Letters to the editor
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Clueless soccer fans
In “World Cup 2006: Are you ready” Steve Bohrn states “other teams that should do well include Turkey . . . .” With this statement, Bohrn has reinforced one of the negative stereotypes ascribed to the North American soccer fan: that they just don’t know anything about soccer.
I would suggest that, before attempting to predict which teams will do well at the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the author take a cursory glance at the field of 32 teams. Turkey failed to qualify for the tournament. This has been (or, in this case, should have been) well known since December of 2005.
Chuck Howard
If you don’t like Winnipeg, get the hell out
This letter is in response to Tessa Vanderhart’s incredibly ignorant article regarding her hatred of Winnipeg (One great city? 22/03/2006). I’m a proud Winnipegger, something that hasn’t always been true. I remember the days when I was once like Vanderhart, constantly complaining about how crappy Winnipeg is and how I wish I could be somewhere warmer. But the simple fact is that I grew up. Complaining about where you live has no positive outcome.
Would you rather live Baghdad and watch you friends get blown up by suicide bombers? Or how about any poverty stricken country in Africa? The fact is, in comparison to the rest of the world, we are living in one of the greatest cities, and Vanderhart sounds like a spoiled brat complaining about how awful Winnipeg is. Do you know how many people would give their right arm to live in Winnipeg? It’s really sad when all you have to say is how lame our city is and how we are all “mediocre at best.”
Sure Winnipeg isn’t perfect, but what city is? Would you rather live in Toronto where the fear of acid rain is just around the corner? This is my city for better or for worse, and I’d rather tell people the great things about it (and work to change the things that aren’t) rather than whine like a five-year-old on a road trip to Grandma’s house. So basically Tessa, if you don’t like Winnipeg, you can get the hell out.
Jarrett Moffat
Please stop writing editorials
Usually I enjoy blunt, malicious dismissals, but I found Tessa Vanderhart’s take on Winnipeg (One great city? 22/03/2006) to be not only bland but insulting, what a combination! Perhaps she was trying to construct her editorial in a way that would enhance the resonance of her Winnipeg epithets: “sprawled,” “utterly unsatisfying,” “mediocre (at best),” “reprehensible.” These seem to sum it up.
What really sticks in my craw is that Vanderhart is so quick to dismiss 700,000 people as individuals. I doubt (and I feel I’m being generous here) if Vanderhart knows personally more than five or six hundred thousand people here in Winnipeg. That still leaves one or two hundred thousand people she’s never met that she’s labelled as mediocre. That’s just stupid, Tessa! Please stop writing editorials.
Evan Johnson
Hockey Night in Montreal
I agree with Regan Sarmatiuk’s “Hockey Night in Toronto” (29/03/2006). I subscribe to RDS (French language TSN) and don’t bother watching English language TSN, CTV or CBC for my hockey fix. I’m a Quebecker who has lived in downtown Toronto for the last nine years. I love Toronto but hate the media slant on hockey here. It’s brutal. So instead of losing my marbles, I just switched. I’m fluent in French, but anyone who grew up in Canada has likely picked up enough in school to get by on a French broadcast. The rest can be handled with a French/English dictionary.
The RDS team is striking in their either balanced or critical-of-the-Habs approach. It’s like no other (that I’m aware of) in sports coverage. I am a Montreal guy to the end and I like it. I think it is part of setting the bar high and everyone is in on it. It creates an expectation to win, and that is very different from the situation in Toronto. In the end, I feel sorry for Leaf fans — for many reasons.
Rajeev Mullick
Peeler gets it wrong
Bryan Peeler’s attack on anti-war forces (Herd mentality, 22/03/2006), and the World People’s Resistance Movement (WPRM) in particular, is valuable and unique in the sense that he gets things exactly and precisely wrong.
Peeler accuses the WPRM (Winnipeg) of upholding the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Wrong. Go to www.wprm.org and you’ll see clearly that this group views trends like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda as being anti-people forces that would bring in oppression in new forms.
The WPRM (Winnipeg) statement in question mentioned resistance movements in Haiti and Afghanistan, of which there are many.
In Haiti, the resistance involves the broadest masses of people, especially the urban poor of Port-au-Prince, who have demonstrated, rallied, and sometimes fought the occupation forces. And why shouldn’t they? After all, Canada played a key role in launching a coup d’etat that overthrew the democratically-elected president of Haiti and replaced him with a pro-U.S. puppet.
In Afghanistan, the resistance takes many forms, not simply that of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In the cities there have been large protests against the foreign occupation and the U.S.-installed Karzai government. These demonstrations have been very diverse, made up of students, women’s groups, workers, lawyers and teachers. These protests have been violently put down by the very government that Canada is propping up, with great loss of life as a result.
Peeler also accuses the WPRM of being “outrageous” in saying that Canada is helping to defend a “vicious theocracy that is completely opposed to the interests of the people there.” Yep, it’s outrageous all right; it also happens to be true.
Jihadists would not need to impose Sharia law in Afghanistan because it already is the law there! Peeler’s ignorance of this is stunning. Is he unaware that the country was even re-named the “Islamic Republic of Afghanistan?” Or that a man is currently on trial (and facing a possible death sentence!) for the “crime” of converting to Christianity?
This, apparently, is the democracy for which Bryan Peeler seems so eager (to paraphrase George Galloway) to fight to the last drop of other people’s blood.
This is the bottom line: people have the right to defend their countries against foreign occupation, including Canadian occupation. This is real internationalism, not internationalism betrayed. If one really cares for the people of the world then one will stand with them against forces blocking their liberation — forces like the local oppressors who invariably rely on the power and support of imperialists like the U.S. (and Canada!) for their very existence and survival. I encourage The Manitoban to hire a fact-checker.
