What’s in a Name?

Ryerson University has decided to change its name and everyone is all atwitter. While many are applauding the move, some say it doesn’t go far enough. Others are calling it “cancel culture,” a somewhat ironic term, given that Ryerson and his colleagues literally tried to cancel 50 or 60 actual cultures. We are re-writing history! Or we should re-write history! Depending on which side of the middle you happen to fall on.

Of course, no one is trying to re-write history. What we are doing is deciding whom a modern culture should commemorate, that is, show respect for, honour, hold up as a role model. Edgerton Ryerson did a lot of things in his life, some positive, some negative and the University has decided that, by today’s standards, the negatives far outweigh the positives. Therefore, he will continue to exist in the history books but will no longer be commemorated or paid tribute to.

What! Applying modern standards to historical figures? That’s outrageous!

Nonsense.

In 1935, there were plenty of people who thought Adolph Hitler was pretty alright, including the King of England and Henry Ford. Now, the only people who think that are racists and whack-jobs and no decent person or society would raise a statue to him (though I understand he is in Madame Tussaud’s Was Museum in the category of Monsters of History). But I can find a thousand books and films that discuss his place in history.

I know, apparently, I’ve lost this argument because I brought up Hitler. Do you prefer Stalin? A lot of his statues were torn down when the Soviet Union collapsed, though some people are pushing to put them back up. Because that’s how commemoration works – society’s change and their evaluation of who is worthy of being honoured changes right along with it.

The process of honouring and, later, de-commemorating people has been going on for a very long time. During the Roman Empire, they went through a lot of emperors, all of whom had statues and plaques commemorating them during their lifetimes. Many then had all those tributes torn down, some before the blood was dry on the Praetorian Guards’ swords. Yet, we still have a record of them in history. Amazing, right?

Then, there’s the French. The Pantheon in Paris was the final resting place for the heroes of the nation (though for the last 150 years most of those heroes were politicians, writers and scientists because… France). Some times the internment is immediate; others, it can take decades (and in few cases, centuries) before France decides that person deserves honouring. And yes, a few people have been disinterred, though not recently.

What is far more common is for street names to change. Some streets in Paris have had three of four names over the last 150 years, as one person or event loses its luster and another deserves to be honoured. Sometimes, the street sign will show the new name and, in smaller print, its former name. Finding out what a street was called in 1919 was one of my biggest challenges when researching my novel, In the Shadow of Versailles. Why not pick up a copy and see if I got it right? You can get it here.

Americans in Paris

When good Americans die, they go to Paris. Well, they do, according to Oscar Wilde, who, himself went to Paris to die in a luxury hotel (“I’m dying beyond my means,” he is rumoured to have told a friend.) Wilde is now reposing in the Pere Lachaise cemetery where his large monument is surrounded by plexiglass to keep people from crawling all over it. That doesn’t stop his boldest admirers who clamber over the barrier to mark the stone with lipstick kisses.

Wilde’s epigram has some merit. The relationship of France and America is long and complex. Rousseau and Montesquieu both had profound intellectual influences over the founding fathers of America and the American war of independence in turn encouraged the French to follow suit. Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America,” written in the mid 19^th century, is still worth reading for insights into the modern American character.

Though frequently competitors, the competition was often friendly and both sides learned from the other. French carmakers learned about assembly lines from Henry Ford while Paris gave America the neon light, where it became the iconic symbol of modern city life. The Wright brothers almost moved to France when the US military temporarily cut off funds for their experiments in aviation. And when living became cheap and the whiskey flowed freely in France, many thirsty Americans headed across the pond to escape prohibition.

In the 1920s, Paris was attracting writers, artists, composers and innovators from across Europe and around the world. New approaches to thinking and creating spawned numerous cultural movements whose impacts are still being felt a hundred years later. Not to be left behind, French innovations in technology, medicine and politics were adopted or studied by many other countries, including some of the first systematic programs to manage and integrate immigrants into existing societies.

