Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 6, 1997, Winnipeg, Manitoba Sun i a v in Etc Azine g sunday free press Winnipeg. July 6. 1997 forum editorial editor Brian Cole / 697-7044the lessons of history the Dominion Institute in Toronto caught the attention of the nation at the end of june with its Survey showing that Young canadians were ignorant about the history of their own country. On close examination the exercise proved something a Good Deal More Complex and More constructive. In a paper published along with the Angus Reid Survey the Dominion Institute concluded that a Young canadians Are ignorant of Many Broad areas of Canadian historical parts of the Survey could be interpreted that Way. At the same time however the Survey showed that 60 per cent of the Young people questioned knew that free Trade with the United states was the dominant Issue of Federal elections of 1891,1911 and 1988. How Many members of the Board of the Dominion Institute knew that we Are not told. Yet the Institute condemns Canadian youth As ignorant of history. Still higher proportions correctly named Louis Joseph Papineau As the Leader of the Patriot rebels in lower Canada and Wilfrid Lauder As Canadas first French speaking prime minister. The Institute laments the ignorance of today a youth but there is no reason to think that either Papineau or Lauder was better known to an earlier generation a or that they should be. Few respondents said that the Balladeer Robert service was a Canadian but since he was born in England and spent All but 20 years of his life in Britain or Europe there is Little reason to consider him Canadian. Ignorance is seen in the Dominion institutes question More than in the Young Peoples answers. Few youths could say in which year Canadas Constitution was Patri ated from great Britain a but How Many adult canadians have at the tips of their tongues the answer 1982, and Why should they history at its worst is collected reasons for hating your Neighbours. People in the Balkans can Tell you a lot of history. Ireland is convulsed and paralysed by his tory or what passes for history. Many of the East europeans who settled in Canada hoped to get away from the excess of history that weighed Down their homelands. History at its Best is the interesting stories about ourselves thought to be True that everybody knows. This history is always a work in Progress never a completed thing because with each retelling the stories change and fresh research disproves what formerly seemed True. Earlier generations were taught the stories of wars and constitutional development. Canada in that his tory was defined by its relation to the British Empire to which it was once attached and by that empires wars in which canadians fought. The connection to Britain mattered from about 1763 to about 1945 a a Long episode now closed. For French speaking canadians 1763 represented Severance from their ancestral Homeland. For canadians growing up in the 1990s, history must be searched for what it can show about relations among language communities in Canada and about Canadas relations with the United states with Eastern Europe with the Pacific nations. History evolves because each generation has different questions and because historical writers try to answer those questions. The Dominion Institute should not be upset to find that today a Young people Are poorly informed about the history that mattered 50 years ago. It should be framing the questions that matter to this generation and ensuring that historical research writing and teaching help cast Light on the answers. The Dominion institutes founders have said they wanted to address the cultural consequences of government downsizing globalization and the Unity Issue by helping canadians discover the links that exist Between our history civic traditions and common identity. If the Institute has discovered those links it should describe them. But it should not try to pin history Down in a Glass display Case and make the nation study it. History lives grows and changes. That a where its Power and its fascination lie. Young canadians scored Well in the institutes Survey on questions about Laurier Papineau the great depression the British Conquest of 1759 and free Trade with the . There May be a hint Here about the history that matters now. Hand wringing about ignorance leads nowhere. Those who care about history and understand its uses should pay close attention to the Survey and take the of change Buffet Mexico today for the first time since 1929, the institutional revolutionary party Pri will lose control of the lower House of the mexican Congress. In a parallel mayoral election in Mexico City it is Likely to lose control of the capital City As Well. And then we shall find out what president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon is really made of. Or. Zedillo is the mild mannered accountant who was catapulted into the mexican presidency when the candidate whose Campaign he was managing Luis Donaldo Colosio was