Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 4, 2000, Winnipeg, Manitoba sunday b4 Winnipeg free press sunday june 4, 2000 Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights editorial mix Faith reason with doubt it was Only about 20 years ago that concerned citizens of the world were teetering on a Cusp of anxiety should they be fretting about the Prospect of a new ice age or should they be fussing about the possibilities of global warming each scenario had scientific support that seemed pretty impressive from a Layman a viewpoint. There has been a fair amount of water under the Bridge since then and the ice age scenario is now a bit out of fashion. Global warming is the angst of the moment a perhaps Given the legs it seems to have As a doomsday fad the angst of our age. Since the eco Summit in Rio and through other International meetings in Berlin and Kyoto environmental groups governments and a considerable number of scientists have signed on to it. In Rio Canada was one of the leaders of concerned countries demanding concerted action to combat global warming. Ottawa signed on to commitments to substantially reduce its emission of the greenhouse gases suspected of contributing to global warming. By the time that Ottawa went to Kyoto in 1997, it had not come close to meeting those commitments but it signed on to new commitments nevertheless. Today the Federal government still has no plan to keep those promises. That is unfortunate in terms of this country a credibility but whether it will make any difference in actually influencing global warming is anybody a guess. Other groups governments and scientists say the whole business is a fraud. Scientists attending a conference in Washington last week argued that neither Canada nor any other major industrialized nation had yet ratified the Kyoto accords that none had come close yet to meeting its emission control objectives that none seems Likely to in the near future a and that none of these failures makes any difference to global warming. The conference was organized by the cooler Heads coalition a group of conservative think tanks that brought scientists together to discuss the threat of global warming. The consensus at the meeting was that the greenhouse Gas effect is unproven. Delegates attacked the fundamental concept of global warming the United nations weather panel the intergovernmental panel on climate change and most of the Sci ence used to predict a global warming trend and the methods used to arrive at that conclusion. To accept the greenhouse angst is not Only economically dangerous but a threat to economic and individual Liberty the cooler Heads heard. It May of course be True that fears about greenhouse gases Are nothing More than the result of a steady diet fed to Media by Liberal or even socialist scientific Deaneries. On the other hand a group such As the hotter Heads coalition could put on a pretty convincing conference arguing that conservatives simply deny the fact for their own political and economic purposes As in fact such groups did when they trotted out their own scientists and experts in Kyoto and elsewhere. But that is hardly the Point. The Point is How Are concerned citizens supposed to make any sense of All this to help them sort out the conflicting claims and contradictory evidence from legions of scientists and experts most people have to rely on the Media. But the Media is no better equipped to sort this out than is the concerned citizen. They too rely on scientists and experts for explanations. And the problem is not that there Are no explanations it is that there Are too Many of them. Modern Western history can be roughly divided Between the age of Faith when most people simply believed in religious truths based on tradition and common sense and the age of reason when philosophy and science began to Challenge those truths. The confusion about global warming a and it is not the Only confusion which we can Lay at the door of modern experts a is an indication that somehow the age of Faith and the age of reason both of which made at least some sense have undergone a synthesis and we have progressed if that is the right word into the age of exper Tim. There is hardly any cause so reasonable or so Lunatic today that experts cannot be found to oppose it or support it. And who in the Public or press with so Many experts around has the time to Check credentials what is an a Energy consultant a and Why should we believe her about global warming what is a a psychology workers and Why we should we believe him about How to adapt to the coming ice age in the age of Faith we were asked to believe on the basis of logic building on Faith in the age of reason we were asked to believe on the basis of Faith building on logic. In the age of the experts anything goes and anyone can be an expert. Faith still works reason still works and they work Best together when they Are joined in a healthy and vigorous scepticism. In this age of nonsense that Effort is As important As Ever. Concerned citizens will be Able to decide which problems Are most pressing once they know which experts actually know what they Are talking about. Enforce peace by testing big Powers of in Gwynne Dyer rom Sierra Leone to the Sudan to Angola to the Balkans to Cambodia and to Afghanistan a said in Secretary general Kofi Annan two