France and America were allies in both world wars and Korea and had fought in French Indochina (Vietnam) in the 1950s. Though that close military relationship faltered in later years, French and American interests have remained closely aligned in other areas.

As you may have guessed, I’ve become very interested in France, and especially Paris, over the years but that interest first bloomed from the works of American writers in Paris – to close the circle of my thoughts today.

If you’d like to see where my interest took me, you could read my new mystery novel, In the Shadow of Versailles, set in 1919 Paris. You can find it here.

Get the Jab

One of the deadliest scourges in history was smallpox. Wickedly contagious and deadly in 30% of cases, this disease wiped out millions around the world and was particularly pernicious in the Americas where there was no natural immunity.

Smallpox was also the first disease that science developed a vaccine against when Edward Jenner discovered that a related disease, cowpox, provided protection against infection. The first smallpox vaccination occurred in 1798 (although the technique of variolation predates it). It took 180 years but successive campaigns eradicated the disease in 1979.

Of course, nothing comes easy. Protests over vaccination appeared almost as soon as vaccines did and arguments over enforced vaccination raged. Most countries did require soldiers to take the jab, since living and fighting in close and unsanitary quarters made them particularly vulnerable. Can’t have soldiers dying before they are killed, can we?

The first national vaccine agency was created in the USA in 1813 to encourage Americans to get inoculated against small pox, then cholera (1817). The arrival of Louis Pasteur (who also gave us pasteurization of milk and beer, saving both industries in Europe at the time) led to vaccines for anthrax and rabies. Science marched on and by 1924, the first tetanus shots were administered.

Then science sped up—as science is wont to do. The first flu shots appeared in the 1940s and a vaccine for pertussis (whooping cough) was developed in 1948. Jonas Salk developed the first vaccine for polio in 1950, thus beginning the end of a disease that killed or disabled tens of thousands of children every year. We came close to achieving the same success with polio as we did with smallpox but a combination of religious fundamentalism, distrust of Western medicine and, ironically, the Western based anti-vax movement has meant this disease persists in about a dozen countries.

Measles and mumps were next on the list and again efforts to eliminate these diseases were thwarted by misinformation, fear and… well, who can really explain it? Measles not only wasn’t eliminated but continues to spring up in areas where it had previously been under control. I’ll be blunt: anti-vaxxers kill children and all their counter-factual arguments or outright lies won’t change that.

Now we come to the highly effective vaccines against COVID-19, which offer the best hope of getting the current pandemic under control. Some have questioned how these vaccines could have been developed and tested so quickly. Well, as I said above, science speeds up and 21^st Century biology is undergoing the same revolutionary changes in knowledge and pace of discovery as computers did in the late 20^th Century. As for testing, the answer lies in large numbers. Previously, medicines were tested with small sample groups over a number of years. But statistically, you can get the same information out of large groups over a shorter time frame—and that’s exactly what happened.

Canada is doing very well on the vaccine front and we now lead the world (not counting a few small countries with less than a million people) in first shots and are rapidly rising in the ranks of the fully vaccinated. Not so in the USA where vaccination rates are lagging, especially in so-called red (or Republican) states, where case rates and deaths have started to rise again. One can only hope that this madness will not spread (though I saw today that there were riots in Greece over plans to vaccinate teenagers) but rather that the developed world can get its act together to make sure the rest of the world is protected, too. None of us are safe until we are all safe.

The first flu vaccines appeared in the 1940s which meant that previous waves of this frequently deadly disease went unchecked. Most notable was the Spanish flu of 1918-20 which may have killed as many as 50 million people. Doctors tried every trick that current science then held but to no avail. While it wasn’t a major part of my mystery novel, In the Shadow of Versailles, set in 1919 Paris, the flu did play a role. If you would like to see what a world without vaccines might look like, you can buy a copy here.