assassinated in 1994. Now almost Halfway through his six year term he has shown himself a Tough capable manager in restoring Mexico a credit and its battered Economy. But or. Zedillo has yet to prove that he is what Mexico really needs a Gorbachev. Ten years ago any comparison Between Mexico and the old soviet Union would have seemed ludicrous. But those who used to Call the soviet Union a the third world with rockets had a Point and now the analogy seems quite reasonable. Now stripped of its Empire Russia is a country of Only 150 million people half of them living on or below the poverty line. Perhaps two thirds of Mexico Sion million people live in similar circumstances. But the prime task for both countries is the same managing the transition from a generations old system of tyranny to a modern democratic society. The old communist party of the soviet Union controlled every aspect of life in that vast Domain for 74 years. The Pri has controlled every aspect of mexican life for almost As Long. The Pri became Mexico a ruling party in 1929, after two decades of revolution and civil War and it held the presidency both houses of Congress and All 31 state governorships until 1989. Opposition parties were legalized in the 70s, but the Prius proven formula of corruption fraud and total control of the Media kept the forces of change at Bay. When Cuauhtemoc Cardenas of the left Wing party of the democratic revolution pro seemed to be winning the 1988 presidential election the computers a a crashed until the count could be adjusted in favour of the Pri candidate. But Mexico has changed. It has joined the global Economy a third of its population has Middle class incomes and expectations and its Mas Gwynne Dyer Media have opened up to the world. The old system is no longer sustainable and the question is whether the transition can be achieved without massive violence and collapse. The strongest evidence that or. Zedillo is a closet Gorbachev is what has happened to mexican electoral Law since his election. First or. Zedillo pushed through a Law granting All mexican political parties generous Campaign funding tied to their share of the popular vote in the last election. Previously the Only party with Money was Pri but now its a much More equal race. And for the first time in modern history or. Zedillo is letting the mayor of Mexico City be elected by popular vote. He cannot seriously believe that the Pri will win that election a which suggests that he does understand the need to dismantle the Power monopoly of his own party in the broader National interest. What will actually happen in the vote today the Pri will almost certainly lose its existing majority 302 out of 500 seats in the lower House of Congress. This will transform Mexico a entrenched political psychology of despair in a single stroke. It wont make the country ungovernable however because the conservative pan broadly supports or. Zedillo a free Market reforms. Pro Leader Cuauhtemoc Cardenas cheated of Victory in the 1988 presidential election will certainly become mayor of Mexico City. That will put him in an Ideal High profile position from which to make another run at the presidency in 2000. And then if he wins the Pri will finally have lost Power a with even less violence than attended the end of communist Power in the old soviet Union. If or. Zedillo really is the transitional Leader Mexico needs then he can expect Little thanks in the Short term. They Are not putting up statues in gratitude to Mikhail Gorbachev in Russia. Gwynne Dyer is a London based Independent journalist. His column appears sundays. What was said Washington Post editorial july 4 As the supreme court was ruling on internet free speech a confrontation Over that very subject in Britain offered a reminder of Why free speech is important to begin with. The travels of the so called Jet report for joint enquiry team demonstrate the reach of electronic networks across National Borders and the limits of a single courts jurisdiction in matters of expression or publication. But the report also is a classic example of the sort of government information that suppressed to spare a few officials embarrassment could have averted considerable suffering if it had been published As intended in 1990. The report was commissioned to investigate what had gone wrong in a celebrated prosecution of child sex abuse charges in Brox Towe in 1988 a a prosecution that brought a round of convictions but then generated a rash of allegations about satanic ritual abuse. The report ended up taking a dim View of those charges and laying out How a Well meaning social services department had come to believe and perhaps unwittingly even to help generate gruesome allegations for which police could find absolutely no evidence. No one who remembers the similar notorious Mcmartin preschool prosecutions of 1983 will be surprised that in the years since the British report was written and then withheld from publication several subsequent Waves of satanic abuse allegations have hit Britain