2003

Christmas doesn't ask, Who is Jesus? It asks, Who are we?

A car is sprayed with gunfire. Several men in the bullet-riddled vehicle are left slumped over, bloodied, quite dead. A scene from The Godfather? No, just Yemen.

In the Middle East there s as big a debate over the media as there is here. Some back Al-Jazeera and some CNN. And some read independent papers.

Call me a dreamer, but ever wonder how things would look if John F. Kennedy was involved in today's so-called war of civilizations?

Liberal democracies almost never fight each other. They'd rather have the good things.

We're in what's called the Pearl of Africa, where red-dirt roads cross rolling, green countryside; where elephants get the right-of-way when on safari, and, even in the capital, wild monkeys might run across your tin roof and wake you in the morning.

Iraq. Can it be saved? Six months after its liberation, Iraqis are still short on power, electrical and otherwise. The Yanks are still being greeted with grenades as much as with flowers and hugs. And how did those weapons of mass destruction disappear?

This country is one of contrasts. Red-dirt roads cross lush- green landscapes. People familiar with war smile easily and greet you genuinely. Beauty meets ugliness, plenty meets want, and life meets death here. Uganda may be, as Winston Churchill said, the Pearl of Africa. But, if so, it's a tarnished jewel.

Irshad Manji doesn't come across as your typical religious reformer. With stylish glasses and punkish hair, this pint-sized woman is better known as a TVO journalist and gay rights activist than a Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses on Wittenburg's church door.

Today, Jean and I, with our bright-eyed bambino, Elizabeth, are on a jet plane flying back to Yemen. Our condo in Ancaster is again a speck that has disappeared over the horizon.

You don't need to be a flaming, bleeding-heart liberal or a limp- wristed lefty to see that it's a man's world when it comes to some basic privileges in life.

Among the more interesting reactions over this summer's so-called great blackout came via the car radio when my wife and I were driving in the Muskokas, learning how the outside world was faring in the darkness.

Let's hope someone, somewhere learns something from the murky death of Zahra Kazemi, the Canadian-Iranian photojournalist whose brains somehow got bashed in while she was in police custody for photographing student protesters outside a Tehran jail.

Birthing a country is one thing. Stopping a three-week-old from crying is another.

(The Hamilton Spectator - Friday, June 20, 2003) Nobody knew. Prior to the birth of our first child, two weeks ago today at St. Joseph’s Hospital here in Hamilton, Jean and I kept her name, Elizabeth top-secret from absolutely everyone. “It’s from the Bible and it’s not Dorcas,” is all I would reveal, before adding, “If and when we have a boy, we have a biblical name for him too. And it’s not Nimrod.” So imagine the confirmation we felt when, prior to our return to Canada for the delivery, some western friends in Yemen said good-bye to us by reading the biblical story of Elizabeth.