My email inbox lit up this weekend because of the latest faux pas from our prime ministerial Hamlet. The House of Commons applauded an older gentleman who, in his youth, fought as a Nazi. He must be feeling quite bewildered now as one day he is applauded and the next day he is reviled. Way to go Canada.. Chrystia FreelandChrystia Freeland .My response to those who sent me hyperventilating versions of the news was that this is consistent with everything surrounding the current war in Ukraine. The grandfather of our Deputy Prime Minister also participated with Nazi Germany in the horrible events in Poland. No one is screaming about Ms. Freeland’s suitability to serve at high levels of government. And nor am I..But she might have acknowledged and explained rather than denied that bit of family history. Both our government and our press have shown an appalling lack of curiosity and understanding of the troubled history of that part of the world especially as it informs the deplorable violence that threatens the very existence of Ukraine..I do not have a dog in the Ukraine war but am very concerned about the impacts on Ukraine and its citizens..There is increasing reporting that Ukraine has lost one third of its population to out migration, more than 400,000 soldiers have been killed and countries with Ukrainian citizens of fighting age are being asked to round them up and send them home..Some say that NATO and the US are at the bottom of their caches of munitions. Are these reports true? Who knows? And that is the point. An incurious press is not willing to find out and report on what is really going on. I suspect they would be horrified if they did..Rather than make puerile statements about the awfulness of all things Russian and the glory of all things Ukrainian why doesn’t the press read a bit of history and walk down the dark corridors of the Holodomor and the Nazi occupation?. Damage in UkraineResidential buildings in Kharkiv Oblast shelled by Russian forces. .Perhaps some tears can be spilt for the breakaway Donbas Ukrainians killed since 2014 by shelling from the Kiev government. There is blame and blood and guts enough to go around..Perhaps reporters might even go back in time to the northern wars when Poland and Lithuania fought Russia and Austria to control the rich borderlands of what is now Ukraine. Borderlands which were mostly settled by Russians when Catherine the Great and the Cossacks drove off the Ottoman Tatars in the 18th century..In my view, what happened over a generation ago stays in the past but shame on us if we refuse to learn the hard-earned lessons. I have no quarrel with Mr. Hunka and, in the absence of a court proceeding, I certainly don’t want him rotting in a rat-infested jail cell in isolation. He was unfairly set up by an ignorant Speaker of the House (who should resign) and a historically misinformed Canadian public who will boisterously cheer as the last Ukrainian soldier marches to his death..Let’s stop the facile and uninformed cheerleading for war even as we facilitate the wholesale and unnecessary killing of young men and women from both countries..Mr. Prime Minister, stop fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian and be a better man. Use what influence you have to push for an end to this slaughter.
My email inbox lit up this weekend because of the latest faux pas from our prime ministerial Hamlet. The House of Commons applauded an older gentleman who, in his youth, fought as a Nazi. He must be feeling quite bewildered now as one day he is applauded and the next day he is reviled. Way to go Canada.. Chrystia FreelandChrystia Freeland .My response to those who sent me hyperventilating versions of the news was that this is consistent with everything surrounding the current war in Ukraine. The grandfather of our Deputy Prime Minister also participated with Nazi Germany in the horrible events in Poland. No one is screaming about Ms. Freeland’s suitability to serve at high levels of government. And nor am I..But she might have acknowledged and explained rather than denied that bit of family history. Both our government and our press have shown an appalling lack of curiosity and understanding of the troubled history of that part of the world especially as it informs the deplorable violence that threatens the very existence of Ukraine..I do not have a dog in the Ukraine war but am very concerned about the impacts on Ukraine and its citizens..There is increasing reporting that Ukraine has lost one third of its population to out migration, more than 400,000 soldiers have been killed and countries with Ukrainian citizens of fighting age are being asked to round them up and send them home..Some say that NATO and the US are at the bottom of their caches of munitions. Are these reports true? Who knows? And that is the point. An incurious press is not willing to find out and report on what is really going on. I suspect they would be horrified if they did..Rather than make puerile statements about the awfulness of all things Russian and the glory of all things Ukrainian why doesn’t the press read a bit of history and walk down the dark corridors of the Holodomor and the Nazi occupation?. Damage in UkraineResidential buildings in Kharkiv Oblast shelled by Russian forces. .Perhaps some tears can be spilt for the breakaway Donbas Ukrainians killed since 2014 by shelling from the Kiev government. There is blame and blood and guts enough to go around..Perhaps reporters might even go back in time to the northern wars when Poland and Lithuania fought Russia and Austria to control the rich borderlands of what is now Ukraine. Borderlands which were mostly settled by Russians when Catherine the Great and the Cossacks drove off the Ottoman Tatars in the 18th century..In my view, what happened over a generation ago stays in the past but shame on us if we refuse to learn the hard-earned lessons. I have no quarrel with Mr. Hunka and, in the absence of a court proceeding, I certainly don’t want him rotting in a rat-infested jail cell in isolation. He was unfairly set up by an ignorant Speaker of the House (who should resign) and a historically misinformed Canadian public who will boisterously cheer as the last Ukrainian soldier marches to his death..Let’s stop the facile and uninformed cheerleading for war even as we facilitate the wholesale and unnecessary killing of young men and women from both countries..Mr. Prime Minister, stop fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian and be a better man. Use what influence you have to push for an end to this slaughter.