months ago a there Are a great number of Peoples who need More than just words of sympathy from the International what he meant was that in Many parts of the world innocent people Are being killed in Large numbers by evil men and what they really need is a great big military Force clanking with heavy weapons and willing to use them to come and save them. _ pipe draining not necessarily. That a exactly How the Kosovo muslims were saved from Slobodan Milosevic a paramilitary killers in the War that ended a year ago this weekend. Nato sent a great big military Force and drove the serbian troops out of Kosovo. It was not old fashioned peacekeeping it was a peace enforcement a and that a exactly what Kofi Annan wants to see a lot More of. When Annan made that remark he was putting together a in Force to go to Sierra Leone. He knew that the horrors there could be not stopped by gentle persuasion but what he was Given was a typical in peacekeeping Force of lightly equipped soldiers with orders to shoot Only in self defence. Five Hundred of them were taken hostage by the ruthless child soldiers of the revolutionary United front and the rebels nearly took Freetown itself before British paratroops and nigerian regulars arrived to put some Backbone into the in Force. The encouraging thing however is that they did arrive some countries at least Are willing to show up and fight. Indeed on May 29 a Summit of the 16-country economic Community of West african states formally requested that the mandate of the in Mission in Sierra Leone be toughened from a a peacekeeping to a peace enforcement a which would then authorize it to launch a military offensive and destroy the Ruf. A humanitarian War in other words a rather like the one that nato waged in Kosovo last year. The question is whether those who have the military Power to act a primarily the industrialized Western countries a will have the political courage to do so if it Means taking casualties. In this regard the Way that the Kosovo War ended last year is our Best evidence and it is actually moderately encouraging. The West initially believed that a few Days bombing would make Milosevic pull his forces out of Kosovo. When that proved untrue natos political leaders terrified of a political backlash if they lost any soldiers Clung desperately to the notion that a longer bombing Campaign using All the a a smart weapons produced by the firm of stealth cruise amp Cluster would bring the serbs to Heel without the need to commit Western ground troops. Nato did not know at the time just How Little military damage it was doing but it was quite Clear by late May that the air Campaign was not having the desired effect on Milosevic. Either nato changed its strategy or it would lose the War. So at the end of May it bit the Bullet and began planning for a ground Campaign in Kosovo even though it knew that would mean lots of dead nato soldiers. In the event Milosevic agreed to an almost unconditional withdrawal from Kosovo on june 3, probably because his spies were picking up evidence of natos willingness to fight a ground War. Milosevic would have known that once the land War began and Large numbers of nato troops got killed the peace terms would escalate to include a demand that Serbia deliver him to an International War crimes tribunal. So he quit to save his own neck. The major Western democracies would obviously rather fight stand off wars using cruise missiles and the like but what Kosovo showed was that they have rather More Backbone than is generally supposed. In some circumstances at least they will make ground troops available and take casualties even in a humanitarian cause. So Kofi Annanis Hopes for a More robust style of a peace enforcement May not be wholly in vain. When he was asked if he really thought the major Powers would Back his Brave new approach to curbing the worst of the worlds horrors he replied a we will test Gwynne Dyer is a London based Independent journalist. His column appears on was said the following excerpt appeared Friday in the Summerside Prince Edward Island Pioneer journal some Are snickering others Are guff awing but so far not too Many islanders Are taking the theory that Anne of Green Gables is a lesbian seriously. Laura Robinson a professor at Royal military College in Kingston ont., presented a paper entitled bosom friends lesbian desires in l. M. Montgomery a Book to the Congress of the humanities and social sciences. Robinson is contending that Anne is More fond of Diana than she was of Gilbert a or any Man for that matter. In fact Robinson believes Anne had lesbian desires for at least three women. So should they change the name of Prince Edward islands beloved redhead to Anne of Green Gay Bles not anytime soon according to experts. Heather Ludlow a researcher for the l. M. Montgomery Institute on p.e.i., said most people she works with were merely amused by Robinsons findings. She also found quite a few holes in Robinsons theories. At the first of the Century when Montgomery wrote Anne of Green Gables the nature of female relationships was significantly different than they Are now. Women often expressed extreme affection to one another without fear of it being seen As sexual desire says Ludlow. A she Robinson really ignored the dynamics of female Friendship a Ludlow said. Robinson cited More evidence that Anne