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Alexei Navalny was an indomitable spirit, a courageous man, whose death in an isolated prison is being mourned in much of the world. Unlike the dictators described below, Navalny give us a sense of an honorable man, a visionary with a clear conscience.
Russian President, Vladimir Putin, who comes from a ruthless KGB culture, has now undoubtedly tightened his grip on the Russian state. He will not be deposed soon. Putin’s war with Navalny has deep roots. Three years ago, Russian agents poisoned Navalny with a nerve agent in London, England. Navalny somehow survived that attack and continued his opposition inside Russia, on the way to being imprisoned for his tireless efforts to expose Putin’s methods. Then, with Putin’s pending re-election to another six-year term as president, Putin had Navalny murdered in the Siberian prison where he was being held.
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When Blaine Higgs first got interested in running the province of New Brunswick, he viewed himself as the White Knight in shining armour. He saw “politics” as a dirty business, something best left to old style politicians obsessed with getting elected.
Higgs has not recognized politics as the “art of the possible”. Any person who is to be successful in public life must make decisions based on what can be achieved in the current times, with the approval of the voters. There is nothing dirty in that, it is what can make engaging in politics, and governing successfully, an “honorable calling”. This is how Allan Blakeney, the venerable former Premier of Saskatchewan, described his view of politics. Having claimed he was above “politics”, Premier Higgs has been acting more “political” than any leader who is out in the streets and in the countryside talking to citizens, taking the pulse, listening to the concerns of the average person. He would also be listening to the advice of his colleagues in cabinet and caucus, or of his paid advisors in the public service. There are plenty of signs that if Mr. Higgs listens, he does not listen carefully to many people before making up his mind. In the case last summer of Policy 713 on Sexual Orientation and Gender, he and some of his ministers indicated there were a great many people complaining about the policy. Under pressure, the government finally admitted that there had been only one complaint. Nonetheless the Premier proceeded to cut back the policy radically and develop the gender issue as a wedge to divide the electorate in the next election. It is cheering that more than 200 people gathered outside the Sgoolai Israel Synagogue in Fredericton a few days ago to show their solidarity with the Jewish community after a terrible act of vandalism was perpetrated at the Synagogue.
The attack can only be viewed as an act of hate, particularly as it coincided with last Saturday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Between last Friday night and Saturday morning, the front windows of the building were smashed, and glass was scattered inside and in front of the Synagogue. Ayten Kranat, the vice-president of the Synagogue told various news outlets that the attack was “planned” to coincide with the holocaust Remembrance Day observances. For many Jews the act is shockingly reminiscent of the Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) in 1938 when Adolf Hitler and German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels unleashed Nazi storm troupers to smash Jewish-owned businesses, synagogues, and homes, leaving the streets littered with glass and Jews terrified about what would happen next. What happened next was terrible. |
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