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Front Page » Archive » Vol
2 No 47 » here
A bowl of smashed eggs
The rising pressure of international affairs begins to takes its toll
as leading politicians and commentators crack
by Kevin Potvin
The Republic
There's nothing like the cold barrel of a gun against the back of the neck to help
focus the mind. Or so those who play with guns say. It's also true that the way people
behave under extreme pressure is the most reliable guide to the kind of people they
really are.
A good opportunity to judge our federal political leaders and leading national media
commentators is now available as the pressures of world affairs mount higher than
we've seen in several generations. US President George Bush and his band of religious
fanatics camped in the White House have got the biggest gun of all pressed firmly
into the back of the world's neck. The last time things were this tense, it was 1962
and Kennedy was challenging Khrushchev over Soviet missiles being shipped to Cuba.
This time, the pressure has proven too much for some of Canada's leaders, and some
senior media commentators have already lost it. Most notably, untested Alliance Party
and official opposition leader Stephen Harper, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney,
and the fulminating National Post columnist Robert Fulford have cracked. They
are definitely off the team--their loss of nerves this early on in the game are an
embarrassment to both Canadian politics and Canadian media.
Furthermore, Fulford is nowhere near as entertaining in his public breakdown as fellow
National Post columnist, barking mad Elizabeth Nickson. (She recently revealed
the Kyoto Accord as the resurrection of the Soviet Comintern.)
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and three senior Liberal Party members
(Paul Martin, John Manley, and David Collenette) have shown they've come ready to
play. The four recently smacked a collective homer right out of the park with their
abrupt official policy about-face on the War on Terrorism first revealed in interviews
on the September 11, 2002 CBC documentary Untold Stories.
Chrétien and his colleagues clearly ascended to the next league with this
glorious hit. Canadians I've talked to, and those who've written letters in daily
newspapers, are astonished to learn these elected officials were even capable of thinking
on this level, let alone playing at ease on it. For the first time since Pierre Trudeau
in 1981 urged the world to be careful of the delusional Ronald Reagan, Canada has
arrived back at the world stage.
Meanwhile, minor-league prospects like Stephen Harper can only wonder at what's going
on at such a fast pace. "What was behind the events of September 11," Harper
said, "are the forces of evil and hatred." He added that Chrétien
should apologize. "Mr Chrétien's comments . . . blaming the victim are
shameful." Harper just doesn't know what's going on.
Brian Mulroney displayed no less a grasp of the finer aspects of foreign affairs.
Chrétien's comments were "false, shocking, and morally specious,"
Mulroney offered in a prepared statement. "This is a uniquely disgraceful statement
. . . . On the day the world solemnly recalls the death and destruction brought by
cold-blooded murderers, our Prime Minister says that American economic strength and
success was in part the provocation for such action." Mulroney, to his credit,
fully understands what Chrétien said. What he clearly doesn't know is that
most Canadians were doing everything possible to avoid recalling the fateful day,
having had pretty much enough of it.
The most spectacular blown piston of recent days, however, is the one that knocked
up and down in National Post columnist Robert Fulford's head. "Niceness
has been a specialty of the Americans," Fulford cried. And in reply to Chrétien's
comment that the West should not "exercise powers to the point of humiliation
for the others," Fulford had this unintentional brain-teaser of a nugget: "Does
the local McDonald's franchise owner in Belgrade feel humiliation or elation when
he makes a living selling hamburgers?"
Fulford, to his credit, at least retains enough sense to leave it dangling there
without an answer: "I don't know," he said, "and neither does Chrétien."
Possibly. But most Canadians have no trouble imagining that grim scenario.
The Globe and Mail editorial board, possessed of enough self-knowledge to
not even try its wobbly knees up the dark stairs, predictably clenched shut its eyes
and "la-la-la'd" out of its head the disturbing sound of argument altogether.
"There's plenty the West should question about itself. Meanwhile, the Arab world
would itself benefit from greater soul-searching," the Globe's editorial
board sagely advised. "Where are those Canadian attributes of balance and perspective?"
they asked. (Meanwhile, a senior official in the White House the same day again invoked
the US official condition of "No negotiations" with Iraq, which was heard
earlier in their relations with Afghanistan, Iran, and North Korea.) Go back to sleep,
Globe and Mail. We'll wake you when it's over.
The Vancouver Sun, being a local paper which relies on wire-feeds from the
Daily Telegraph of London for news of the outside world, completely failed
to learn of the biggest controversy gripping Canada in a long time. There is nothing
to report on its view.
Grace under pressure is a virtue. The pressure has only begun to ratchet up, and
already, grace is in low and declining supply.
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