10 - Friday. November 2, 1990 - North Shore News

Is traq worth war?

JOE CLARK astonished
Canadians the other day by
suggesting that soldiers
might actually be used for
military purposes.

Well, let’s not be euphemistic.
For fighting.

You know — shooting at other
people, and being shot at. Woun-
ding and killing, and being
wounded and killed. Like combat.

It’s one of the great contradic-
tions of our country that we are
becoming hardened to civilian vio-
lence — steeped in vicarious bru-
tality through television, exposed
to it endlessly in the news media,
demanding bigger and bigger jolts
of it in movies and books, protec-
ting ourselves against it through
household alarm systems and
self-defence courses and ‘‘street-
proofing”’ our children, and
meekly tolerating it if it claims
high moral or social purpose —-
while at the same time provision-
ing armed forces which are meant
to be nice to foreigners.

Underlying this is a further
layer of contradiction.

Canadians may be the only
people on earth who believe their
way of life isn’t worth fighting
for. Who believe that freedom has
no cost. Who believe that the
words freedom and pain, freedom
and sacrifice, let alone freedom
and death, don’t belong in the
same Canadian sentence together.
Sure, maybe in the Dictionary of
Foreign Words and Phrases. But
not in any made-in-Canada dic-
tionary.

Thus Joe Clark’s statement of
the obvious dropped a bombshell
on the official mythology
manufactured by successive Ca-
nadian governments for almost
half a century and perpetuated in
the public schools and in the
academy and other branches of
the attitude-shaping elite.

Of course the external affairs

Trevor

GARDEN OF BIASES

minister’s words were of no sur-
prise to at least two groups.

One is the aging — dying —
group of people who did their bit
to smash Hitler and the bar-
barically cruel Japanese militarists
in the 1939-1945 war, and the
handful of survivors of the 1914-
1918, not to ignore those who
took part in the Korean and (yes)
Vietnam wars.

And not just the soldiers, ei-
ther. Women,too,contributed
mightily to those war efforts: as
wives and mothers, as war pro-
duction workers — I have a vivid
recollection of some of them
boarding in our smallish house in
my great, tough manufacturing
town of Hamilton in those years.

The second group that dic not
faint with surprise and indignation
at Clark’s statement are the many
newcomers to this country who fl-
ed places where freedom had been
fought for, and in sadly many
cases lost, who are often Canada’s
quietly most patriotic citizens.

They know.

But the great majority of
native-born Canadians, everyone
under 50, have no direct shared

AN EVENING WITH RENOWNED

CLAIRVOYANT DAVID YOUNG
Tuesday, Nov. 6, 1990

Time:
Place:

8:00 pm.
Ballroom

Lonsdale Quay Hotel

123 Carrie Cates Court

North Vancouver
Ticket Information 93]-586O

Advance Tickets $10

Available Sat., Nov. 3 & Mon., Nov.5 — 16pm
at Lonsdale Quay Hotel or phone 931-5860

Long Term Care
Aide Program

Information. Meeting 6:30p.m.
Tuesday, Nov. 6 H204

Are you interested in helping people? Are
you interested in seniors? Then you could
be interested in the Long Term Care Aide
Program at Capilano College. Qualified
graduates of this 15-week program work
as Nurses Aides with long-term care clients
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Call 986-1911, local 2231 for more

CAPILANO
COLLEGE

information.

2055 Purcell Way ¢ North Vancouver e B.C.

memory of the Second World
War. | -— born in 1934, and start-
ing kindergarten on the day war
broke out — have a vivid but ob-
viously sensational, child-filtered
sense of it.

So ignorance of the war —
abetted by the above-mentioned
mythology that furiously tries to
expunge the ‘embarrassment’ of
the image of the Canadian warrior
— has left most Canadians with a
vacuum where their deepest con-
victions about our freedom, our
way of life, and our pride used to
reside.

Yet Canadians fought with
great valor to protect those home-
ly and uncomplicated beliefs in
the War of 1812, in the two world
wars where Canadian participation
was decisive in some battles, and
in other military action that un-
mistakably helped build a nation
out of a colony — from the blood
and sacrifice of mostly young Ca-
nadians who are fieetingly saluted
on Remembrance Day.

Inevitably, even to point out the
foregoing will be interpreted by
some as romanticizing war.

1 don’t romanticize war. I'd be
opposed to it if for no other
reason than my old dog Sam hates
loud noises. And —- in the present
case that drew Joe Clark’s state-
ment, a possible war with Iraq,
which some people predict will
break out within weeks — | feel
deep distress that children as
young and innocent as my own
would be among the casualties.

