Letters
Studying our past
I want to congratulate The Times for its thoughtful defence of the John A. Macdonald statue, raised in Picton thanks to the good efforts of so many patriotic residents of Prince Edward County. It seems incredible that people who live in Canada, enjoying Canadian peace and freedom, would begrudge an honour to the founder to whom they owe so much.
We build a better future by studying our past. Where mistakes have been made, or wrongs done, they should be acknowledged and remembered.
But the project to remove Macdonald’s statue from Picton Main Street is not remembrance. It is libel.
You can blame, if you wish, John A. Macdonald for not devising better answers to the food emergency faced by the Plains Indians in the 1880s. By all means, teach Canadians to reckon with the whole of their national story in all its complexity. It is naive to sugarcoat the past. But to misappropriate the word “genocide” from the state-sponsored mass murder of the worst regimes of the twentieth century and apply it in Canada— that is a slur upon Canadians and an insult to the memory of the victims of Nazism and Communism.
In most other nations of this hemisphere, national independence was achieved by men of war: Washington, Bolivar, Morelos, Belgrano, O’Higgins. Uniquely in Canada, nationhood was built by peaceful means. The founders of Canada compromised and haggled and knocked on doors for votes—much as Canadian politicians still do after 150 years of successful and continuous democratic self-government, undefiled by coups, revolutions, and civil wars. Almost nowhere else in this hemisphere from Alaska to Argentina can such a thing be said.
That proud history should be remembered with honour. And where better to remember it than right here in Prince Edward County, where a young Macdonald argued the first case of his legal career?
DAVID FRUM, WELLINGTON
The real or hidden history of western humanity’s struggle on Earth is the history of colonialism and delusions. Once we begin to study colonialism as described in biblical texts, we trace its roots to the ancient mining colony known as Sumer [6,000 BCE], from where the now famous team of ‘Yahweh and his priestly agent Abraham” emigrated to launch a Sumerian colony in the Levant. It’s clear that Israel became the New Sumer, and called itself Samaria. High priest Ezra’s fictions recorded in the Old Testament reveal, that Hebrews and Jews were never Semitic people because they originated in Sumer.
Those of us who embrace the unvarnished truth, are able to blow away the deadly fog of wars, political lies, and “official delusions known as “official narratives” created by victorious governments to conceal their failures and crimes while attempting to make themselves look good. We recognize that WWII was actually designed by financial architects like the Rothschilds and Bushes, to launch two “colonial processes”, one within the other.
1. In 1939, German Christians dressed in Nazi uniforms began the brutal and destructive colonization of Europe. The architects of war also financed other puppet governments besides Germany, like Italy, Japan, and Zionist extremists.. to make colonial wars that advance the hidden agenda of the financial architects.
2. The brutal colonization of Palestine planned by violent Zionist terrorist groups like the Urgun, and financed by Rothschilds, ended with the declaration of colonial victory by Jews in 1948. Zionist extremists had successfully colonized a large part of Palestine, and continue to colonize it criminally until they take all Palestinian lands.
Canada is a product of absolutely criminal British Christian terrorism, known as colonization, and needs reform and healing to take place, before Canadians can climb up onto the ethical path.
Yes , I agree David … we can keep the statue of Sir John A. standing in Picton .
Keep the statue of Sir John A. but erect a plaque next to it …
which accounts for the systemic quashing of indigenous cultures at the hands of Sir John A.
After all , we are supposed to be living in the Era of Truth and Reconciliation .
I would like add my opinion to the following statement made by David Frum :
” Where mistakes have been made , or wrongs done , they should be acknowledged and remembered . ” … and rectified .
It is , perhaps , ironic but definitely hypocritical for David Frum
to speak about the misappropriation of the term ” genocide ” .
People like David Frum and the Israel Lobby misappropriate the term ” genocide ” all of the time .
What happened to the Jewish people in Europe was , indeed , genocide ; but so , too ,
have been the Israel government’s policies against the Palestinians .
Take the opinion from someone , like myself , a dyed-in-the-wool Canadian …
whose roots go back to the very beginning of British North America and La Nouvelle France here in North America .
