Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - May 18, 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba Editor John 6977044 focus Winnipeg free press a 7 May the War Over family violence i am writing in response to two articles written in the free the first is Reena som mers april 1 letter to the editor entitled remove the blinders to get bet Ter View of family the Sec Ond is an article written the follow ing week entitled Federal violence report dishonest i do not want to participate in a nonproductive debate Over who has the most compelling ideology regarding violence in its important to Correct what i believe to be Sommers in Sommers she has at tempted to take the women move ment to task for being too Politi Cally Correct and said that we have neglected to take on the very real plight of abused she suggests the reason for this is because this might severely Compromise women struggles and detract from the victimization of i am confused As to which Wom ens movement Sommers is refer ring i have been actively involved in the women movement for especially in terms of Vio Lence it was the women movement that initially addressed the sexual abuse of often in the face of tremendous we continue to address issues of child Battery and sexual and ritual along with wife sexual sexual harassment and elder contrary to what som Mer there were vigils held the first Friday of every month for children who were being violence against women and Chil Dren is continuing but to state that the women movement is to blame is inflammatory and based on ignorance of the in the Sommer is quoted As saying its not a National Emer gency women Are not fighting for their it seems Sommer is Bas ing this on her interpretation of re i think it is important to Check our research against the real Ity of Peoples we never have said that women cannot be or Are not How this does not mean that Vio Lence against women is not in the past year in approximately women with Chil Dren sought Refuge in women Shel in the last women used nonresidential wife abuse ser vices and Over Calls were received on wife abuse crisis do these numbers not reflect an Emer gency How Many More women have to be or to qual Ify for an emergency these num Bers do not even include the unknown number of women who do not go to in 15 women were killed after they had left the women Are fighting for their of equal import is Why we must have these i find it tremendously sad and disconcerting that we expend this much Energy challenging and defending what we can we not spend our collective time ending the War of violence against women and children instead of Start Pamela Jackson Winnipeg society brainwashed today society is brainwashed More than they the frenzy to keep the jets in Winnipeg is a Good City Council wants a new Arena but they have been met with opposition from taxpayers who feel that our Money should be spent else the Forks was to have been a relaxing place where people could meet and enjoy the connecting the walkways from the legislative building to Kildonan a people place with Trees and Flowers to complement the people have been City Council and others knew that what they wanted was a new Arena and they would get it at All costs by manipulating Gullible fans of the one reason so Many people flock to the Forks is that they can Park free and not worry about feeding the they can relax and enjoy a few hours of the new Arena will kill this and we will All be filling the coffers of City poor people always lose out when the Well heeled can afford to we now have the fans giving their own hard earned Money to keep the who mostly lose their the welfare of the people should be put before a Winnipeg nuclear nations must disarm the Subtle suggestion of your editorial on april 24 that the nonproliferation treaty not is toothless be Juse of selfishness us nonnuclear to the editor the free press welcomes letters from letters must be signed and should include a clearly printed address and Telephone names will be published but not All letters May be edited for style and Short letters Are less Likely to be please address letters to letters to the Winnipeg free 1355 Mountain Winnipeg r2x letters can be sent to our fax number letters maybe submitted through the internet at . Leffers Senf via the internet obviously cannot be but must include Home address and Telephone is it has become a common practice and fashionable in the West to paint five nuclear pow ers As responsible and the rest As it is a display of massive ignorance at its Best or is racist nonsense at its any person who has grown up in the nuclear age should note that it is the Christian West which used the nuclear weapons on human beings for the first conducted atmospheric and underground explosions against the outcry of other a continued development of nuclear weapon systems and finally stockpiled nuclear weapons to its hearts the United states in particular has a tainted record of preaching about the Virtues of the not yet practising