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Ensemble et libres Together and free 18 JUIN 2009 • VOL. 2, NO 11 THE BILINGUAL JOURNAL OF REFLECTION, OPINION AND THE ARTS • LE JOURNAL BILINGUE DE RÉFLEXION, OPINIONS ET LES ARTS WWW.THEMETROPOLITAIN.CA Édition spéciale - rétrospective | Special Edition Retrospective PREMIER ANNIVERSAIRE | FIRST ANNIVERSARY 2 THE MÉTROPOLITAIN • 18 JUNE 2009 • ÉDITION SPÉCIALE - RÉTROSPECTIVE / SPECIAL EDITION RETROSPECTIVE WWW.THEMETROPOLITAIN.CA Beryl Wajsman Editor & Publisher [email protected] DATE DE PARUTION 16 OCTOBRE 2008 Therefore choose courage! Ensemble et Libres ~Together and Free Édifice Hermès, Tour A, Suite 155, 1470 rue Peel, Montréal, QC, Canada, H3A 1T1 A PERSONAL REFLECTION ON MEMORY AND WITNESS Tel: 514-759-8541 Fax: 514-759-8544 My father died this past Monday. At uniform, my father made his way to boardrooms. Nor by the prejudices e-mail: [email protected] a time when so much of the currency his hometown and came face to face of social orthodoxy that dominate of our public discourse is spent on with a shattered world. Physical ruin, polls and focus groups that seek to Rédacteur en chef et Éditeur Beryl P. Wajsman meaningless façade, political unmarked graves and foreigners dictate the common weal. correctness and false piety, I wanted occupying the homes of friends and This nation, conceived in economic Managing Editor and Deputy Publisher Anthony Philbin to share this article I wrote last family and claiming they had lived enterprise by European monarchs of Remembrance Day about him. Our there for decades. How does one get centuries past, came to maturity, and Rédacteur-adjoint principal Daniel Laprès political elites could take a few over seeing strangers at your kept its rendezvous with destiny, lessons from a member of the mother’s table with her crisp, white overwhelming the bloody trenches of Creative Editor Alan Hustak “greatest generation”. - BW linen laid out before them? The sense Vimy Ridge; scaling the harrowing of violation had all the intensity of cliffs of Dieppe; conquering the Contributing Editor Brigitte B. Garceau “The condition upon which man rape. The feeling of despair, all the sands of Normandy; commanding hath received liberty is eternal futility of a silent cry. The searing the stormy seas of the Atlantic; Coordonnateur, Affaires internationales Leonard Dykler (Paris) vigilance; which condition if he pain in one’s heart, the weight of the suffering the bitter winters of Korea; break, servitude is at once the rock of Camus’ Sisyphus as he fell and surviving the scorching sun of Copy Editor Ray Doucet consequence of his crime and the from the mountaintop once again. the Sinai. And too, with courage and punishment of his guilt.” What my father and his friends were conscience, in the corpse-filled Photojournaliste Robert J. Galbraith — John Philpot Curran forced to confront was confirmation Author’s father Misha Wajsman in uniform, jungles of Rwanda and on the of an era in which we still live to a muddied fields of the Balkans. Editorial Artwork second from left, with fellow veterans after Roy Piperberg, Melissa K. Wheeler Veterans Week this year, culminating great extent. An era characterized by having raised a monument to thousands killed Our best progress as a people has in Remembrance Day on Sunday, the failure of faith, the retreat of by the Nazis. always been realized when we Ventes et Marketing Joseph Mardini, Genevieve Maclean has a special resonation. Canada lost reason and the humiliation of hope. sinews of our flesh, but the very shouldered our fair share of the more of its bravest and boldest in An era where all the civilized burden in mankind’s continuing IT Director fabrics of our souls. The depraved Valeri Prudnikov foreign fields than it has in a long doctrines mankind swore allegiance indulgences in orgies of blood by quests to realize transcendent time. As we remember and pay to through millennia of struggle yearnings for redemptive change. It Webmestre murderers and madmen put the lie to François Charbonneau tribute to those who made the crawling out of the jungles of mankind’s claims of moral progress has always been a struggle, tempered ultimate sacrifice for freedom, we barbarism were betrayed. An era that, if left unchallenged. The sacrifices of by service and sacrifice, to assure the need to reflect on exactly what that with rare exceptions, is permeated survival and success of liberty. Our Editorial staff our veterans permit us all a degree of Alidor Aucoin, Daniel K. Bartlett, Michel-Wilbrod Bujold, sacrifice was for. What is at stake with the odious odours of justice moral redemption. Without their proudest boast was that we were Chris Bumbray, Dan Delmar, Guillaume Durou, when a horrible evil is loose in the compromised by timidity, honour courage we would