The unexpected lesson

I love to write. But what I’ve learned, most unexpectedly, from this course, is that I don’t like to write for academia. I don’t like the feel of the compulsory construction and assembly of references, hypotheses and theories. I can do it and, for the most part, I do it well. But the kind of writing I’ve been able to in this course is far more suited to my sensibilities and personality. There has been no less a demand for literary quality and merit but it can be expressed in a way that is independent of the ‘who has already thought what’ framework. It’s a kinder more creative place for me to be.

And for that, Claude, I thank you very much. It has been a great lesson.

A few more thoughts

When given the assignment to write about the threats to North America, as posed by India and China, the first thing that came to my mind was the threats to the environment. In China, these threats are being nourished by unregulated (less regulated) industrialization, an exponential increase in motor vehicle use, and coal-generated electricity production, to name a few. I can sympathize with ‘developing’ countries that hold the position they had nothing (little) to do with laying the foundations for the current state of accelerating ecological trauma, so why should they be penalized. Fair enough, but that attitude isn’t going to spare the planet. I think anyone who doesn’t believe it’s worthwhile paying attention to climate change is an idiot.

This leads me to dwell on what I have learned about the reallocation of spending and investment by the US after 9/11, and the grossly disproportionate allocation to address security issues at the expense of literacy and the environment.

What would happen if journalists or broadcasters or publishers decided to spin for the environment? Forget stories based on social, economic or political analysis. You can catch all of those in one big environmental lens. “And in climate changes news ….eight schools and two hospitals were evacuated today because of the expanding forest fires in California….heavy rains in the mid-west has destroyed two thirds of the nation’s wheat crop ..... the government is being blamed for mismanaging the distribution of water after the recent prolonged drought in southern England….”

It’s tragically irresponsible for journalists to use the word environmentalist in a pejorative manner.

Economics lesson

For my ‘country’ assignment I was awarded Cuba. I spent two weeks there, over New Years 2003-2004, with my husband, two teenage kids and my in-laws (age 77 and 82). We travelled all over the country with a lovely 40-something Cuban guide, Conrado, who was pretty open to talking about the state of affairs in the country. He had travelled overseas many times – with the army in Angola and as migrant labourer (in the form of a bartender) on a number of cruise ships. He told us that the Cuba government had some sort of ‘arrangement’ to supply workers overseas in certain capacities. He said his favourite country was Israel and he dreamed of going to Saskatchewan. Conrado was not a disgruntled Cuban. He was doing alright for himself in the more open economy which allowed semi-discrete entrepreneurship. His descriptions of life in the years after the withdrawal of Soviet support told of despair, violence, creativity and anguish.

The economics of Cuba are a curious thing. During our stay we were not allowed to purchase or use what the Cubans call the 'national' peso. We had to use the ‘convertible’ peso but in reality all transactions were taking place in American dollars. Their use had been encouraged and sanctioned in the early 1990's when the country was in desperate need of hard currency. Everything we purchased was sold in units of a dollar- all the accommodation, food, souvenirs, beer, tips, ice cream, stamps, petrol, cigars, and entertainment. Within a year of being there, the government withdrew the dollar from circulation, apparently citing the move as retaliation for continued US sanctions. I wonder what happened to all those bills?

My class assignment gave me the opportunity to spend some time exploring the current situation in Cuba. My original intent had been to write a story about Castro but my curiosity was soon waylaid by the displays of flourishing capitalism present at Havana’s 24th International Trade Fair. Is there some kind of contradiction here? Maybe not. Official Canadian promotion of the fair noted that among the expected visitors would be “high ranking officials from the Cuban government and senior representatives from Cuba’s central buying agency who are making decisions about the purchasing of agriculture and food products as well as other goods and services”. I find the prospects for capitalist enterprise in a centrally-planned economy rather confusing.

More than 400 million women worldwide are illiterate, but not one of them is Cuban (so says the Lonely Planet website).

Ethics lesson

Seeking the truth is a noble endeavour but how often can you really find it?

Truth: the first casualty of war. If you believe that does it mean you should always be extra sceptical (cautious) when considering war reporting? Can you /should you ever trust war reporting to be fair, accurate and unbiased?

Is it only in war that truth suffers? How often does it fall victim to political ideology, economic ambition and social exploitation. Do we have any expectations otherwise?

Do we not all have questions about whose word to trust? It seems that everyone has their own truth. Maybe truth is a cause that you believe is so important to advance that spinning, concealing or lying is OK. True to a cause.


Etymology lesson

True -Middle English trewe, from Old English trEowe faithful
Trust - akin to Old English trEowe faithful
Truth - from Old English trEowth fidelity; akin to Old English trEowe faithful

Merriam-Webster Dictionary (http://www.m-w.com/)

Current Events

My 21 year old daughter, Brodie, entered Israel on Nov. 8. She’s just spent the last two months travelling through Turkey, Syria, Jordon and Egypt. Her original plan was to go to Greece from Egypt but circumstances have led her elsewhere.

I read the Globe & Mail on-line most mornings, along with the CBC’s web pages, and sometimes Aljazeera.net, the Guardian and the New York Times. On Nov 8, the World News section of the Globe (it’s an Associated Press story) carried the headline, “Hamas calls on all factions to resume attacks on Israel”. The second paragraph of the article reads, “Hamas' exiled leader, Khaled Mashaal, said a 2005 truce with Israel was finished and appealed to all Palestinian factions to resume attacks: “There must be a roaring reaction so that we avenge all those victims [of Beit Hanoun].” Two Palestinian militant groups promised to step up suicide attacks in response.” I spent the next hour tracking the story through various news sources. Every one had something different to report. It’s all such a tangle. I coarsely patched together information about Khaled Mashaal and his position in the maze of Hamas’ leadership, but still I don’t yet have a sense of how serious, influential and/or potentially dangerous his declaration really is.

Trying to look past the sensational headlines to see what I can learn has led me into a swamp of historical sludge and sediment. I recognise the importance of knowing a country’s history in order to speak or write about it responsibly, but the history of this region doesn’t even seem to be sequential.

My daughter called from Jerusalem two days later. She reported on her culture shock (“I feel like I’m back in civilization.”), how no one seems to be worried about any trouble and how maybe she and her friend will go to Bethlehem in a day or two. I responded by emailing her the Canada government’s warning to all Canadian citizens to stay out of the West Bank. She’ll probably go anyway. I know what it’s like being on the ground and having your big picture view/sense of things obstructed by the sense of normality everyone tries so hard to (falsely) maintain. I lived that way in Belfast and Johannesburg.

How can anyone ever write about Israel? How could you keep your writing unbiased in sentences any longer than three words. No adjectives, no adverbs. They’re too revealing.

I found a wonderful website of old photos of the ‘Holy Land’. They look like the images of a world that was used as the model for the modern creation of the biblical ‘look’. http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~dhershkowitz/index2.html

Hi Claude
I'm back at home in Whitehorse. It's minus 25 degrees C this morning and I'm trying to figure out how to make an entry on this blog.