Writing for the Joy of It

Samuel Johnson once said: None but a fool writes except for money. It proved a useful quote as I incorporated it in a 1000-word essay I had to write as part of an application for a scholarship. I got the money. It was enough that my entire four years at university was covered. While going to school was cheap back then ($1500 paid for tuition, room and board, and most of my books) but that $6 a word was the most I’ve ever been paid for writing.

Of course, there were other factors in play. I’m sure finishing first in my high school while being active in student affairs had some influence on the decision but still, without the 1000 words, I wouldn’t have got that particular scholarship—the richest my university gave out at the time.

Writing for money. One way or another, it’s what a lot of people do. Whether you are a lawyer writing briefs, a bureaucrat formulating policy, a teacher putting together a lesson plan or a contractor putting together a statement of work for a quote, it’s all writing for money. The only people who seem to be expected to write for no money are, well, writers.

Because, as everyone knows, we do it for the joy of it.

Let me let you in on a little secret. We do write for the joy of it. Or, at least, we should.

This is not to say that writers don’t want and need to get paid. Getting paid for writing is how full-time writers pay for groceries, rent, taxes, or home renovations. It’s how they pay for their kid’s dental work, there internet connection, their eventual retirement (Ha, ha, I hear some of my friends laughing).

But what if you don’t need the money?

As it happens, I don’t. Not really. I had a good job; I saved some money and earned a good pension. Mostly by writing (policy papers, speeches, letters) though there were always other duties as assigned. Creative writing was only a full-time job for a few (lean) years but it did provide a little gravy for most of my working life.

Writing and editing still makes me a little extra which I am more than happy to spend on the finer things in life. I like money and I believe in the principle that creatives should be paid (which is why I don’t give away my work for free), but need it? <SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE: SEND CASH NOW> Not me.

Yet, I still find myself writing, but only when a story promises to give me joy in the writing of it. Don’t get me wrong; writing is still hard work. Every story requires you to do a little research and a lot of thinking. Getting it right, often through re-writes, can be tough. Still, the sheer pleasure of finding the right word or crafting a good sentence cannot be denied. Losing yourself in a world of your own creation is (almost) better than going someplace you’ve never been. Stories don’t have to be happy to give joy to the writer; they can be so sad you have to wipe your eyes to finish the paragraph. Horror or laughter or sense of wonder—they can all bring a writer joy. And learning new skills is a wonderful thing, too, which is why I’ve started to study the craft of poetry.

These days I’m spending most of my writing time in 1920s Paris because it fascinates me and challenges my intellect and emotional range. It pushes me the way a long hard walk pushes me, leaving me tired but exhilarated. But I’m also having a lot of fun working on a science fiction noir detective story for an upcoming anthology. In fact, I’m having so much fun the editors may decide not to buy it. And I’m okay with that.

In the meantime, you can see all the joy I’m finding in writing the Max Anderson mysteries. In The Shadow of Versailles is now available here and the second book will appear around the beginning of October. But you will have to pay for it because… baby needs a new pair of shoes!

The Inciting Incident

Every story begins with an inciting incident, the event that drives the main character out of the ordinary course of his life on to the path of his best true destiny. Ideally, that’s where they end up though, as Robbie Burns tells us things “gang aft agley.” The inciting incident of In the Shadow of Versailles comes early. After four paragraphs to establish the ordinary course of Max Anderson’s life, this happens:

***

He was passing a stone church opposite Square St. Bernard when he heard the cry. It was faint and echoed against the stone walls of the old buildings so that, at first, he couldn’t tell where it had come from or even if it was a man or a woman.

The cry came again, clearer and more desperate.

“Aux secours! On me tue.”

They are killing me. The voice was coming from the far side of the church. The streets were now deserted. Max was weaponless save for a small pocketknife and his cane. He thought of the Webley service revolver he had kept for reasons he did not understand, hidden in a box at the bottom of his suitcase. He might as well wish for the moon.

