actually trying to accomplish some sort of noble cause.

I'll be very happy to raise my fork to PETA the next time I eat meat.

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1:44 PM
Arrival Day

Today is the American Jewish community's 350th "Arrival Day", a cultural holiday celebrating the arrival of the first group of Jewish people to North America.

Jonathan's Blogburst on the subject has a number of thought-provoking posts on the theme of the future of the Jewish community in America. So I figured that today would be a good opportunity to put a few of my own thougths to paper (or to screen, as it were) on the subject of the Jewish community in Montreal. Most of what I will say in this post is not politically-correct. But if you want political correctness, go read a different blog.

I am a fourth-generation Montrealer, I consider myself thoroughly Canadian... but most definately not thoroughly (or even partially) Quebecoise. Sure, I live in Quebec, but Quebecois is less about location and more about culture... and the Quebecois culture has never been particularly welcoming to Jews - especially anglophone Jews.

From the overt antisemitism of Quebecois figures such as Lionel Groulx, to the WWII conscription crisis and identification of Quebec with fascism, the history of this province is rife with antisemitism. The people here will be extremely offended if you bring it up or call attention to what has become one of Quebec history's dirty little secrets... as historian Esther Delisle found out the hard way.

Things are changing. Montreal is a truly multicultural city, and many of the barriers faced by Jews until midway through last century have disappeared. But Quebec society - especially outside Montreal - continues to be relatively closed compared to the rest of North America. As Jacques Parizeau's comments on the evening of the 1995 referendum defeat told us, we will always be considered part of the "money and the ethnic vote" that most Quebecois nationalists feel keep costing them their dream of self-determination. Quebec continues to have the highest rate of antisemitic incidents in Canada. This narrow-minded attitude creeps up now and again, as a reminder that, despite their outward facade, many Quebecois politicians and leaders have not truly overcome this antisemitism. The bottom line is, we will never be "pure laine" enough to truly fit in here. And there's still a long way to go before that will truly change.

The Montreal Jewish community, too, is changing, though. More anglophone Jews are making the move down the 401 to Toronto, or to the United States, resulting in a shrinking, ageing community. Partially compensating for this is the leaps-and-bounds growth of the francophone Sephardic Jewish community, which is young and dynamic and is changing the face of Montreal Jewry.

Antisemitism is coming from new directions now, too. Mirroring the worldwide trend, much of it is originating from the growing Arab and Muslim communities, especially on university campuses where the traditional student Left has adopted the Palestinian cause. Incidents such as last April's UTT firebombing remind us that we must be ever vigilent.

Despite all of that, I love living here. This is a great community with lots to offer. I'm a proud Canadian and I love my country, and I'm a proud Montrealer and I love my city. We grumble about how small the community is and how everyone knows everyone else, but in a way, that too is kind of nice. With over 90,000 members, the community is certainly still large and vibrant, and is one of the least culturally-assimilated Jewish communities in all of North America (with the exception of the ultra-Orthodox). During community-wide events like the March to Jerusalem or the Yom Ha'atzmaut parades, we can really see the strength of the community, but its backbone are the people who volunteer tirelessly to keep things running and strong.

Happy arrival day to our US neighbours. Today, as all days, I'm very proud of my identity as a Canadian, Montrealer, and Jew.

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1:35 PM
Tuesday after Labour Day

During this long weekend, I tried to spend as little time in front of a computer as possible (hence the lack of blogging).

But now it's the most depressing day of the year: Tuesday after Labour Day. This means that summer is really over. The days are getting shorter, not longer. It's too early to be hopeful for next summer. Everyone goes back to work, back to school, back to the grindstone. No more vacations or sunshine or lazy summer days until next year.

Grumble grumble.

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