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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/04/2013 (4742 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Denigrating the memory

Re: Discontent remains on CMHR, Holodomor (April 9). No community’s suffering should be elevated above all others in a taxpayer-funded national museum. But that is exactly what is happening at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

The Orwellian doublespeak that characterizes the CMHR’s pronouncements on this subject is breathtaking, and unacceptable, no less offensive than the placement of the Holodomor exhibit near the CMHR’s toilets, in and of itself denigrating to the memory of the many millions lost during this genocide and an insult to the Ukrainian Canadian community.

BORYS SYDORUK

Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association

Calgary

 

Are Canada’s leaders — from government to the museum’s board — complicit in covering up the crimes of communism, which caused some 120 million deaths worldwide since the last century and some 10 million in Ukraine’s artificial famine Holodomor alone, by accentuating those of the Nazis? Or are they are ill-advised?

Canada, a global leader in human rights, needs to take the lead in breaking the systemic silencing of Communist crimes against humanity. Highlighting Nazi crimes, which happened some 60 years ago and are no more, encourages today’s Communist dictators and others to continue perpetrating them.

To date, the museum seems to prefer tokenism to dealing head-on with such inequality. Fair-minded Canadians must not allow this. It is un-Canadian in spirit and execution.

OKSANA BASHUK HEPBURN

Ottawa

 

We are told that human rights will be highlighted and their violations demonstrably exposed on the lower floors of Winnipeg’s new national museum. As one ascends, the moral focus will shift to the assumption of individual and communal responsibility for insuring that the horrors witnessed below might never recur.

This emphasis on the common goal of mutual security and protection is the most compelling reason for the CMHR’s construction and ought to remain its primary focus.

To better achieve this end, the addition of two seminal words into the museum’s name has been suggested — now to read the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and Responsibilities. The modified perspective the name change offers would direct mutually sustaining ethical norms, lessen the acrimony among this city’s vital and integral communities through informed compromise, renew trust and effectively promote the institution’s original heroic vision. It’s still not too late.

MARK S. RASH

Winnipeg

 

Hyperbole unbecoming

A quote from Robert Tapper in your April 9 story Gag order in defamation suit, “I have every suspicion that Mr. Warren is a proud member of the Nazi Party,” sounds like something from the late United States Senator Joe McCarthy.

The merits of the Warren-Shindleman case must be decided based on Gordon Warren’s actions and not his real or imaginary affiliation. Warren’s views and antics are nothing short of repugnant. Tapper’s use of hyperbole is surely unbecoming of a member of the bar.

TOM RUBY

Winnipeg

 

Disgraceful behaviour

The Harper government has behaved disgracefully during the whole sorry Experimental Lakes Area episode. First was its medieval decision to close the facility. Apparently, public policy does not need to be informed by first-rate environmental science.

Second was its refusal to explain why it was closing ELA, beyond bureaucratic doublespeak and misinformation. Third was its ignorance of the national and international uproar caused by its decision to close ELA. Last was its claim to be seeking a new operator for the facility when it had no intention of seeing ELA survive.

The way the Harper government has dealt with ELA is symptomatic of a much larger set of problems with this government.

DAVID ROSENBERG

Winnipeg

 

If the glove fits …

The Harper government, after cutting funding for the Experimental Lakes Area, says it’s negotiating in good faith to find a replacement operator.

I wonder if they’re looking in the same places O.J. Simpson looked when he tried to find the real killer.

RICK LOEWEN

Landmark

 

Trusting the geese

What’s all this nonsense about spring not arriving (Spring you say. Where is it?, April 10)? Two days ago I saw two gaggles of geese, about 40 in each gaggle, and if that’s not a sign of spring in Western Canada, I don’t know what is.

Cheer up, for goodness’ sake!

IAN THOMPSON

Winnipeg