just be mute ready to meet the challenges of the Vincent Geloso, Louise V. Labrecque, Pierre K. Malouf, world and must be subdued. How cheapened by expediency and witnesses as all the hallmarks of open sea and were not content to Jessica Murphy, Isaac J. Olson, Robert Presser, Peter Sauvé, our fate is tied up with others around promise mortgaged by avarice. decency are swept away in bloody rest smugly at harbor. If we fail to P.A. Sevigny, David Simard, Sharman Yarnell the globe fighting the same fight. It has always been a source of awe to swirls of red. recognize those challenges from Editorial contributors Too often in our smug comfort we me that my father, and his contempo- abroad today, we will inevitably face We must never cease speaking these Rouba Al-Fattal, Alain-Michel Ayache, Germain Belzile, think the world beyond our borders raries, not only survived, but truths clearly and candidly. It is the consequences of that failure at Jean-Charles Chebat, Duff Conacher, Esther Delisle, has little to do with us. We don’t feel re-engaged in this world. Even in important to tell it straight. For in an home. Graham Dodds, Daniel Dufort, Robert Elman, Fred Eytan, it viscerally. those pain-filled days after victory. ungracious age filled with inelegant We must never allow our proud Patrick C. Gagnon, Julius Grey, Rudyard Griffiths, Nancy I want to try to make you feel it with In the scorched earth of their self-absorption, it is more important legacy of victory over tyranny, Hinton, George Jonas, David T. Jones, Barbara Kay, this personal reflection on memory hometown they discovered trenches symbolized in these days of drums, David Kilgour, Rémi Landry, Marc Lebuis, Lewis W. Mackenzie, to be hard and relentless than genteel Timothy Mak, Annette Paquot, John Parisella, Andrei and witness. holding the butchered remains of and obtrusive. to be compromised by the abandon- Piontkovsky, Daniel Romano, Michael Ross, David Solway, This past spring my father called me tens of thousands who had been their My father was part of the ‘greatest ment of national will so cavalierly Francis Tourigny, Thomas R. Velk, Hubert Villeneuve, and with a tear-strained croak in his friends and families. They did not generation’ that looked into the abyss and so often rationalized in our Albert A. Zbily voice said “Today is the 9th of May. just mourn. They acted. They raised a public discourse today by the low and, in the words of Aeschylus, were Strategic Counsel This was the happiest and saddest memorial to the victims of the terror. seared by “pain which falls drop by limitations of moral relativism and day of my life.” They understood the importance of drop upon the heart until through the political equivalency. Charles S. Coffey It was not the first time he said these memory and witness. But then that awful grace of God we attain Edmund Burke’s admonition that words to me on that day. He did not too is part of the soldier’s creed. So wisdom.” But they attained one other “all that is necessary for evil to Letters and Submissions have to go into a long explanation. often they are the first to glimpse a virtue in addition to wisdom. They triumph is for good men to do The Métropolitain encourages letters and submissions His sentiments were shared by many preview of hell. And after the tears, attained courage. That is the lesson nothing,” is as true today as when he from our readers in both official languages. SVP of his generation. Veterans and after the mourning, comes the for the ages. wrote these immortal words so long envoyer vos textes à: understand that these emotions go awesome realization that despite the When Sir Wilfrid Laurier said that ago. It has been said that as each [email protected] hand in hand. numbing questions of “Why did I “this nation answers to a higher new day dawns we always have two Disclaimer On that day, 62 years ago the Nazis survive?” and “What can I believe?” destiny,” that destiny, and our choices. We can live from fear or we All materials accepted for publication may be subject surrendered. But amidst that victory, we must strive forward. But that can maturity, was not forged from the can live from courage. Therefore, to editing. The Métropolitain aims to meet the need for the world discovered the true depths only begin with remembrance. compromises of public trust bred choose courage. For our courage original and unconventional thought and opinion on local, national and international affairs. The opinions of destruction and devastation to For what is often rent asunder by the behind the closed doors of govern- can truly change the world, and and views expressed by the contributors to The which mankind had sunk. Still in evil our soldiers fight are not just the ment committees and corporate redeem our lives.

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