Auguri di Compleanno, Bon Anniversaire

Another year, a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer water down your pants. (Quote from the Mary Tyler Moore show). Birthdays are a funny thing for me, each year is different, different cities or continent, in all kinds of places. This year in Ottawa, though we are suppose to be in Spring now it is still cold and full of snow, however all this is set to change dramatically by Thursday when temperatures soar to 10C over night and a massive melt will start quickly, meaning floods, ah Spring in Ottawa.

I have many things to be thankful for on this Birthday, good health, good teeth, my dentist told me this week that for a man my age having all my teeth is remarkable. It seems that like 300 years ago most people in their fifties today have lost a large amount of teeth or are looking at dentures.

We have a nice home, friends, our dogs and each other. We still travel a lot, I have taken in my lifetime more trips to exotic, strange and foreign lands than anyone I know. I have seen 45% of the planet and have lived in many countries for extended part of my life. Going abroad for a few days does not appear on my chart. I have studied and learned foreign languages. I understand quite a few others and am not lost or put off by foreign cultures or mores when I travel.

I now work as a volunteer in two National Museums in Ottawa and I enjoy it immensely. Spending easily upwards of 50 hours a month doing volunteer work, it is like a second career and it is fun, something I always wanted to do and can now do. Not a bad life Maggie Muggins.

Here are some pictures of little me through the ages.

In Ville Saint-Laurent in our backyard in the little pool, I am about 5 yrs old with my little brother.

My first morning going to school, grade 1, on my own in Quebec City

On the train in Poland going from Warsaw to Krakow, 1998.

Italian Cooking School near Rome 2009

In Rome in 2013 at dinner at our friends house

With our Reesie in Rome in 2008 our first apartment on Via Asmara

 In Assisi in 2010

At dinner in Salzburg at the Sketch Bar, Hotel Bristol

With Nicky in Rome on Via dei Villini

On the old Via Latina, with one of the many old aqueducts, Rome

At the monastery of Pedralbes in Barcelona

 At Cap Sounion near Athens at sun down 2010

In the Silk Merchant Guild Hall in Valencia, Spain

Breakfast Italian style at the Hotel in Ragusa Ibla, Sicily  

On the Island of Capri

At the Festival in Salzburg the Karl Bohm Hall 

Infamous photo abroad the Azamara where I was mistaken for Karl Lagerfeld 

Café Bazar, Salzburg, my favourite café at Festival time.

The little wood house in which Mozart wrote his music, beautifully preserved in the garden of the Mozarteum in Salzburg

This for me is the most beautiful fountain in Rome, the Turtles fountain in the area of the Portico Ottavia and the old Ghetto

With Professor A. Testa on Easter Sunday in Rome 2010 

On Via Appia looking for Spartacus 

On board Air Transat going to Italy, a good airline 

Reading newspapers

I ask myself sometimes what is the point of reading newspapers either in print or on the internet. Most National papers in Canada are now owned by large corporations who have little to do with the news world, owning a paper is a matter of prestige and more to the point of pushing ones business/corporate agenda on the public. Canadians believe or want to believe that newspapers are independent and stories based on facts, editorials are serious unbiased reflections on events. Not so anymore, the news is all about entertainment and influencing public opinion.

This past week I read about the Harper government doing away with the Canadian Health Board which  monitors health program delivery in all provinces in Canada. Reason given by PM Harper is that as of 2014 the agreement on health care program funding between the Federal government and the Provinces will come to an end. The Federal government will no longer be involved and this means that Western Provinces who currently are wealthier will have better health coverage than poor Eastern Provinces (this includes Ontario), in general the health of Canadians will be affected.

In Parliament the New Democratic Party (NDP) who are the Official Opposition are presenting a motion on the secret FIPA treaty between China and Canada, the life of this so called free trade treaty is 31 years. The Chinese Government will be able to sue secretly Canadian Companies and demand damages which is to be paid by the Federal Government. You can well imagine that the Communist Party in China will go after all Canadian companies, think Bombardier and will undermine them so that Chinese companies can take over, economic colonization. PM Harper sees nothing wrong with that claiming it will create jobs. Canadian companies will not gain anything in the process and certainly will not be able to sue Chinese companies (mostly owned by the Communist party) for damages in China.
Strangely the little Western African Country of Benin has been able to negotiate a better trade deal with the Chinese.