But the point remains that the
loss of freedom, the crushing of a
country, is also a kind of death, a
burial. Canadians have had the
blessing of not having to think
profoundly about such things for
45 years. It’s hard to imagine
what we would fight to the death
for.
A ee ee

CRIME ALERT

NORTH VANCOUVER
CAPILANO

Break and enter — 4400-bIk. Lions
Ave. Entry gained by breaking a cor-
ner of window and opening the pin
lock. Stolen: 35mm camera, feather
jacket and $15-$20 cash.
Break and center — 1400-blk. Terrace
Ave. Entry gained by removing screen
and tifting fock on window. Stofen:
18-inch gold necklace with pendant of
Amadona, [Italian gold, and $100
worth of loonies. Value: $1,000.
Break and enter — 3200-bIk. Colwood
Dr. Entry gained by breaking rear
window. Stolen: jewelry. Value:
$1,070.
Break and enter — 4000-bIk. Sunset
Blvd. Entry gained by forcing base-
ment window. Stolen: $15 worth of
loonies and quarters, diamond tie pin,
and Mexican-style man's pendant.
Break and enter — 3800-bik. Sun-
nycrest Dr. Entry gained by opening
window at rear of residence. Stolen:
one pair of diamond earrings and one
pair navy blue and brass trim earrings.
Value: $260.
Break and enter — 3600-bIk. Sun-
nycrest Dr. Entry gained by cutting
screen. Stolen: jewelry. Value: $600.
Break and enter — 3000-blk. Paisley
Rd. No signs of forced entry. Stolen:
UBC gold ring, silver ID bracelet and
chain with name engraved on plate.
Break and enter — 3400-blk. Norcross
Way. No signs of forced entry. Stolen:
$160 cash and Sony CD player. Value:

$260.

CITY NORTH
Break and enter — 100-bIk. West 23rd
St. Entry gained by forcing door with
blunt instrument. Stolen: black rabbit
fur coat and Safeway card. Value:
$200.
Break and enter — 100-blk. East 19th
St. Entry gained by prying door.
Stolen: gold ring, Seiko watch and 20
CDs. Value: $820.
Break and enter — 1400-bik. St.
Georges Ave. Entry gained by prying
door. Stolen: Sony CTS am/fm
cassette deck and $5 change.
Break and enter — 200-bik. East 15th
St. Entry gained by prying door.
Stolen: jewelry.
Break snd enter —- 1400-bIk. Mahon
Ave. Entry gained by prying patio
door with screwdriver. Stolen: $360
cash.
Break and enter -- 2100-blk. Jones
Ave. No signs of forced entry. Stolen:

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Canad

car keys from locker and safety depos-
it box key.
Theft from vehicle — 300-bik, East
29th St. Stolen: cellular phone.
Theft from vehicle — 200-blk. East
15th St. Stolen: too! box and tools.
Theft from vehicle —- 2000-bIk. Grand
Boulevard. Stolen: leather jacket,
suede boots and boa of cassette tapes.

CITY SOUTH
Break and enter — 600-blk. East Sth
St. Entry gained by smashing window.
Stolen: camera, lens, flash, $100
change and jewelry.
Break and enter — 200-bIk. West
Keith Rd. No signs of forced entry.
Stolen: one Australian blue opal gold
ring. Value: $4,500.
Break and enter — 700-blk. Lonsdale
Ave. Entry gained by cutting padlocks
with bolt cutters. Stolen: assortment of
food, and tools.
Break and enter — 300-b!k. East 6th
St. No signs of forced entry. Stolen:
one sleeping bag, 170 CDs, and three
gold chains. Value: $3,520.
Break and enter — 400-blk. 4th St.
Entry gained by prying door. Stolen:
feather jacket, camera and accessories,
jewelry, and Suny 8mm handy cam
camcorder.
Theft from vehicle — 200-blk. Mahon
Ave. Stolen: Blaupunkt stereo and
Minolta camera. Value: $2,500.
Theft from vehicle — 100-bdIk. East Ist
St. Stolen: hubcaps.

PEMBERTON
Break and enter — 1700-bik.
McGowan Ave. No signs of forced en-
try. Stolen: Sony camcorder. Value:
$1,300.
Break and enter — 2000-bIk. McKay
Ave. No signs of forced entry. Stolen:
$12 change.
Break and enter — 2300-blk. Lioyd
Ave. Entry gained by forcing window.
Stolen: jewelry and $26 worth of
loonies and quarters. Value: $1,751.
Theft from vehicle — Capilano Mall.
Stolen: licence plate, NSL 341.

SEYMOUR

Break and enter — 700-bIk. Roslyn
Dr. No signs of forced entry. Stolen:
jewelry and $40 cash.

LYNN VALLEY
Theft from vehicle ~- 100-bik, East St.
James. Stojen: Cantel car phone.

WEST VANCOUVER
Break and enter — 500-blk. 16th St.

More Crime page 11