A third cry, a harsh inchoate groan of pain. A familiar tremor ran along his legs and he had to force himself to turn toward the sound. After the first step it was easier and Max hurried along the wrought iron fence that surrounded the church, each painful stride threatening to tumble him to the ground. His only asset was surprise. He stepped through a narrow gate, bellowing with his best parade ground voice. Three men, their faces covered in scarves, were punching and kicking a fourth, who was slumped in an archway against a blue door trying to shield his face with his upraised arms. At Max’s shout the gang froze in a violent tableau, lit by a single dim streetlight opposite the church’s rear entrance.

Before they could react, Max took two quick steps and struck the closest gangster, a short thick-set man in a striped shirt, across the neck with the head of his cane. The man staggered and almost fell. The second, taller but as heavily built, leapt toward Max, hands outstretched. He recoiled in pain as Max’s small blade cut a gash across the back of his hand and up his arm.

The victim was not helpless, either. He took quick advantage of Max’s interruption, stepped close to his third assailant and shot a hard right into the man’s broad belly. He followed with a short chopping left to the man’s ear. The gangster turned and fled, the other two fast behind.

They had barely disappeared in the darkness before a policeman came flying around the corner, his white stick raised and his cape billowing behind him.

“Almost when we needed one,” muttered the short dark man Max had rescued, picking up his hat.

The gendarme, puffing and red faced, looked from Max to the other man, who was now dabbing at the blood on his face with a white silk handkerchief. He said something fast that Max didn’t catch. He shook his head. “Pardon, ne comprend pas.”

“Is this wog bothering you, monsieur?” he repeated in barely comprehensible English.

Max shook his head more emphatically and switched back to French. “No, he was being attacked by three men. They went that way.” Max gestured with his cane along the street. The officer, a sergeant by the markings on his sleeve, nodded but gave no indication that he intended a pursuit. He took out a notebook and took their names, addresses and the few bits of description they could provide.

“Monsieur Barzani,” he said at last, “Do you know why you were attacked?”

“Perhaps they wanted to rob me of my wallet,” Barzani shrugged, speaking such precise French that Max felt envious. “Or perhaps it is because I’m a wog.”

The gendarme glared and snapped his notebook shut. With a promise to find them should he require anything further, he turned on his heel and strode into the gathering gloom.

“We have heard each other’s names but we have not formally met,” said Barzani, in English as flawless as his French. He extended his hand. “Hevel Mohammed Barzani, late of Tehran, freelance diplomat and currently a man about town.”

Max took the hand and shook it warmly, slightly embarrassed by the policeman’s words and behaviour. He tried to match the precision of Barzani’s French. “Maxwell Michael Anderson, late of Truro and the Nova Scotia Highlanders. Currently between drinks.”

“Then we must remedy that. Drinks and a cigar, too. I have some imported directly from Cuba that you simply must try.”

“I wasn’t trying to cadge…”

“Of course not, my friend” said Barzani, taking Max by the arm. “I owe you a great debt. I think those men intended more than a simple beating. I would be a poor son of Allah if I did not offer some token of my gratitude. Now come. I know a charming little bistro a few blocks from here where we can be refreshed and build upon what I am sure will become a great friendship.”

***

If you would like to read more, you can purchase In the Shadow of Versailles in your favorite on-line store.

Photo: Reinhardhauke (Wikipedia Commons)

Dining Out on Paris

When my friend, Matt Moore, read an early draft of In the Shadow of Versailles, he found himself constantly hungry. While he enjoyed the mystery, the scenes of café and restaurant life whet his appetite for a return to the City of Light and its fabulous food.

Paris is known for a lot of things: light, love, modern art, the lost generation and the Eiffel Tower. It is also known for its food. While French dining was revolutionized by the appearance of nouvelle cuisine in the 1960s, when meals became lighter and simpler, the Classique or haute cuisine that Max enjoyed in 1919 continues to be served in many Parisian restaurants to this day.