Parliament is broken, it was revealed by the Whip of the Conservative Party that Members of Parliament do not represent their constituents but the views of the Party Leader. In Canada we do not elect our Prime Minister, the leader of a Political Party is chosen to form a Government by the Governor General based on the majority of seats won by any Party after an election. Something most Canadians do not understand. The right of Members to ask questions in the House on what is of concerns to their Constituents has been taken away by the Party Leaders and instead MPs ask questions based on what the Party Leader wants to hear. The Speaker of the House has become a lap dog to the Prime Minister.  Currently there is a fight in Parliament for more independence for Members of Parliament so they can re-assert their rights. Otherwise what is the point of Parliament if the business once conducted in the House, like the latest Budget, is now handled by un-elected staffers in secret who work for the PM.

In the last 7 days the attack ads against Justin Trudeau have been shown more than a quarter of a million times on television by the Conservative Government of Mr. Harper. Who pays for all this, the taxpayers.  On Radio-Canada this morning a commentator gave this analogy, it was Herr Goebbels, Propaganda Minister to the Fuhrer, who said repeat a lie 10 times and it is still a lie, repeat it 1000 times and it becomes the truth.

The Minister responsible for the now defunct Canadian International Development Agency (now a branch of the Dept of Foreign Affairs) asked for all his briefings to be written in English only, in other words ''Speak White''. The Harper Government tried to deny this but unfortunately for them, there is a paper trail pointing to the Minister. So much for Official Languages in Canada, most of the Members and Ministers of the Harper Government do not speak French and have no interest in respecting Bilingualism. It was Sir John A. MacDonald our first Prime Minister who said in 1867 that if you wanted a man to vote for you, you had to speak his language. Sir John A. a Conservative, spoke French.

Also this morning a story in the papers about a Cézanne discovered in the vaults of the National Gallery of Canada. The morning show on Radio-Canada said that the painting had been lost in 1983 and was only discovered again by accident last week. Great deal of laughter all around, how can you loose a Cézanne. However in the English paper The Ottawa Citizen, the story is very differently presented. Apparently this painting which is just a sketch and is unsigned though it is known to be a Cézanne arrived in Canada from Europe via Bermuda during the Second World War and it is believed that it could be part of stolen art works belonging to a Jewish family or someone, that is not clear. The Citizen goes on to suggest that maybe the NGC knew this all along and was not forthcoming in returning to painting to its rightful owners whoever that may be, no one knows despite research into the matter.

The Ottawa Citizen has always been anti-museum, its editorial line is, why do we need to spend money on art in general, its not efficient and it brings in no money, its for the elite, the masses have no need of art and culture, unless we are speaking of Justin Bieber.

The Director of the NGC pointed out correctly that the National Gallery does not claim to own this painting, it is only acting as custodian for the time being, it is a very complex situation given the lack of records on it and no known owner. The director pointed out that the NGC has never in its long history been involved in looted or stolen art works, The Ottawa Citizen appears unsatisfied.

I have also noticed how the Globe and Mail which use to be a respectable National Newspaper has now sided very clearly with the Prime Minister, the editorial line now appears to be Mr. Harper can do no wrong, while the Opposition and the new Liberal Leader are fumblers.

Canada use to be known as a wealthy country, it is now referred to by political commentators as a relatively poor country.

There is a lot more, this is why I wonder why read the news.



 

Demanding respect for one's values

A news item on the English version of Al-Jazeerah News says that President Morsi of Egypt will asking for respect from the USA for Egypt's values. Morsi is in New-York for the opening of the Fall session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Such a headline in the current climate or even any other time will attract attention and raise eyebrows. I can see the comments from some readers enraged by such a request. How can the President of Egypt ask anything given the generous financial subsidies his country has been receiving from many countries for so many years. How can a poor country ask something from wealthy nations. People will view such a request through their own optics and pass a quick judgement call.

We should remember that in 1971 during the first secret meeting between Henry Kissinger and Chinese Premier Zhou En-Lai in Beijing which led to the Nixon visit and recognition of the PRC by the USA in 1979, the Chinese position was that the PRC had its own value system and that they would not adopt American values, the relationship would be one of equals.