Don’t take the opinion from a neo-liberal American like David Frum
who advocates for endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq …
and for the genocidal bombings in Yemen and genocidal policies against Palestine .
Peace and good health to you all … Miles from Canada .
If, David Frum and Stephen Harper had actually studied Canada’s true colonial past revealed in the Truth and Reconciliation Report, instead of clinging to the fake official narrative of supremacist delusions and deceptions used to construct the criminal state known as: “The Dominion of Canada”, it might have opened their ethical eyes to the crimes against humanity, like genocidal land theft, and national child abuse, concealed successfully for centuries by a conspiratorial supremacist and Zionist corporate press.
Would Frum support a statue of a colonizing Hitler positioned outside Auschwitz? “WWII” is a western euphemism for colonial war, and in 1939 German Christians dressed in Nazi uniforms captured and enslaved my Polish parents, while attempting to colonize Europe and the USSR, in the same way that European nations colonized the indigenous worlds.
Despite the fact that colonialism has been exposed in Canada and globally, as the most criminal process to have cursed humankind since Jericho, there are still colonial cheerleaders among us like David Frum and Stephen Harper, who continue to support British Christian colonialism because it advances their political agendas. Though Harper was forced to apologize for Canada’s mistreatment of native children in 2008, in 2009 he dared to lie to an American audience that Canada has no colonial history.
David and Stephen function like Zionist extremists when they give “unconditional support” to Israel’s colonial terrorism of Palestine, even as they try to trivialize Canada’s colonial disasters. David put evil words in the mouth of a colonizing American President, who terrorized innocent Muslim nations like Iraq and Afghanistan. Western terrorists killed millions of Muslims in order to control their lands, energy, and mineral resources. Christian and Jewish empires are built on lands primed with indigenous blood.
Students of colonialism define it as the use of violence and threats of violence to gain political control over indigenous people and their land wealth, and it’s traceable to ancient Rome. In 325 CE, Conqueror Constantine perfected colonialism by inventing Roman Christianity as its central prong. He combined: massive organized violence, forced conversion to Rome’s newly minted state religion known as Roman Christianity, and enslaving legislation, to control indigenous peoples and their lands.
The only legitimate document ever produced in Canada is the Truth and Reconciliation Report. Through the justice system, it exposed Canada’s dark history of generational destruction or enslavement of Canada’s indigenous nations, for their land wealth.
Jewish and Christian terrorism was inspired by Jericho mythology, where Yahweh was credited with his first holocaust. Modern colonial terrorism includes: 1. Jewish colonial terrorism in Palestine, most recently the taking of Jerusalem with violence. 2. US terrorism of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Panama. 3. Canadian colonial terrorism in BC last January, when gunmen in RCMP uniforms threatened violence on unceded native lands.
David’s suggestion that removing Macdonald’s caricature from public display is: “libel”, fails to recognize the far greater public harm, and libel that has already taken place. Imposing the symbol of racial hatred and social domination, on the good people here is unconscionable public abuse, and a far greater evil.
Well summarized Kevin.
Colonialism is the curse of humanity, and if you check the websites of colonial thinkers and Zionist extremists like Frum, you will discover that he is planning to colonize this County with more Zionist extremists like himself, who sense a power vacuum in Canada because we’ve been deprived of any sense of Canadian sovereignty by British royals who claim to be our sovereigns, while criminalizing the British Empire.
Zionism erodes the little bit of Canadian sovereignty that we delude ourselves into enjoying. The best example is the Jewish Holocaust museum in Canada, that has no relevance or place here, yet there it is, overshadowing and downplaying the Indigenous Holocaust in our own country. It’s time for ethical Canadians to wake up and become self protecting or forever submit to the toxic political forces that harm us.