and the Brox Towe Case has been cited As a proven instance. Three English journalists this month obtained a copy of the report and posted it on their web site along with a statement by the reports author j. B. Watkins saying timely publication could have helped Avert these later panics. County authorities quickly brought an injunction ordering them to remove the report from their web site saying it was in violation of copyright. They complied but not before appealing to a local civil liberties group which put out an Appeal on the net for operators abroad to a Mirror a or copy the site. The unsurprising result some 30-plus Sites in cyberspace now feature the Jet report and most of them Are out of reach of British Law. This May be a bad thing for National sovereignty but it is a very Good thing for those who worry about the ill effects of governments natural tendency to turn their embarrassments into official and deceit the somali shame what got lost amidst last weeks slug est Between irate Somalia commissioners and arrogant politicians were the chilling events behind the inquiry the slaying of two unarmed people by so called peacekeepers. One was a 16-year-old boy Scidane Omar Arone who was arrested on suspicion of stealing and was tortured to death in March 1993. Haunting photos taken by his captors showed the teenager bound hand and foot trussed with a metre Long wooden riot Baton and bleeding from the nose and Mouth. In one picture a grinning Soldier pressed a pistol to Arones head. As the boy died others in the military Camp ignored his screams likening them to those of a Quot wounded twelve Days earlier soldiers had fired on two unarmed somalis suspected of looting. One of them Ahmed afr How Artush was a finished off execution style while lying wounded on the ground. We never heard much about the victims. How old was Artush where was he from did he have a wife and children what was his life like before that ill fated night Arones family demanded too camels in compensation for his death. Then prime minister rim Campbell handed Over $15,000 us in August 1993 and prayed the controversy Hurt her chances in the upcoming election. I revisit these horrific details As a reminder that two people a one of whom was just a boy a had their lives deliberately snuffed out by visitors sent on a supposedly humanitarian United nations peacekeeping Mission. That shameful fact alone should have been enough to prompt soul searching at All Levels of the military and Federal government. Instead the Canadian Public was treated to a stomach churning smorgasbord of denial Buck passing document tampering delaying tactics grandstanding political opportunism and lying. The Somalia inquiry a report dishonoured legacy left no doubt that everyone from those with blood on their hands to senior military officers did their Best to avoid taking responsibility. The three commissioners were understandably enraged at having their investigation shut Down by the Chretien government. But it does no to take much imagination to predict what six More months would have Teichroeb loyalty counts More than the truth in most institutions. Mix that with the military a insistence on unquestioning obedience and you be got the almost impenetrable a Wall of silence the commissioners found so infuriating. But the Buck did no to Stop there. As opposition members the liberals righteously demanded that the truth be exposed and called for an inquiry into the Somalia killings. As a newly elected government they responded to Public outrage by declaring they had a nothing to the commission was appointed in late 1994. But when the liberals Felt the commissioners breath on their own necks they a had enough. In a stunningly anti democratic move they shut Down their own inquiry rather than have it pump out bad publicity about Liberal political appointees during an election Campaign. In the end Somalia Wasny to even a Blip on the radar screen of last months election. After More than two years 2,000 pages and $25 million prime minister Jean Chretien dismissed the pricey investigation last week saying a some things went wrong in Somalia but there a is no As for the commissioners they also Bear some responsibility for failing to reel in the big fish. Commissioner Peter Desbarats expressed his frustration that the a average canadians did no to seem the least bit upset by the whole sorry mess. Immersed in unravelling the web of institutional deceit or. Desbarats forgot what or. Chretien did not a that average Folk Are Busy worrying about mortgage rates taxes jobs and floods. A cynical explanation is that average Folk rarely get worked up about a kid being killed in Foster care let alone the slaying of suspected thieves in some foreign country. Or perhaps the Public put two and two together a Long time ago and simply lost interest. They did no to need a blow by blow account to Tell them that politicians and military Bosses will do whatever is necessary to avoid hard truths. Ruth Teichroeb covers social affairs for the free press ;