12th-January-2008
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The last white ribbon.... | |
Quote: We should not fund grief rituals that nurture conspiracy theories
and phobias. The 12/6 tribute has become a propaganda mill for both. It is
high time we turned our attention and public funds to worthier
commemorative projects. How is it that we have yet to inaugurate a yearly
ceremony for the 25 Canadians who died in the Trade Towers? More
shamefully: Where, after 23 years, is our annual commemorative ceremony for
the 329 lost souls of Air India flight 182? Are real terrorists of colour
less indictable than "men"? Reject the sexist white ribbon of shame.
http://www.national post.com/ news/story. html?id=145242
National Post
5 December 2007
The last white ribbon
By Barbara Kay, National Post
Montreal - 'I may sound callous," said a mental health professional in a
national newspaper, "but doesn't grieving have a shelf life? …Let's wind it
down."
This quote was contained in a September article in The New York Times
suggesting the need for a tapering-off of 9/11 anniversary rituals. "Many
people feel that the collective commemorations, publicly staged, are
excessive and vacant, even annoying," the author noted.
The article cited other individuals who likened 9/11 to the recent
Minneapolis bridge collapse or a tornado. None of those quoted perceived
the attack as an act of war, or the 3,000 victims as representative of the
millions of Americans al-Qaeda hoped eventually to kill.
By contrast, the Canadian public never seems to weary of the annual Dec. 6
tribute to the 1989 Montreal Polytechnique shooting massacre of 14 women.
Indeed, 12/6's branding power burgeons with every anniversary: The theme of
violence against women dominates the media; new physical memorials are
constructed; additional programs decrying domestic violence against women
are entrenched in school curricula; masses of white ribbons are
distributed; more stringent gun control is more strenuously urged. Their
cumulative effect is to link all Canadian men to a global conspiracy
against women of jihadist proportions.
The dumbing down of 9/11 from global to random significance, and the
elevation of 12/6 from random to global significance are disturbing signs
of a confused, self-defeating cultural zeitgeist.
Public tributes to the fallen can bring out the best or the worst in our
national character. We see the best in our beautiful Remembrance Day
ceremonies, formulated in an era of national pride and cultural confidence,
when male heroism was considered a quality deserving of public recognition.
But now, a "grandfathered" Nov. 11 is the only day of the year when
feminist ideologues refrain from overt misandry.
We see the worst on Dec. 6, a day when truly one may reasonably ask,
"doesn't grieving … have a shelf life?" We should indeed wind it down, for
it is as unethical to denounce an entire gender for an individual's
behaviour as we all acknowledge it would be in the case of a race or religion.
And illogical. Logic would demand that the buried name of Laurie Dann be as
recognizable and as reviled as that of 12/6 killer Marc Lepine's. Dann's
hatred for boys exceeded Lepine's for women. A year before the Montreal
massacre, this equally psychotic Chicago woman shot five elementary-school
boys, poisoned two fraternity kitchens, torched the Young Men's Jewish
council, burned two boys in their homes, shot her own son, and murdered an
eight-year old boy, claiming he had raped her. (
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Laurie_Dann -JS )
Lepine-generated male-bashing is often justified by the fact that more men
kill women than women kill men. But who would justify a woman-bashing
tribute to Dann's victims on the grounds that statistically more women than
men abuse children (which they do)? What is lost in the emotional shuffle
is that only a statistical sliver of either sex is violent to anyone, so
all gender-demonizing impulses are sexist and immoral.
Commemorative ceremonies serve an edifying purpose when they facilitate a
unifying rite of formal mourning for national tragedies, ceremonies that
strengthen collective resolve to combat real, not perceived threats.
Unifying is the key word: If public ceremonies divide instead of uniting
the citizenry, they demoralize rather than edify the nation.
We should not fund grief rituals that nurture conspiracy theories and
phobias. The 12/6 tribute has become a propaganda mill for both. It is high
time we turned our attention and public funds to worthier commemorative
projects. How is it that we have yet to inaugurate a yearly ceremony for
the 25 Canadians who died in the Trade Towers?
More shamefully: Where, after 23 years, is our annual commemorative
ceremony for the 329 lost souls of Air India flight 182? Are real
terrorists of colour less indictable than "men"? Reject the sexist white
ribbon of shame. More...
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