Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 9, 2004, Winnipeg, Manitoba A10 Winnipeg free press Friday july 9, 2004 Freedom of Trade comment editor Terence Moore 697-7044 Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights editorials a Liberal contribution r leg Alcock president of the Federal Treasury Board and senior Manitoba minister was unavailable for the bulk of the week As people in Winnipeg were seeking solid answers on the lib eral governments commitment to the Canadian museum of human rights. Yesterday he said his government has not agreed to put $100 million toward the museum now waiting to go ahead at the Forks and that the Only sure Federal Money is the $30 million already announced. He stressed this does not mean no More funds will flow to the project eventually but How much is subject to negotiation. Manitoban need More from their senior representative in Ottawa. They need to hear him say his government is committed to getting the museum built. The $200-million museum the brainchild of the late Izzy Asper is not simply another architectural Gem or local attraction for a Prairie City. It is to be Canadas gift to the world a Means of High lighting this country a dedication to the belief that human rights Are inalienable the Cornerstone of peaceful and civilized society. Locating this National museum outside of Ottawa made this project logistically and Politi Cally More difficult. The logic of building it in Mani Toba where millions of immigrants have found and continue to find Security however was abundantly Clear to those who have exploited the Rich opportunities of Western Canada. The City the provincial government and private donors most prominently the Asper family a own foundation have pooled a remarkable $74 million to Date. Certainly those Pri vate donations and the $30 million that remains to be found in the Community hinge upon the surety the Federal governments Money is there. There is dispute now that political masters in Ottawa Ever said the Liberal government would give $100 million ? the verbal agreement Gail Asper said her father had with then prime minister Jean Chr Tien and the working understanding of the museums organizers. And not six months ago or. Alcock himself in describing a government wide freeze on funding for major projects assured Mani to bans that the Asper museum is absolutely today on the verge of announcing the winning design that should trigger the beginning of construction he says he has no idea when hell know How much his government has for the Canadian museum for human rights. Those spearheading the museums construction need to know prime minister Paul Martin the Man who said resolving Western alienation was his prior Ity is committed to the project. Mostly they need to know the magnitude of the fundraising Job ahead and when they can begin lining up the expertise ? the architects engineers and project Manger ? to get the shovels in the ground. Incertitude will Hob ble fundraising and cripple those efforts. Nothing could be More pressing for or. Alcock or for maps Anita Neville and Ray Simard. The impasse must be resolved. It May mean Manitoban have that much More Money to raise and that Job should Start now. Bag of hammers former Liberal party president Stephen Ledrew famously called the new Federal political financing Law dumb As a bag of hammers when it was first proposed. Now that the Law is in place and canadians Are seeing How it works or. Ledrew has amended his opinion. Its sillier than i thought it was he now says. It is difficult to disagree. The Law was cobbled together in a flurry last year in order to provide former prime minister Jean Chr Tien with yet another legacy initiative. Under constant fire in recent years for questionable ethics in dealings involving a Golf course that he once owned and other matters including a scam or. Chr Tien decided to make a grand gesture rather than a full disclosure. He decreed that henceforth political parties would not be allowed to accept Large donations from businesses or unions. But instead of requiring parties to work harder to raise funds or. Chr Tien decided that Canadian taxpayers would fill the void. It did not matter that canadians might not want to see their Money used to support parties with which they disagreed the appearance of being a Paragon of ethical behaviour was All that seemed to matter to or. Chr Tien. But How dumb was the Law Well for starters it did not anticipate that an election would result in anything less than a majority government. The Law allows donors to personally give up to $5,000 a year to parties or candidates. But they can Only do that once a year. The june 28 election produced a minor Ity Liberal government that could very Well be Defeated by year end prompting another election. But if that happens donors will be prohibited by Law from participating by making donations. No doubt it could be argued that voters might be bet Ter off keeping their Money in such a circumstance but the fact is the Law denies citizens the ability to participate in More than one election in years when there Are two. But most offensive in the end As it was in the beginning was the fact that taxpayers Money is being doled out on the basis of a formula that Grants to parties $1.75 a year for every vote they win. Tax payers should be Able to choose the party their Money supports but the formula