When Max dines out with friends (or suspects), he is likely to encounter such delights as lamb stew spiced with cinnamon, fresh trout cooked in white wine and garlic or perhaps a rock hen, stuffed with dates and walnuts and served with a hard orange sauce, each served with a cream soup and fresh bread to start and followed by some confection of chocolate and fruit and all served with suitable matching wines. On another night he might have a nice cassoulet, duck stewed with spicy sausages and white beans and served with potatoes.

If he wasn’t too hungry (or had already eaten), he might settle for a green salad and an herbed grilled trout while bribing an informant with a foie gras appetizer followed by a filet of beef in pepper sauce plus trimmings, each served with a suitable wine, say, a Chablis to start followed by a rich Burgundy. Finish it off with a cheese plate and a pastis or espresso and you’re set for the night.

Looking for lighter fare? Well, it can be done but people will stare or wonder if you have a wasting disease. At lunch you might settle for a hearty tomato broth filled with chunks of root vegetables and shreds of roast chicken, served with a hunk of dark rye bread, chewy with a delicate nutty flavour, washed down with a crisp pale ale. And of course, charcuterie is always an option, four or five smoked or spiced meats with a range of cheese from runny camembert to a firm Emmental plus wedges of baguette and plenty of olives in great variety.

Only breakfast might be considered a dieter’s choice, if croissants with fresh butter and fruit compote is your idea of diet food. At one point, Ginger Buchan, an American diplomat, complains of the French habit of eating sweet pastries at breakfast before stuffing three of them down his gullet. He later remarks that Paris is where good Americans go when they die.

French boulangeries and patisseries are a world unto themselves with brioche and vol au vents and, oh, roughly a hundred types of breads and pastries on display and I could spend a lot more words to describe them, but frankly, I’m starving.

If you hunger for more of the good life of dining in Paris, hop on a plane, or, much cheaper, pick up an ebook of In the Shadow of Versailles from your favorite on-line store.

Entering Paris

My first trip to Paris took place in the 1920s. Well, after reading “A Moveable Feast,” I certainly felt I had been there, much more so than I did from reading Victor Hugo or other French writers of the 19^th and 20^th century. That might seem odd but there is a rational explanation. Hemingway was a visitor to Paris, albeit one with a keen eye for details. Hugo et. al. saw Paris from the inside out while Hemingway and Stein and others saw it from the outside in, which is exactly the way I and, subsequently my hero, Max Anderson, would come to see Paris.

Of course, there is only so much one can understand about a place through books (with apologies to armchair tourists who are sure the world can be conveyed through words on a page). My first actual visit to the City of Light came in 2010, when I persuaded my wife and her daughter to accompany me on a brief 2-day jaunt across the Channel. We were already in London and a high-speed train could deliver us to Paris in a few hours, so off we went.

One thing I really remember was the heat. It was July and well over 30C the whole time we were there. Personally, the heat doesn’t trouble me but Liz finds it a bit difficult. So, I left them to do some leisurely sightseeing and shopping (Paris, right?) and took off on a death march that took me by foot and Metro (as the subway, much of which was built in the first two decades of the 20^th century, is called) around the city. I was travelling too fast for the local conmen to get me in their sights—I saved that for a later visit—as I traversed 7 of the 20 arrondissements (or districts) of Paris.

The 20 arrondissements form the core of Paris and are surrounded by the suburbs or banlieues where most immigrants and many working-class people lived and continue to live. Historically, the two parts of Paris were separated by numerous parks and the remains of the medieval city wall. Later, an ugly and still contentious ring road was constructed that serves as an unofficial border.

The arrondissements spiral out from the city centre with the 1^st one including the Louvre, the Palais Royal, the Jardins de Tuileries and half of the Ile de la Cite (the palace of Justice but not the Prefecture de Police). The arrondissements get bigger as you go, so covering the first seven is easier than visiting the last three. By the end of my whirlwind tour, I had realized one key fact. Everything in Paris was closer together and smaller than I had imagined from reading books, watching movies and looking at maps.

