The Parallel Parliament

Glen Pearson

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Then We Take Berlin

Posted on November 18, 2016

‘IF I CAN’T DANCE TO IT, IT’S NOT MY REVOLUTION,” Emma Goldman stated. At the moment, millions are gyrating across various electoral maps in response to Donald Trump’s election win. In countries around the world, people are seeing something in it that gives their radical tendencies a new rhythm. It is these movements – National Front (France), Independence Party (UK), Party of Freedom (Netherlands), Alternative (Germany), Freedom Party (Austria) – that seek to throw the baby out with the bathwater and return us to earlier times and darker periods of nationalism. Every one of those parties rejoiced at Trump’s victory because of the possibilities it represented for their own prospects. Those opportunities are many and will confront Europe with wave after wave of democratic…

Categories: Citizenship, Media, Politics, progressive centre, The New Internationalism

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Democracy Reset

Posted on November 15, 2016

In his book At Home, bestselling author Bill Bryson tells of walking through Norfolk, England, with an archeologist friend. Every church they looked at was depressed three feet into the ground – like “a weight sitting on a cushion,” he writes. Bryson assumed it was because of the weight of the structures over the centuries. His friend answered instead that it was because the graveyards around the churches had built up the earth around the structures over many years. I thought of that observation in considering the fate of democracy in recent years. It was once a vaunted and vaulted political institution that for 400 years had enlightened and empowered the world in most places where it was practiced. Two world wars had convinced…

Categories: Citizenship, Media, Politics, progressive centre, The New Internationalism

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Someone We Were Meant To Be

Posted on November 11, 2016

IN WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE AN INTERVIEW yesterday about public service over a number of decades, I was asked, “What was the main driving force when you were young that made you want to be a humanitarian?” I have thought of this many times over the years, but when I replied, “World War Two,” the interviewer looked back in mild surprise. I went on to explain that I had grown up in Scotland following that great conflict, that my Mom had been a Scottish war bride, and that my Dad had been twice wounded in battle before being sent back to Canada to convalesce. Later, growing up in Calgary, I came to regard the Second World War as a kind of constant companion.…

Categories: Citizenship, Personal, progressive centre

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Women & Global Peace: Inseperable

Posted on November 2, 2016

WE KNOW THAT THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA IS undergoing a significant review as to where it would like to place its 600 peacekeepers in the near future. In this troubled world, the opportunities for involvement seem almost endless, although it appears likely that the deployment will occur somewhere on the African continent. Many Canadians like the idea of returning to peacekeeping as a valid Canadian extension to the world, whether or not people choose to describe it by another term like peacebuilding or peacemaking. Yet given this country’s heightened awareness placed upon the role of women in its development programs, it would be helpful to look through a similar lens when considering anything to do with military peacekeeping. We’re not talking about female soldiers…

Categories: Citizenship, Media, Personal, Politics, progressive centre, The New Internationalism

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