decides otherwise. Most absurd is the fact that Canadian taxpayers Are now required to pay $2 million a year to the bloc sub Cois to help it break up the country. A bag of hammers indeed. One circumcised at a time Tina Rosenberg Mariam bag Ayoko was a powerful and respected person in Bamako the capital of Mali. Now she is shunned and criticized. Bag Ayoko used to per form what the West has come to know As female genital mutilation a practice inflicted on More than 90 per cent of girls in Mali. In 1988, she began to get visits from Kaddia Sidibe the director of a Bamako women a group opposed to the practice. At first bag Ayoko hid when her visitor approached. But after seven years Sidibe a photos and videos of mutilated girls with serious health problems persuaded her to Stop. Today she runs a group of former circumcise ers As they Are called in much of Africa who talk to Mali a women in prenatal care clinics and at markets and train teenagers to speak in schools. When she tries to convince totally smooth with a Pencil Eraser sized opening for menses and urine. Each girls legs were bound for weeks so scars could form. Huriye used no aesthetic. All types of female circumcision have huge psychological and physical dangers. Some girls bleed to death or die of tetanus or infection. But for info belated women the dangers Are greater. Many info belated women suffer constant infections and other problems because urine and blood Back up. Their husbands must bring a knife to their wed Ding night to Cut them open. Childbirth often is fatal for info belated women and their babies and their wounds make them much More vulnerable to the aids virus. But the health problems that convinced bag Ayoko never budged Huriye. Members of the group womankind brought doctors to talk to her but she Felt that they were just trying to Plant Western ideologies. Bag Ayoko said that although Many women suffer Gneco women not to mutilate their logical problems people say female circumcision daughters she May be accused its because of bad spirits. Its of betraying their culture for is just beginning not attributed to the Circum i Western Money and depriving girls of the Chance to marry to get attention in Sophia Noor of womankind thus condemning them to Kenya says that Many girls Are poverty. Africa and about so traumatized by the pain that earlier this month in Nair they never go Back to school. 13 countries now by Kenya bag Ayoko met eight the economic and social other former circumcise is effects of girls leaving school punish the practice from various countries who by age seven Are incalculable. Now work against the practice. With jail terms. Despite these problems the the meeting was organized by Equality now a new York based group that finances african women a organizations that fight female genital mutilation. At least 130 million women in Africa have been circumcised and two million More girls undergo the practice every year in 28 african countries. Female circumcision is just beginning to get attention in Africa and about 13 countries now punish the practice with jail terms. But with the exception of Turkina faso where the government has vigorously enforced the Laws the Laws Are ignored. The Only solution is to change attitudes on the Village level and that a where people like bag Ayoko come in. About 15 per cent of those who undergo Geni Tal mutilation mainly women in the Horn of Africa suffer the most dangerous and extreme version Infix elation. Isnino Huriye who was also at the Nairobi meeting performed Infix lations among the somali Community in Northern Kenya. She would Cut off the Clitoris and All the Labia of 7?year-old girls. She would sew up the girls to be practice thrives. Many mus lims and not Only muslims believe uncut women to be dirty. Women who can feel sexual pleasure Are considered impossible to control and so Are a Marriageable. One strategy that has proved effective is persuading religious leaders to dispel the widespread erroneous belief that islam Calls for circumcision. Huriye finally Laid Down her knife after womankind brought Liberal islamic clerics to see her who convinced her that the practice was nowhere in the quran. More than 14,000 people in Mali have so far signed a pledge to combat circumcision. Taina Bien Aime the executive director of Equality now says that african attitudes seem to be evolving More rapidly on circumcision than on other human rights problems. Progress wont happen without the Community groups she says. But its the one Issue where we re seeing a tiny tiny Light at the end of the ? new York times asian autocrats learn to fear ballot the Baltimore Sun said in an editorial yesterday it was a notably superlative Milestone at More than 570,000 polling stations on some 14,000 islands spanning three time zones an estimated 130 million indonesians ? 