Since I’d already written most of the first draft of In the Shadow of Versailles (yes, this book has been ten years in the making, though I did a lot of other things in that time, too), that meant I had a lot more research to do. A year later, I was a back in Paris for a week, this time by myself and in the fall, when the weather was much more agreeable. I found a little place in 10^th arrondissement not far from Gare Nord, the train station where Max Anderson arrives when he first comes to Paris. When I say little, I’m not kidding. There was room for a single bed, a miniscule night table and a spot on the floor for my luggage. The bathroom was so small that I literally had to take off my pants to sit on the toilet and had to turn off the shower and open the door to turn around in the cubicle. But it was cheap!

Still, it was a great time, walking the streets, some of which turned into staircases part way up the hill, and visiting restaurants both famous and infamous. I even found a bar to serve as a model for Le Coq Bleu, Max’s hang-out, run by his friend, Yesim. Churches, museums (many of which had been houses), government buildings, bridges and cemeteries – I roamed the city taking pictures and writing new sections of In the Shadow of Versailles. I also began to take notes for By Dawn’s Early Light, the second Max Anderson mystery, which will appear in October. A subsequent trip with my wife in 2012 wound up focusing on the 8^th arrondissement, the old Russian quarter of Paris, which features heavily in the second novel. A final trip took place in 2014 when we spent 10 days in a nice apartment at the foot of Montmartre. It was mostly a pleasure trip—but some of the places we visited feature heavily in the third Max novel, currently being written. Sounds like time for another trip!

On of the nicest things about Paris is that so little of it has changed in the last hundred years. Many of the old buildings and streets are almost unchanged, at least on the surface and, while facilities have improved and some station names have changed, the Metro routes are largely what they were in the days after WWI. Once you understand the basic plan and character of Paris, all the rest of the gaps can be filled in with research. I have two shelves of a bookcase devoted strictly to Paris (plus another 30 on my KOBO). Among my favorites: One Thousand Buildings of Paris (photos and descriptions from across the arrondissements), Paris Underground, which shows the year-by-year development of the Metro, with plenty of illustrations and a 1922 catalogue from the Galleries Lafayette, which I found in the massive flea market beyond the ring road just past the 18^th arrondissement.

For a chance to see Paris from the eyes of soldier fresh from the trenches, you can pick up a copy of In the Shadow of Versailles, wherever e-books are sold. This link will take you to a central site where you can pick your favorite vendor.

The Kindness of… Rich People

Twice, I’ve stood outside Notre Dame Cathedral without going inside, daunted by the long line-ups and the admission fee. After all, I’m an atheist who has already visited his share of impressive churches. This one was a youngster compared to some I’ve been to in Italy and Spain. Still, I now wish I had gone inside so I could see the not-quite-original interior. The present-day church was largely refurbished in the mid-19^th Century largely at the urging of Victor Hugo – art intimidating life, as it were. And, I expect, despite the outcry of some folks, the church will be refurbished again. And that’s a good thing–the preservation of human history and art everywhere is part of what makes us human. I hope I live long enough to see it (they think it will take 10-15 years).

People have been shocked and surprised to see how quickly a billion dollars was raised from donations for the project—a lot of it coming from 2 French billionaires. It was quickly pointed out that there were lots of problems in France already, poverty and illness and so on, that a billion dollars could be used to fix. In Canada, the favorite has been the lack of clean water on First Nations. It reminds me of the similar outcry against spending money on the space program. But where would social media be without globe-circling satellites?

I get it. We see all these social issues and think something should be done (well, something other than supporting progressive politicians and paying our fair share of taxes) and, well, those guys have a lot of money, so shouldn’t they do it?

No.

The last thing any one should want is to live on the largess of the rich. Noblesse oblige was the basis of feudalism not of modern democracies. If the rich are going to pay for things, it should not because they are feeling generous to the poor little serfs beneath them but because we live in a system that reduces rather than exacerbates income inequality.

