Learning Stories
by
Mario deSantis
mariodesantis@hotmail.com
“I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, and free to choose those who shall govern my country.” - -The Rt. Hon. John Diefenbaker, Canadian Bill of Rights, 1960
“The whole judicial system is at issue, it's worth more than one person.”--Serge Kujawa, Saskatchewan Crown Prosecutor, 1991
“The system is not more worth than one person's rights.”--Mario deSantis, 2002
Ensign Stories © Mario deSantis and Ensign
|
|
Air strikes are taking place in Afghanistan against an enemy-Terrorism-which has not been clearly identified and yet it is recognized to be entrenched in many countries. There have been suggestions by the White House that this war can be expanded to include military interventions against Iraq as well. In the meantime, the Islamic countries are becoming more uncertain about their position to support the US coalition as the collateral damage of civilian casualties is increasing. We must learn to speak our natural language of respecting human rights all over the world and as a consequence we must build an effective international framework to bring justice all over the world. To go to war just because polls show that 90% of Americans and NATO's allies want retribution against the perpetrators of the September 11th atrocities is not the just answer to pursue justice. We ourselves as individuals and as members of societies have the choice to bring forward justice in the world, and such choice cannot be the results of statistical polls and it cannot be delegated to the experts, our alienated politicians and military generals. Therefore, as we struggle to understand the threat of terrorism as surfaced by the events of September 11th I find worthwhile to share few important thoughts by some leading and understanding people as reported today by the UK Guardian Unlimited:
"Conflict is fundamentally always about the same thing: about difference, whether difference is race or religion or nationality. And of course the most fundamental message of peace is respect for difference given that difference is an accident of birth no matter what you are born" -- John Hume, former leader, SDLP
Reference Has the world changed?, Interviews by: Esther Addley, Libby Brooks, Merope Mills, Simon Hattenstone, Amy Fleming, Stephen Moss, Oliver Burkeman, David Gow and Ian Katz. Thursday October 11, 2001 UK Guardian Unlimited http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,567172,00.html |
"The
values of freedom and fairness must become the transparent
motivation for globalising the world and not the current motivators,
greed and exploitation. How else can we understand what motivates
terrorism and ensure the security and stability that the world lost
last month?" -- Anita Roddick, Founder and co-chair, the Body
Shop 
"What
this demonstrates is that no country, however powerful, is immune.
It may be that the good coming out of this terrible evil is a
clearer recognition by the US, the most powerful nation in the
world, that collective action is superior to unilateral action."
-- Menzies Campbell MP, Liberal Democrat spokesman on foreign
affairs
"Ghandi
said that an eye for an eye leads to a world that is blind May the
alliance against the threat of terrorism become a common struggle
for justice for the world's poorest, motivated not by what we stand
against, but by what we stand for" -- Cardinal Cormac
Murphy-O'Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, Roman catholic primate
of UK