selective non proliferation in relation to its friends especially its client state refusal to sign the not is due to a combination of genuine strategic and military defence a Good dose of nationalism and a deep understanding of the fallibility of human nature in the East or it was Winston i who people live by Friend but nations live by self inter est this statement is Well understood by strategic planners of nations such As India or Israel who will never give up National defence to any outside unless the nuclear Powers hasten nuclear disarmament and practise what they a meaningful not will be Only an pundit Winnipeg French clowns bring excitement on behalf of my coworkers and those who Benefit from the child life Clown program at childrens i would like to thank you for the coverage of the events of last month clowning Hospital visitors prove Strong Medicine for free april the visit from my French colleagues was an exciting and valuable experience for both patients and i would like to Point out a few errors which appeared in the a the Beautiful girl sit Ting next to Giraffe is named Stephanie Crampton not Candice Kallstrom As Caroline Simonds and Anne vis Suzaine Are members of be Rire Medicin the Medicine of laughter in be Rire Medicin is a com Pany of 17 therapeutic clowns not four clowns As reported and these clowns Are contracted to work in five hospitals four in Paris and one outside of Paris the visit from my therapeutic clowning colleagues was a very productive one and will Lead to much networking Between the various therapeutic clowning programs in North America and in they provided much encouragement for Hubert not Hugo As As a result of this transatlantic Clown 1 think Hubert has gained a Little More Davi Langdon life specialist child life department childrens Hospital setting an example Ive just finished Reading in my May 1 Issue of Mac leans of your City councils decision to destroy retired police rather than accept in Trade in Money which would allow these guns to be sold to an american gun this action reflects the sort of responsibility we should expect in All Levels of on both sides of the it is a Good example for citizens of our Northern neighbor quietly trying to show us How to be a bit More thank and Bravo to Amaro Silva and his associates on City Terry Van Vukek Ohio Turkey hangs in balance by Thomas Friedman now York times news service Washington on my Way Home from Moscow a couple of weeks i visited talk about a country in a bad look at a Turkey today provides one Stop shopping to All the troubles of the Post cold War Turkey is connected geography ethnically or politically to the problems of arme tajik Syria and islamic fundament All the turks Are missing is a Border with no won Der Turkey had four foreign minis ters last turkish foreign pol icy today is a 360degree night it is also More important to the West than Ever during the cold Turkey was the Southern fringe of the nato to Turkey is the epicentre of a new regional system born from the ruins of the soviet its called and it stretches from the Balkans across the Cau Casus to the new states of Central this is a predominantly mus turkish speaking or Ethni Cally turkish grouping of new Many of them still groping for a political consumed by troubles a weak Turkey will be consumed by the troubles of this re Gion and project them into a Strong tied to the can radiate its values and counter Iran to millions of muslims from Azerbaijan to Kazakhstan values that Are basically democratic and inclined toward moderate is Lam and integration with the global but turkeys own identity now hangs in the the Good news is that the turks Are about to be admitted into the european Community customs which would make them part of the single eur common that integration would solidly Anchor Turkey to Western Europe and its free Market the bad news is that on the eve of this historic the turks Are being sucked Back into the Snake pit of Middle East poli Northern Iraq has been a Power vacuum Ever since the banned Saddam Hussein from governing that vacuum has been filled partly by the marxist kurdish workers or which is trying to break off the file photo today Turkey provides on Estop shopping to All the troubles of the Post cold War Eastern half of Turkey to create a kurdish the turks recently mounted a massive incursion into Northern Iraq to crush the but heres the rub Many members of the european who have a romantic commitment to kurdish nationalism and despise the turks because they Are mus now want to use turkeys at tack on the pkg As an excuse not to ratify turkeys accession to the eur customs the Clinton which played a smart and decisive role in persuading the eur to admit needs to urgently launch a diplomatic offensive to preserve the fruits of its unless this is straightened Turkey is going to fall out of the eur right into the abyss of Northern i see four options option preferred by most is to Cut a Deal with Saddam to restore his authority Over Northern Iraq and Clamp Down