90 per cent of the electorate ? voted this week in the first direct presidential elections in the worlds fourth largest nation which not incidentally happens to be Home to the worlds largest Muslim population. In itself the monday vote was a Victory for Home grown democracy a major step in Indonesia a six year transition from military autocracy. And it is just one in a string of National elections in Asia Over the past year and a half or so ? All the product of internal political evolutions not overtly imposed by the United states which still does it directly elect its president. The indonesian voting did not go off without a hitch there was a pervasive problem with folded ballots causing them to be double punched and thus invalidated. No candidate got a majority forc ing a run off vote in september. But the incumbent megawatt Sukarno utri daughter of Indonesia a founding father ? ran behind a for Mer Security minister with a relatively clean image Susilo Bambang Yud Toyono. Indonesia Vot ers weren to Happy with her do Little presidency and used their new right to show their displeasure. There a plenty Here for the rest of the world to Ponder starting with the Middle East. More than 80 percent of Indonesia a 220 million people Are Muslim but there was Little indonesian talk of creating an islamic state democracy and islam apparently can co exist without formal Commin gling. Asias remaining tyrants ? most prominently in China North Korea and Myanmar ? also should take notice Asia at one time believed inherently suited to despotism has become a hotbed of democracy. Many of the elections have been Messy and flawed but the trend of raucous but peaceful voting can hardly be ignored. From South Korea to sri Lanka asians have been vigorously exercising electoral rights. Last july cambodians went to the polls resulting in a standoff just resolved last week by a Power Shar ing Deal Between its two main parties. This Spring malaysians rejected hard line islamist indians kicked hindu nationalists out of Power the Tai wanese defied China by re electing their presi Dent and the Philippines May have re elected a president but weeks later that a still contested. And lets add Hong Kong where hundreds of thou Sands of residents recently marched to press Bei Jing to allow direct election of the chinese regions chief executive. The . Role Here is indirect at Best. These diverse distinctive democracies largely have been hard won by impassioned internal advocates something for autocrats ? be they communists or religionists ? to fear. A Bridge to Cross Steve Cohlmeyer i have a brother in Law who when hear ing of disagreements about taste says that a Why they make chocolate and when the Battle is Over flavours of ice Cream there is room for chocolate and Vanilla. When the Battle concerns poli cies that can have profoundly different effects thoughts about ice Cream flavours seem less insightful. When the physical form of our City is debated and two opposite propositions Are put Forward it is not always easy for the two sides to co exist. Physical developments Are real and relatively Perma nent. They either get built or they remain ideas. If they Are built the group who objected loses the Battle and conversely if construction is halted the project proponent loses the Battle. A Middle Road in these circumstances can be hard to find. A Winnipeg Developer and architectural firm St Chesen Katz architects recently purchased a derelict and abandoned Bridge and a right of Way Adja cent to the Kenaston Bridge Over the Assiniboine River. Zoning regulations permit reuse of the Bridge and the right of Way for residential or office use on approximately 50 per cent of the Pur chased land but zoning must be adjusted in order to permit building on the entire Bridge. As has been reported in the free press the new owners Hope to build condominiums on the Bridge with units looking East Over the Assiniboine River. When i heard about this project i was pleased that right Here in River City someone had the gumption to try some thing creative and risky that the mar Ket in our slow growth City can handle an out of the Ordinary housing solution that there is a Market for housing close to our City Centre that one of the provinces better design firms was behind the project. There is a group of citizens opposed to this development. Their objections seem to Centre on a perceived threat to the enjoyment of the River and loss of a possible recreational Walkway across the River. They also claim that the project would violate plan Winnipeg. Though i do not agree with the Points raised each of the objections could be argued on its merits. That will happen next tuesday at about 6 . At the City Centre Community committee meeting at City Hall. I spoke with an opponent of the project who asked if i knew of another such Multi use Bridge anywhere else in the world. Though i could think of two Excel Lent examples from 15th Century Italy i had to admit that no i knew of no com parable modern projects. The fact that there Are no other projects like this was used As an argument against the development. If no one else has done it How could it be right in Winnipeg my own response was the opposite what better reason could we have to make this happen than that this would be a first in the world the two questions ? Why should we do something new and Why should we not do something new ? Are really the heart of the matter. They represent two incompatible world views. And with them it is hard to make a chocolate Vanilla swirl. Steve Cohlmeyer is a Winnipeg architect. ? 2004 Winnipeg free press a division of up Canadian Rudy Redekop newspapers limited partnership president up Canadian newspapers limited partnership published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Avenue Murdoch Davis / publisher Winnipeg free press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 Winnipeg Manitoba r2x 3b6, pm 697-7000 Nicholas Hirst / editor ;