What President Morsi is saying has to be viewed in the context of his region of the world and its people and their grievances. It does not matter if you agree or not, it is a matter of listening to what is being said. Many of the countries of North Africa and of the Levant (middle-east) were for centuries dominated politically by the Ottoman Turks and where part of the greater Ottoman Empire. The Turks are not Arabs, in origin they are from Central Asia and migrated about 900 years ago to Anatolia. In the 19th century, with the Ottoman Empire becoming weaker politically, the establishment of a new domination by Europeans started all over North Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria came under French domination, the British took Libya, Egypt and then pushed into the Middle-East with France and created new countries like Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and a protectorate in Palestine. Installing at the same time Arab Princes as Kings of these new countries in the hope that they would do Europe's bidding.

Egypt had a difficult time of it, with Napoleon looting ancient treasures in his contempt for Egypt. To subsequent French and English governments who took over the administration of the country on the pretext that debts on enormous loans were due and since the Khedive could not pay well then we simply take your country and rule it. The Royal family in Egypt were hostages to their colonial rulers. The end of the Second World War saw a diminished Britain and France and a growing USA influence in the region. Finally in 1952 Colonel Nasser overthrew the Monarchy and kicked the foreigners out. But the years of political humiliation and economic subservience were not over. There was the Suez Canal crisis which nearly caused a third World War and where the USA had to intervene to stop both British and French interests and then the wars with Israël and the support of Arab independence around the Middle-East. In the 1970's with the death of Nasser and the failure of his socio-economic experiments appeared a growing Muslim religious movements with strong political and social overtones, asking for economic reforms and social justice.

During the Cold War years the great powers both the USSR and the USA played the Arabs against one another, in Egypt it was over technical cooperation and financing of the great Aswan Dam.  The Egyptian government did not know how to respond to the demands of its own rapidly growing population, not enough schools, not enough jobs, not enough food nor money nor economic opportunities, poor infrastructure and finally generalized poverty in what was in antiquity a great Empire as the ancient monuments attest. The loss of face also in 1967 in the conflict against Israël. The Egyptian population demanded change and change came finally a year ago with the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak whose political career went all the way back to 1973 under President Anwar Sadat.

The Egyptians are now looking for a new approach in their diplomatic relationship with Western powers like the USA based on mutual respect. Egypt is an ancient land, 5000 years of history, its important contribution to the advancement of civilization is established.  Egypt is also a conservative society with strong family values, in the West some will cringe at those words. But for all that, Egyptians are an easy going people. It is also a mix society, there is a small  Egyptian-Jewish population, the Christian Copts represent about 10% of its population and the rest Muslims, very few fanatics in either of the faiths.

What President Morsi is saying to us is NO more cartoons, movies, and other insults against Islamic beliefs and religion in general. Is it too much to ask that you do not insult a people's religion or beliefs. It is pretty common for all of us to expect basic respect for what we believe. You may not agree with a person's beliefs but you do not have the right to insult them because you claim the higher moral ground.

You will have clowns who want to burn a holy book, who think that a cartoon is just that, but for many people it has far more meaning, especially if you have a long colonial past of oppression, injustice. and humiliations at the hands of countries who still claim to this day the higher moral ground. The indignation is understandable, it is inconceivable in Egypt that anyone could say deeply offensive things and simply walk away.  One also has to question the motive behind this little movie or the cartoons, what was or is the motive. Such individual damaged our interest and cause untold damage to to others by their behaviour, is that not worth at least a moral sanction and being called to account.
No one has explained so far their motive, not the movie producer nor the editors of newspapers or magazines. When asked they do not give a reason, hiding instead behind general notions of freedom of speech or freedom of the press. Though such freedoms are important in a democratic society they should not be abused for notoriety.

President Morsi is basically saying you respect us and we will respect you, simple enough and do not expect us to adopt your value system. The relationship has to be on an equal footing, no more condescending attitude. The missionary zeal, the lectures are no longer acceptable, we may not agree on every point but we will respect our differences.
We should also not forget that Morsi speaks for the Egyptians who elected him and for their aspirations, which go well beyond religious matters.