David – well said and thanks for taking the time to outline your comments. Many people take for granted the country we live in today. Comparing Sir John A, his political colleagues and their accomplishments in 2020 and criticize how they achieved creating this great country we have is an atrocity in itself. I wonder how future generations will look at this current period when there are many people criticizing the past rather than working on changing the present for a better future. An extraordinary series of actions were taken to create this country from the east coast to the west coast, fend off aggression from other nations and develop a vision of a nation. Did they do everything perfect? Likely not. Did they do things that were widely acceptable then that may not be today? For sure. The question is simple: given the choices they had to form this great country, who would say today “no, don’t do it”? I wonder how future generations will see this period in history and judge us in their circumstances much like some folks today are judging confederation times in our circumstances – will future generations see that many today focused on the actions of the past rather than taking action on things they could do today to improve our country going forward? I fear we are becoming a nation of critics rather than a nation that takes action to improve community locally, nationally and globally and I applaud and thank the people who had the courage, vision, energy and skills to assemble confederation and seed the germination of this country we are blessed to live in.
Frum, you are lucky I no longer live in the County and edit newspapers there, because after this idiotic and ahistoric epistle, I would have made a project of you. As if your “Axis of Evil” nonsense during the Bush administration wasn’t enough to make you a pariah, you insist on crapping on the memory and experience of the indigenous peoples of Canada. Sir John A. Macdonald was a drunken shyster who did his best to wipe out the indigenous people of Canada, much like your former criminal boss tried to wipe out the much of population of Iraq. Neither of them deserve to be seen as anything but the moral frauds that they were.
The reason that most of the Americas have been plagued by revolution, coups and civil wars is that the entire continent has suffered from colonialism. The U.S. threw off the yoke of the British empire only to try to start their own empire in South America. Washington, Bolivar and O’Higgins took up the sword because the colonial powers of the day would not negotiate. People today who are tearing down statues of Macdonald or Robert E. Lee or Nathan Bedford Forrest aren’t doing so because they want to deny history, but because they know history and object to racists and villains being celebrated by people like you in order to intimidate vulnerable people.
Canadians who have studied this country’s history know that we have had our share of attempted coups, revolutions and civil wars — from the Riel Rebellion to Quebec’s Silent Revolution and the October Crisis of 1970.
You should be ashamed of yourself, but I doubt you have the self-awareness to make that possible.
What about advocating for statues of those indigenous heroes and leaders whose lands were taken, whose livelihoods were stolen, and who have fought and continue to fight for the dignity and rights of their people. And for those statues to stand in the same central places as the statues of those which honour Macdonald. Where is the groundswell of advocacy to have that history present in the prominent spaces of our cities? Representing only half of history represents not history but a distortion of past propaganda.
If the small group of low life uneducated
rioters knew the history of Canada and because they can burn,loot and cause division in our country and not get shot it is because Sir John paved the way democratically getting French and English, natives and new Canadians to come together and make our country what it is .
Well written hope the above get to read it as it is obvious they never read a history book
EVERY Canadian should be FORCED to read Canada’s true history exposed in the Truth and Reconciliation Report, that makes a complete fiction of the fake British Christian narrative of delusions that are the criminal foundations of the state of: The Dominion of Canada, a place of racial domination,
1. the social delusion of British Christian Supremacy as a force for good,
2. the social delusion that Christianity is a spiritually liberating instead of spiritually enslaving religion,
3. the social delusion that our governments care and protect us proactively.
The TRR blew these three “dominating social delusions” out of what we call consensus reality, and we inherit a dark nation crippled with criminal practices like national child abuse. Indigenous child abuse was launched in the rest of the brutal British Empire by criminal aristocrats who profited most.
Some people will never let go of the old social delusions that have harmed them and their neighbours for generations. We need a public debate to educate everyone on the new truths, instead of the old lies.
It’s simplistic and knee jerk this whole movement of political correctness. Learn your history before you burn it. Case in point, it’s meant the demise of the wonderfully aptly named Edmonton Eskimos. Far from an intentional slur it stated a cold fact. Everyone in Edmonton in January is an Eskimo. In fact everyone in Canada is an Eskimo. Wonderfully ironic twist to an archaic term that was never meant as a slur has been lost to ignorance and the self righteous looking for targets. If you remove John’s statue, put it in a safe place because no doubt it’ll be going back in a few years, assuming any of us survive.
Thank you Mr. Frum for your thoughtful and well-reasoned argument. I have admired your insights for many years and, though we differ on quite a number of positions, I respect the soundness and dexterity of your exposition.
Bravo and well said, David!