What’s Wrong with Canada?
02.03.2010
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This is not a piece I had intended to write today, since I have far more
important things to research. However, due to the disparaging remarks plastered
by my sparring partner Matt Gurney on the Net after our debate in the John
Oakley show broadcast yesterday morning live in Toronto, Canada and due to the
insolence and misrepresentation used in these, I have been asked to reply.
Opinion pieces do not necessarily respect the views of the editorial staff of
PRAVDA.Ru.
I enjoyed myself early yesterday on the AM640 John Oakley radio talk show in
Toronto and I enjoyed very much speaking with the host, John Oakley. Evidently
the feeling was mutual because the feedback I received from the radio show (not
one message but several) was not only positive but effervescent, and they asked
if I would like to come back. For me, that was that. I smiled, shrugged, had a
coffee, prepared a few lessons for my University students and started preparing
my editorial about Dr. Karadzic.
Not Matt Gurney, my sparring partner (Assistant Editor, Comment and Member of
the National Post Editorial Board) who was called to the John Oakley show to
spice things up, who managed in twenty minutes to say three things (two of them
unfortunately playing into my hands) and who then appears to have spent the
entire day writing pages trying to justify himself and claiming how he had
pasted me on the show. (??) He seems to be the only person who shares his own
opinion.
To be perfectly honest, if that makes him happy, big deal. I am far more
worried about the terrapin that went missing in my garden three days before I
move house and sell up here. However, one thing is crystal clear, and this is
that there is a Russophobic cabal in the international media which strikes at
the heart of Russians at every twist and demonises Serbs at every turn. And the
epicentre right now appears to be in Canada.
Let us take, for example, the photo Mr. Gurney chose to illustrate the piece in
his newspaper, a picture of a clapped-out Lada with the caption “Lada: Apex of
Soviet Achievement”. Er…why didn’t he choose the world championship winning
KAMAZ? Right, we know the answer. And why did the National Post allow him to
print it?
Let us then warp over to the beginning of the radio show in which John Oakley
kindly allowed me to present my piece, and then turned to Matt Gurney. He
started straight off by stating that “he (myself) obviously doesn’t know very
much about the Olympics” and accused me of “complete ignorance” for raising the
issue of Canada’s competence in holding the Games while mentioning the numerous
cases of strange and hurtful decisions against Russian athletes, quite apart
from the rumours of harassment which have yet to be investigated. We will come
back to that.
Claiming that I “crashed and burned” (…erm…Who…who insinuated that Russia
attacked Georgia? Kinda weak for a “journalist”?), claiming that I “audibly
choked” when I said the Soviet Union “changed” (in fact a momentary silence was
provoked by my coming inside due to an aircraft flying low over my head),
writing in his piece on February 25th and I quote: “1941 – Germany invades
Russia, just as Stalin planned” and then gloating over the Chernobyl disaster
chortling in glee as he calls it a “devastating fireworks display” sending a
“massive cloud of friendship over Western Europe” we see we are dealing with
one ignorant and insolent pith-headed, lame, challenged wannabe pucker little
upstart who was out to get Russia since way before his “debate”, started it by
firing broadsides and then when his opponent started hitting back, fell apart
snivelling. And then jokes about kids getting killed. What does he think
happened at Chernobyl? See what I mean about the cruelty? What does this guy
do, kick the dog to death for doing a whoopsey on the carpet?
Coming back to the point made by Matt Gurney at the start of the radio show,
nobody is claiming that “Canada” made odd decisions which were the realm of the
IOC. What I said and reiterate here loud and clear is that the Games took place
in Canada and Canada benefited whereas Russia most certainly did not.
Having dealt with Mr. Gurney, let us deal with a more sinister question:
What is wrong with Canada?
The National Post has as its Assistant Editor and Member of its Editorial Board
someone who speaks about journalistic integrity and credibility yet seems
confused as to who started the Georgian War, convinced that the USSR actually
wanted Hitler to attack (in a war in which nearly 27 million souls were lost),
who jokes about the horrific accident at Chernobyl, derides Russian science but
then has to suck Big Brother’s…sock… because Canada did not get very far in
competing with the Soviet Space Program.
Furthermore, around 95 per cent of the comments (and death threats…what is
wrong with people over there?) I have received from hundreds of Canadians are
fraught with spelling mistakes and glaring grammatical errors. How about
outsourcing your education system to the Cubans?
What is wrong with Canada? Are Canadians really so thin-skinned they cannot
take a piece of criticism? Chip on the shoulder?
What is wrong with Canada, a country where a journalist in a senior position
has apparently the impression that Russia attacked Georgia first (no mention of
Georgia having declared a ceasefire and then having slaughtered between one and
two thousand civilians in South Ossetia) and where people seem to have a
fixation about the Cold War? Why? What did Russia ever do to Canada?
Does anyone in Canada know that the Soviet Union entered Afghanistan to counter
international terrorism unleashed against the socially progressive regime in
Kabul which by the way protected women’s rights? Does anyone in Canada know who
launched the Mujaheddin movement in the first place? And where did the Taleban
movement come from?
What have people been taught? Is anyone in Canada aware that the Cold War is
over? That the Soviet Union did not collapse but dissolved voluntarily and that
this was entirely within the terms of its Constitution? Does anyone know about
Georgia’s obligation to hold referendums in the territories of South Ossetia
and Abkhazia? Apparently its senior journalists don’t. Or is Matt Gurney the
Canukistan version of a joke?
Where is all this hostility coming from, and why? What is wrong with Canada?
Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY
PRAVDA.Ru
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/112450-2/
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