Letters, March 4

Chaos in the Middle East

Once again the Middle East is descending into widespread violence. At these times, it is hard not to reflect on what might have been.

In 1953 the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, the elected prime minister of Iran. His efforts to exert control over the Iranian oil industry had angered a British oil company. Someone in Washington whispered “communist” and the rest was history.

Mossadegh went to prison. Iran ended up with the dictatorship of the pro-Western shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, for 26 years. He would be overthrown in 1979, but dictators are seldom defeated by Sunday school teachers. What emerged was just a more ruthless dictatorship.

Now the U.S. government (or perhaps just President Donald Trump) is attempting to bomb Iran into “peace.” It is not yet certain if there will be a new Trump Tower in Tehran. What is certain is that many innocents will pay today for the sins of the few long ago.

The chickens always come home to roost. History can kill you.

Greg Petzold

Winnipeg

Turn down the lights

Driving at night should not feel like staring into a spotlight — yet for many Canadians, that is exactly what modern LED headlights have created.

Experts in road safety, vision science and automotive lighting increasingly warn that excessive glare can reduce contrast sensitivity, delay hazard detection and contribute to driver fatigue. In real-world conditions, even compliant headlights can still create dangerous discomfort glare for oncoming motorists.

I am convinced the vast majority of drivers experience this problem regularly — and many are astonished that governments have allowed automakers to push ever-brighter lighting systems without adequately addressing their impact on other road users.

That is why I launched federal petition e-7159, which can be found at ourcommons.ca, calling on the Government of Canada to review and strengthen regulations governing vehicle headlights.

I invite readers of the Free Press and fellow Canadians to join me in making our roads safer — please sign the petition today and help ensure headlights prioritize visibility for all drivers without blinding others.

Canadians deserve headlights that improve visibility without compromising the safety and comfort of others.

Luc Gagné

Gatineau, Que.

Longing for peace

In my lifetime, I have witnessed the spread of an inept universal political rationale for attacking Muslim-majority countries, both by mainstream media promoting anti-Muslim propaganda, sometimes subtle and sometimes outright Islamophobia.

The lies, the false flag operations making headlines with zero critical analysis, by Western regimes promoted as intelligence, and the suppression of historical truth.

All in the name of “greater good for humanity.” My question, whose humanity?

I studied the roots of the wars inflicted on Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Palestine, Bosnia, Kosovo, all in the name of “peace” hailed by the West as an “humanitarian act” under the famous and sickening slogan of “regime change.”

Each of these regime-change wars was portrayed as a favour bestowed on behalf of the suffering people under the dictators that the West installed and supported until it did not suit the West’s monetary interests.

Our famous exits from these broken nations are to walk away, leaving behind social and political turmoil, and the population left at the mercy of the trained armed gangs we used and left behind.

Unfortunately, the most condescending rallying cry behind which we all stand united without question is “liberate Muslim women.” Really?

Why is there such interest in Muslim women’s liberation? Is the regime change really that innocent and simple?

Did Muslim women ask for their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons to be maimed, killed, starved, and tortured — so they could pull off their burqas, hijab, and become free like their Western sisters?

The irony of the rallies in Canada in support of attacks on Iran and hailing the “regime change operation” as liberation, when the first target of the Israeli “precise” missile attack was a girls’ school, killing dozens and counting.

The U.S. and its allies choose countries to occupy for their material value and greed for natural resources, including land, gold, oil, gas, and minerals. The tried and trusted formula of occupations, infiltration, demonizing, dehumanizing local culture, faith, and crushing resistance, justifying massacres and starvation, destruction of infrastructures in the name of establishing democracy.

Today, the silencing of the masses, false narratives, fake threats to world order, and outright lies continue with barbaric precision, including the catastrophic violations of international law, the disdain for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, framing genocide as self-defence, and the unlimited appetite for war is spreading helplessness, hopelessness, begetting mental health issues that will haunt us for generations.

To my horror, our prime minister gave a statement supporting the attack on Iran’s nuclear capability by the U.S. president and the Israeli prime minister.

Prime Minister Mark Carney, if nuclear capabilities are a threat, then why just Iran? Why not North Korea, the United States, Israel, India, Pakistan, and others? The hypocrisy of the international order is mind-boggling. I know you are busy fending off the trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump, but please stand on the right side of history. I know you have the courage to do so.

My prayer in this blessed month of Ramadan; May humanity find relief from injustice, pain, and suffering.

We all want peace, but we cannot have peace till there is justice, and justice can not prevail as long as persecution and oppression go unchecked. May our leaders be guided.

Shahina Siddiqui

Winnipeg

Important context

Re: Missed opportunity at CMU (Think Tank, Feb. 26)

The headline and article of this op-ed incorrectly criticize the university and its Heritage Gallery for the recent exhibit The Land Remembers. The exhibit was not curated nor hung by CMU, which graciously made room for it. The catalogue lists 14 Palestinian organizations and allies, who contributed instead.

What is more serious is that in some aspects the article defies logic. The writer says this exhibit omits certain ugly shouts and signs that she encountered in Palestinian protests which she thinks would have given this exhibition context. By repeating them, as she does, the writer merely amplifies some angry voices. She pounces on one leaflet out of hundreds in the exhibition’s “Solidarity Zone” to explain one obscure vulgar acronym most viewers would not be able to translate.

No, the time for noisy protests is gone. What is in fact the context here?

In both of my visits, especially in this zone of the exhibit, there was stunned silence. We saw books by authors now dead; photos of journalists silenced. There was an infinitely long scroll with 70,000 blood-red thumbprint-sized marks, signifying the dead of Gaza. I could sit with a book of 20,000 specific names of children. How to select one name? Murmur that name into the silence; then memorialize that child with one of the lovingly (yes, lovingly) folded origami cranes. Japanese, Metis, and others created this part of the zone. They would know how to commiserate.

For that is the context the writer seems to have missed. It was one of empathy and mourning. It is one of unimaginable loss of a culture; a loss of real people with real names.

Lis Vensel

Winnipeg