Archive for the The Chairman’s Corner Category

We hear an awful lot about xenophobia these days.  It is on the rise, they say; a natural but unwelcome by-product of industrialization, globalization and growing inequality.  Unmoored from the security of local, more symbiotic communities, our natural disposition to empathy and tolerance has been supplanted by an attenuated “we-them’ view of every aspect of human interaction.  Or so the story goes.

I was pondering this depressing reality as I was shovelling off my dock at the cottage a few weeks back.  (I leave my dock in with a “bubbler” that keeps the water from freezing, but the snow must be periodically cleared from the dock to keep the dock high enough in the water to remain free of the ice).  Between the monotony of the task and the pain in my aging back, it is always best to have a pressing social issue to ponder for distraction.

It did not take much pondering/shovelling before the pain in my back necessitated a change in approach.  I am right-handed, and accordingly hold the shovel with my right hand at the top of the shovel and my left halfway down, with which I lift the load before twisting to my left to toss it aside.  It is the left side “load and twist” motion, initiated in the course of my left shot hockey and golf activities as well as shovelling, that is the culprit behind the back pain.

The solution was simple enough: shift over to shovel left handed.   And it worked; the pain eased instantly, but it was slower, more awkward and it just didn’t feel…right; which of course it wasn’t because it was…left.  As I struggled along with this “not right” solution, my pondering shifted from the perils of our increasingly xenophobic world to the interesting double meaning of the word “right”.

I had the benefit of a high school education that even in the 70s maintained a commitment to the Classics, so I have enough Latin under my belt to know the Latin words for “right” and “left” – “dextro” and “sinistra”.  As the roots of the English words “dextrous” and “sinister”, it was clear to see that Anglo-Saxons weren’t the first to associate admirable traits with the 87-92 % of the population that is right-handed and negative traits with left-handedness.  And I was also aware of the French “droite” and “gauche”, which enter English, as “adroit” and “gauche”.  Even to the French, to be right-handed was to be skillful and adept, while southpaws were unsophisticated and socially awkward.  A little independent research revealed the Old English roots of right and left:  “riht” meaning just, good, fair, proper, fitting and straight and “lyft” meaning weak and useless.

So where did my back breaking reflections take me on this?  Xenophobia is no modern invention.  Even entirely local and ethnically homogenous communities found excuses to marginalize “otherness”.  It is a tradition as old as the spoken word, and we have continued it to the present day (witness the labelling of undocumented foreigners as “aliens”, so “othered” that even the common bond of species is not conceded).  Christian-Pagan, Catholic-Protestant, Muslim- Christian, Gay-Straight, Sunni-Shia; there is no theme more recurrent in the history of social and political conflict than xenophobia.

Happily, longstanding may not mean inevitable.  The schisms that breed suspicion and enmity today are just as likely to be dismissed as laughable distinctions in the future as persecution of the left-handed would be today.  We may be naturally xenophobic, but we have an uncanny ability to replace superstition with wisdom through our lifelong capacity to learn.

Now if only I could master this “shovelling right” thing.

I know what you are thinking: here we go again; another diatribe about Donald Trump’s crassness, egomania, divisiveness, xenophobia, pettiness, hair colour, hair style, marital history, bankruptcies, political fecklessness and complete unsuitability for any office let alone that of the most powerful person in the world.  What more can be said about him that hasn’t been bemoaned by every political commentator, talk show host, comedian, cab driver, office mate and random guy on the subway to whom you have had the honour and/or interminable burden of listening?

The answer is nothing.  His candidacy is so patently ridiculous it is both easy and convenient to dismiss the phenomenon as the collective psychosis of some sub-class of American society.  And therein lies the perniciousness of Trump.  It is that ease of dismissal that has created and now intensifies the ardour of those that hear in his incoherence the kernel of something that is both real and profound.

The world has changed dramatically since the days when Donald Trump remembers America as “great”.  Goods and capital flow more freely around the world than at any time in human history.  The phenomenon of globalization has raised most if not all boats.  Global poverty has receded precipitously (but not completely), and the gaps between rich nations and poor nations has narrowed.  But not so the gap between richest and poorest within nations, and certainly not so in the richest country in the world.