Because the root of the problem is not that billionaires exist but rather that, in late stage capitalism, where monopolies and oligopolies are the rule not the exception, our economy is designed to concentrate wealth and manufacture poverty. Even if you took a billion or a hundred billion or a trillion away from the mega-rich and gave it to the poor (the latter figure would give them each a thousand dollars), it wouldn’t change that system. The cash, sooner or later, would wind up in the same place.

And right now, it seems there is no alternative. (And don’t point to China or Russia either—whatever they call their system it is still a variation of the capitalist means of production). If we really want to make things better for the masses of humanity, we need fundamental changes in how we operate.

There are hints of what a post capitalist society might look like – you can occasionally find them in the talks of futurists or, even, in science fiction. It won’t be anything like the past, that much I’m sure of. With the end of regular employment caused mostly by automation (another thing people decry but seem powerless to stop), we will need a radical reordering both of social priorities and reward systems as well as the redistribution of wealth through guaranteed basic incomes and carefully designed tax regimes that get at international money transfers and hidden wealth stored in crypto-currencies. We will also likely need more free trade and more open borders, rather than less, so that the wealth of the world—there is no shortage of that—can be monitored and shared more equally.

Meanwhile, the people who would benefit the most fall for the old con, that the rich are somehow better than us and should care for their weaker cousins. And we vote for populists who distract us with fear of the other while their masters laugh all the way to the bank. Or the cathedral.

And that’s ten minutes.

Paris, je t’aime

I have no desire to write about Paris but I have a need. Yesterday, I had something else in mind for today’s 10 minutes but it has all been swept aside by the tragic attack on the City of Lights.

I’ve had the great pleasure of visiting Paris four times in the last few years. I’ve travelled all over the twenty arrondissements and even out to the surrounding banlieus where most working people and immigrants live. The old city is remarkable but even the suburbs have a joie de vivre and sense of history.

Paris is a city designed to be free and open but now it will be shuttered and filled with troops and police. But that won’t last. Paris will reassert her character.

There is no real explanation for these attacks. Nothing will be changed by them, not really. Has New York fundamentally changed in the wake of 9/11? Not that I can see. Has London been transformed by the subway attacks? Did Boston become not Boston after the bombings at the marathon?

There is resilience to freedom that is not easily broken by those who do not understand it, who reject it. ISIL or whatever it is they call themselves this week or next month will never change the West; they will only antagonize it.

After all, ISIL can do no worse to western countries then they have done to themselves. Does anyone think that what happened yesterday was worse than the London Blitz?

I suppose it is easy enough, here in Ottawa, to say Keep Calm and Carry On, but really what else can one say? It will certainly do no good to turn our nation into a police state, to point accusing fingers at innocents, to round up the usual suspects. Okay, we may have to round up some usual and unusual suspects – the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. But we must not let vigilance cost us our freedoms. Otherwise what is it for?

There are those – even in the West – who will argue that we should expect such attacks. They will say that it is the price we pay for interfering in the business of the Middle East, the price we pay for oil. They are, I suppose, half right. The West has to take some culpability for what is happening – we haven’t been blameless and we haven’t always picked our friends wisely. Innocents have died in our attacks.

But never as targets. That takes a special kind of madness.

And we have a duty – set out in international law – to protect the innocent, to intervene when atrocities are done in the name of whatever. Our failure to do that duty led to the genocide in Rwanda. Monstrous behavior cannot go unchecked forever.

I wish I knew the answers. But mostly I am too sad to even think. Paris has been wounded but not slain. The work of cowards will continue; six months or a year from now, there will be another attack. Helpless citizens will die because these so-called warriors lack the courage or the ability to attack targets that are prepared for them. And they will cheer themselves on with cries of victory over the west.

But we will carry on. Because brotherhood, freedom and equality will shine through the dark.

Paris, je t’aime.

And that’s ten minutes.