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Sunday, April 26, 2015

North American Disconnect from reality Endangers World—Ca. high school student sounds alarm


Apathy’s consequences are borne by the “less powerful…”
Excerpt and ending comment by 
Carolyn Bennett

From the mind of the young—HEAR! HEAR!

Responding to an international affairs, war and peace segment on last week’s “The Sunday Edition” with Michael Enright and Peace Studies Professor Paul Rogers, Heather Mitchell penned a message to Canadians which might equally have been addressed to their southern neighbors and their educational leaders and learners.   

Indented are Heather Mitchell’s words pegged to questions raised in the earlier program and the issue of endless western aggression in the Middle East: “How do we change? How do we get Canadians more politically involved? How do we return to a peacekeeping role, rather than acting as a U.S. WAR ally?” She writes:

As someone who has spent her entire life as part of the Canadian educational system, it is not surprising to me that Canadians are mostly indifferent when it comes to politics. Apart from being a generally wealthy and safe population, which in itself often leads to political disinterest, the most obvious problem to me is how devoid our public education system is of any sort of world issues, politics or current events discussion.
World issues  are
Domestic issues

From ages 5 to 18, the young people of Canada are being brought up in an environment largely devoid of any interaction with the rest of the world.

We are not graduating with strong political knowledge, awareness, or any value for activism. There is generally no space or time during the school day to discuss what’s in the news—what Canada is doing militarily, politically or socially, other world events, or even any current issues in our local communities.
  


The result is that young people are being raised with the idea that these are not important or necessary to learn about, an attitude I think has a high chance of carrying into their adult lives.

Along with the U.S., due to our power and wealth, we have the luxury of being apathetic citizens without dealing with the results. Largely, it seems to me, we export the consequences onto other, less powerful countries.

As a young person now beginning to enter adult life, and soon eligible to vote in the next federal election, I feel wholly unprepared to participate in Canadian politics. Judging by Canada’s abysmal youth voting numbers, I am not alone.

Hearing the announcement of our plans to bomb Syria was the last straw of my country acting in ways I do not endorse. I do not feel proud to be a Canadian, when I hear of our government acting this way.

However I feel lost and disconnected from any means of having my voice heard. I would be very interested in hearing how I, as a Canadian citizen, can learn more about my country. As high school students, I think our contact with reality and the outside world, is limited to the point of being dangerous.”

I know as much as anyone how hard it is to convince young people to learn anything they are not interested in. I want to figure out how we might be able to change the culture of our public schools from one of disconnected, theoretical, text-book learning, to one of participation, involvement, and interest in Canada and the world. [End quote]

W
ell said, wise words, critical warning to a sleeping, chronically distracted, sadly obliviously dangerously ignorant people of North America let loose upon the world.

Alone among global masses one cannot rise from an economic poverty imposed and perpetuated by inordinate power, armed power and wealth, such as that which rises from Western nations; it’s like a giant iron foot being placed on the necks of the vulnerable. But alone a people can surely rise from the poverty and destructiveness of deliberate ignorance.


Sources and notes

“Upper v. lower; Jihadi Town; Listener mail; The untold story of psychiatry; Reciting poetry,” The Sunday Edition April 26, 2015, http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/upper-v-lower-jihadi-town-listener-mail-the-untold-story-of-psychiatry-reciting-poetry-1.3045391

Last week The Sunday Edition’s Michael Enright spoke with University of Bradford (UK) Peace Studies Professor Paul Rogers about “Canada’s decision to embark on an expanded campaign against ‘ISIS,’” which involves Canada in “the intractable civil conflict and humanitarian disaster that is Syria.” Among the e-mail responses to that episode was one from Ottawa high school 12th-grader Heather Mitchell. On invitation from The Sunday Edition, she recorded her letter at the CBC studio in Ottawa.

Listener Mail, Sunday April 19, 2015, posted April 26, 2015, http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/borgen-armenian-genocide-listener-mail-robert-harris-on-the-great-american-songbook-1.3037372/listener-mail-1.3037516

William Thomas Gaddis, Jr. (December 29, 1922 – December 16, 1998) was an American novelist, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gaddis

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A lifelong American writer and writer/activist (former academic and staffer with the U.S. government in Washington), Dr. Carolyn LaDelle Bennett is credentialed in education and print journalism and public affairs (PhD, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan; MA, The American University, Washington, DC). Her work concerns itself with news and current affairs, historical contexts, and ideas particularly related to acts and consequences of U.S. foreign relations, geopolitics, human rights, war and peace, and violence and nonviolence. Dr. Bennett is an internationalist and nonpartisan progressive personally concerned with society and the common good. An educator at heart, her career began with the U.S. Peace Corps, teaching in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Since then, she has authored several books and numerous current-affairs articles; her latest book: UNCONSCIONABLE: How The World Sees Us: World News, Alternative Views, Commentary on U.S. Foreign Relations; most thoughts, articles, edited work are posted at Bennett’s Study: http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/ and on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/carolynladelle.bennett. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/08UNCONSCIONABLE/prweb12131656.htm http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-000757788/UNCONSCIONABLE.aspx Her books are also available at independent bookstores in New York State: Lift Bridge in Brockport; Sundance in Geneseo; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center in Buffalo; Burlingham Books in Perry; The Bookworm in East Aurora

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