America’s working class has watched as a torrent of blue collar jobs that once provided a middle class lifestyle left for cheaper labour markets, and those jobs that remained were repriced in a seemingly futile effort to stem that flow.  Those that retreated to the service sector found another cruel reality: a steady flow of immigrants, including illegals, whose tenuous status could be exploited to further depress wage levels.

Politicians of all stripes in the US and elsewhere justifiably extol the virtues of the free flow of goods and capital (and even to some extent people) as the best means of maximizing global growth and wealth.  However, few politicians acknowledge the impact of this freer trade upon the American (and yes, Canadian) working class lest they arouse the outrage that The Donald is now tapping.  Both Bernie Sanders and Trump are breaking that mold.  The impact of this truth-telling in the Democratic race is muted because Democrats in general if not Hilary Clinton in particular can at least pay lip service to a willingness to bring forward and maintain redistributive policies, like Obamacare, that can offer some support to those caught in this downward spiral.  But the Republicans remain duty-bound to oppose redistribution in any form.

The only advantage enjoyed by the Republicans in addressing this issue is their adherence to law and order at all costs.  The most ardent of the tribe demand free access to guns and more jails as solutions to almost any social problem; in the immigration and employment context, is the concept of a southern border wall any more extreme?  Having taken that plunge, Trump is able to buttress his populist appeal by promising an end to free trade and the repatriation of jobs, a position that would be suicide for the typical Republican candidate that is dependent on corporate donations for campaign funding.

We shake our heads incredulously at the absurdity of the Trump candidacy. But in our histrionics, his supporters hear only the same disdain for their plight that they have heard for the last 25 years.

The Supreme Court of Canada faced a difficult decision last month as they heard arguments for the extension of the timeframe granted to the federal government to update the provisions of the Criminal Code that prohibit doctor-assisted suicide.   If the extension request had been denied, the provisions would simply be void and, as in the case of the legal void in Canadian law with respect to abortion, such decisions would have been left to the wisdom of patients and their doctors.

Some argued that such a legislative vacuum would open the door to abuses, and must accordingly be very clearly restricted after a protracted consultation process.  Others acknowledge the theoretical risk, but can point to the general absence of late term abortions to argue that individual patients and physicians can be relied upon to make responsible decision s in the vast number of cases.  In the end, the Court decided to continue to hold the Government’s feet to the fire on this issue, permitting an extension of only four months before the ruling would be enforced to void the offending provisions.  Sadly, even if the Government succeeds in bringing forward acceptable legislation that deftly balances these two competing perspectives, it will be too late for my friend Joel.

First off, a disclaimer: Joel was not a close friend, but he was a close friend of a close friend of mine.  I spent a lot of time in Joel’s company in a particular period in my life when the presence of an affable, generous and fun-loving co-conspirator for an evening out was a very welcome respite.  He was always full of tall tales, good cheer and a consistent focus on the present.

His reluctance to fuss too much about the future was understandable.  When I first met Joel, his mother was well down the road of a horrific physical and cognitive decline due to Huntington’s disease.  Huntington’s is a devastating genetic neurological disorder that has its onset in adulthood, leading to a dramatic deterioration that is ultimately fatal.  Children of Huntington’s carriers have a 50% chance of inheriting the disorder.  When I met first met Joel, only his older brother had begun displaying symptoms, and genetic testing was not widely available.  It was only some years later that Joel and his sister learned from a genetic test that they too would be afflicted.

Joel was fortunate to make it into his mid-fifties with only mild symptoms, but the looming deterioration had begun to accelerate in the past few years, prompting him to leave his work on long term disability.  In December, Joel learned that he’d soon lose more of his independence; his driver’s license was to be revoked and he’d be moved into an assisted-living facility.  Although he went through the motions of adjusting to these measures, this was his cue to take back control of his life.  Joel took matters into his own hands, and he took his life one week before Christmas.

Joel was under no misapprehension about what the future held for him.  The ultimate end for Huntington’s sufferers is tragically certain, and Joel had seen firsthand the decline of his own mother and brother.  There was no one better informed to assess the tolerability of that journey.  Had there been alternatives that would have allowed Joel to manifest a choice as to how far down that road he wished to venture, I am certain that it would have been ended at a later time and in a more comfortable place and in better company than alone, on the edge of a bridge, on a cold December Toronto night.