Opinions Laura Kelsey drsexysex@yahoo.ca Stephen vs. Stephane Laura Kelsey . opinions editor I have always had a healthy interest in politics—I listen to politicians in moderation and exercise my right to vote. In high school social studies, I delighted in composing cheesy jokes about party whips and large caucuses. I also admired Jean Chretien, not always for his stance on issues or the ethics of his party, but for his all-out crazed toughness. He could crush a protestor’s face and take a pie in his own just as easily. So when Chretien left and the Liberal torch was passed, I didn’t envy the party for having to replace him. Where could they find someone as tough as him? Certainly not wimpy Paul Martin. Now Stephane Dion is the federal Liberal Party leader—and he seems to be the final nail in the Liberal coffin. The Liberals need a leader who can communicate with the people, especially now when their popularity has waned so much. Dion might actually be a great choice, but the English-speaking public has no idea because we can’t understand what the hell he is saying. Where Chretien made up for his lack of English fluency | with strength and charisma, Dion comes across as a scared bleating lamb. But, to give him some credit, Dion is to the English as Stephen Harper is to the Canadian French. After the Liberal Party elected Dion last year, I thought they had failed miserably with their choice of candidate. But then I attended a press conference held by our current prime minister, Harper. During this conference he announced funding for Fraser Valley dikerehabilitation,andthentook(carefully selected) questions from reporters. A Quebecois reporter queried Harper: Harper had him repeat the question, then stumbled through his garbled French response, tripping over every word. He looked like an idiot. So, one could argue that it is not he who speaks the best English but he who leads the country the best. But then one could retort with the fact that the English population outweighs the French by millions, so it is the Anglophones who overrule. I will just remind people to be patient when dealing with those with strong, muddled accents because they may actually have something significant to say—you ll just need an interpreter. The Act of Remembrance By Seymour Berg be O. Monday, November 11, at 11:00 am, we stopped what we were doing to honour the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and women, and others who have served in the Canadian military. We do this every year at this time because at the 11" hour of the 11" day of the 11" month in 1918 the “war to end all wars” officially ended. This is a sombre occasion. We know this because we mark the exact day and time that it happened. In fact, 6 Remembrance Day is the model for modern remembering. The plastic poppy is the direct ancestor of the memorial ribbon. But what exactly are you remembering? “It was like a war zone,” is something we're more likely to hear today on television from someone involved in a natural disaster than from someone involved in combat. When was the last time that a Canadian soldier shot at someone in the uniform of an opposing army—and during a “war”? Yet the national act of remembering we all think about are the outdoor ceremonies across the country in which wreaths are laid at cenotaphs and veterans of the two world wars march by, every year in dwindling numbers. This year there are three or four Canadian veterans of the First World War left. What will happen when they, and the veterans of the Second World War, are gone? How will we connect to the horrible events that happened, and more importantly, how will we remember the people who decades ago sacrificed their lives in battle? Are we destined to leave the remembering to school children who are guided through Remembrance Day activities as part of the curriculum, to listen every year to a report from the Dominion Institute about how Canadians know less every year about Ypres, Passchendale, Vimy, the conscription crisis, Juno Beach, and the defense of Hong Kong? So what if we do? Immediately after the Second World War research on returning soldiers showed that during combat they fought for the buddy beside them rather than for any principle. And a recent well- regarded book by a Canadian author on the First World War devastatingly illustrates how Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points were mostly ignored by even Wilson himself in favour of personality clashes in the meeting rooms of Paris. If all those directly involved in making war operate at the simple human level, should we even try to do anything else? We should each find a personal balance between remembering the unimaginable and seeing Monday as just a day off from school. Think about how women walking in the cold on Remembrance Day are the real Rosie-the-Riveters, the groundbreakers whose sacrifices mean so much more opportunity for you today. Remember this sombre occasion not for what has been lost, but for what has been gained.