was a lesbian in her report by saying once Anne marries Gilbert Blythe the male character is All but ignored. But Ludlow says that is just the nature of Montgomery a writing. A with Montgomery female Friendship is at the Core a she said. A the whole Point is the female at a conference devoted to the Island author one Anne expert presented a report with evidence that Walter Blythe is Gay. But despite All the attention Robinsons study has attracted to the Book Ludlow does no to feel it will have a negative Impact. In fact it May attract More readers to Anne. Ludlow Isnit the Only one who finds Robinsons study amusing. Heather Neufeld a third year English student at the University of Prince Edward Island said when she read the article All she did was laugh. A i done to know where they Are coming up with this a Anne and Diana had no homosexual relationship a Neufeld said. Neufeld thinks people will take this study with a Grain of Salt. A i done to think people should read books to Puli too much meaning out of them a they should read them for what they life stories loaded with interest it Christopher Dafoe Ime a As the old hymn reminds us is like an a never rolling it carries the dead away and they Are soon forgotten or Only dimly remembered. It is a sad fact that even the most Well known and useful members of society begin to fade into obscurity after a generation or two or even sooner. People who were once known to everyone a the famous the notorious and the Well loved a Are All equally subject to the amnesia of passing time. Many Are known Only to their descendants or to scholars interested in the past. Maurice Richard who died the other Day and the politician who is quoted on the front Page of this newspaper today will both recede into deeper Shadow As time passes. Men and women live in their own time and for them the past can become an unknown country. Nevertheless people make our history and when we forget them we lose something important of our own Story. For this reason the Multi volume dictionary of Canadian biography is probably the most important series of books published in Canada in our time. More than a dozen volumes have been presented and the great project will continue if canadians understand the importance of this Effort to preserve the living heart of our past. In those books we find the lives of the celebrated and the obscure Laid out in detail. We meet the fur traders the explorers the Pioneer men and women the politicians the Wise and the foolish the Good and the bad the great and the Humble. Each life Story is loaded with interest and instruction. This is the raw material of scholarship but these a Brief lives can also be read for pleasure. A similar gift to readers although More modest in scale is j. M. Bumsted a dictionary of Manitoba biography recently published by the University of Manitoba press. Although the entries Are Shorter and the scale of the work much smaller than that of the dub the Manitoba dictionary is a much needed and valuable Aid to those interested in the fascinating and eventful history of Manitoba. It can also be read purely for pleasure As i discovered when i began to a a dip into it a few Days ago. Hours went by As i turned the pages meeting people i once knew encountering others i knew Only by name or reputation or meeting for the first time Many who played a part Large or Small in the creation of this remarkable province. Bumsted has attempted to cover a wide Range and his entries touch almost every human activity from Trade and politics to murder sport music and religion. Manitoba has always had a significant ethnic mix and a Large proportion of important women and bumsted attempts to reflect these blessings. To be included in the dictionary of Manitoba biography one must first of All be dead. That is Why for example sir Rodmond Roblin is in the Book and Duff Roblin is absent. Those chosen must also have made a significant contribution in their Field of endeavour or played some interesting part in the history of the Community. This however is not simply a record of a great men and women a top businessmen and other big shots. Small but significant accomplishments Are also recognized. Many of those mentioned such As Garnet worse Ley who led the military Force that came West against Louis Riel in 1870, and h. L. Hime who photographed the red River settlement in the late 1850s, were Only passing through but they left a Mark nevertheless. Others a such As Sally Ross the Indian wife of red River historian Alexander Ross or Joe Zuken born in Ukraine but a Manitoban through and through a came Here from elsewhere and made contributions to the place they decided to Call there have been biographical dictionaries in Manitoba before but they tended to dwell on business leaders and politicians. The bumsted volume is widely and remarkably inclusive although readers will undoubtedly note missing names. I was unable for example to find among others Frank Morriss George Ferguson Ginger Snooks Bernard Naylor Ethel Finley William a Caribou Bill anger and Peter Ruch. There Are Many others who should be there As Well. Readers have been asked to submit suggestions or corrections for future editions to the dumb do University of Manitoba press University of Manitoba Winnipeg my r3t 2n2. Christopher Dafoe is a Vancouver writer. His column appears on sundays ;