on the kurd the which wants to keep sad dam boxed up in opposes option favored by Wash is for the and Turkey to work together with the Moder but iraqi kurdish clans Barzania and Balabanis to set up a Power Structure that can fill the Northern Iraq i have my doubts about the iraqi kurdish leaders Are the hat Fields and obsessed with their tribal they dont not have a state for turkish troops option three is for turkish troops to keep going into which would mean constant Fric Tion with the option four is getting someone to offer an exploding Cigar to Saddam so he will go Boom and be replaced by Nice iraqi dictators whom the would let restore Baghdad authority Over kurdish Northern the Bottom line if Washington believes in option two it had bet Ter get cracking offer the turks technical help with sealing their iraqi Send a top offi Cial there to persuade the iraqi kurd to set aside their differ control their territory and keep the pkg and remind the turks that the Best Way to fight kurdish separatism is to make turkish kurd feel at with More Freedom of expression and human if All this Start rummaging in the Cias basement for those exploding Havana Thomas Friedman is foreign affairs columnist with the new York peace activist set example by Trudy Rubin Knight Ridder newspapers of All the depressing news coming out of the Middle none has hit me like the death of Mary a Christian palestinian married to a she spoke fluent he brew and Long supported peace with she spent her life run Ning kindergartens in Gaza squalid refugee no one could Tell her what to not mus Lim fundamentalists nor Yasir so it is almost impossible to be Lieve a heart attack felled this whirlwind in her mid60s last but her life is a testament to the Best that still is possible be tween palestinians and israeli she started bucking the Mideast tide right after israeli ind Epen in she joined the israeli communist a mix of jews and arabs who supported the idea of two states in even More she crossed strict religious lines and married a but Mohammed was her born in Gaza under egyptian he and other Young pales Tinian intellectuals were thrown in when Israel captured Gaza in the prisoners were moved to when the War the egyptians take them so Mohammed became an editor of the israeli communist the couple quit the party out of after the 1967 Israel Arab when Israel retook they moved there to live near Mohammes but Mary Haas refused to accept the Gulf Between Gaza wealthy palestinians and the she began running kindergartens financed by the she would drive fearlessly into the Camps during israeli curfews to Check on the welfare of her teach ers and but even under such she would argue with her teachers that they had to keep an open mind about she even bullied a group of teachers into visiting a Kibbutz just outside at a time when palestinian israeli relation ships were at their just so her teachers could actually talk to Mary and Mohammed who ran a local then a business kept an open House for israeli and Western peace they sup ported the palestinian liberation organization and Arafat As the Only leadership representing All but never hesitated to Send critical messages to Arafat in urging him to recognize i wondered How Mary had the strength to go her younger son was electrocuted in an Acci Dent at her life was threatened by fundamentalist preachers be cause she refused to Wear a head her older who studied at the egyptian University of was banned from re turning to Israel after he travelled to Beirut in the mid 1970s to fight with the Plo against when he was arrested by the Mary rushed to Damascus to get him Only a couple of years he and his family were finally allowed to return to Gaza after petitions by thousands of jewish friends of hers to the israeli military Gover nor and help from an israeli jew ish the signing of a peace Accord be tween Israel and the Plo was vindication for Mary and and when i saw them last they were they were frustrated at Arafat mismanagement of but she was running a new swedish funded project to rehabilitate thousands of palestinian prisoners from Gaza Camps who had been re leased from israeli part of the project involved Edu Cating the former prisoners in democratic political she hoped the prisoners would be come an important political pres sure group nudging Arafat toward More democratic Mary never gave not when the Date for palestinian elections was delayed Over and not when islamic parties seemed to be gaining strength in not even when Mohammed travel to Haifa for cancer treatments be cause Israel had sealed Gaza off after palestinian terror she got but she was determined to prove that the big Gest obstacles to peace could be overcome with just a Little More she never stopped push even when confronted with the those who worry that the peace process is Over can learn from Mary Haas undefeated Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial Board member for the Philadelphia doonesbury by Garry Trudeau you ont Meta by was i got moms on you ;