Author Archive for Emilia Liz

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27
Dec

Render unto Caesar? The Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Emilia Liz 2 Comments
Categories: Economics



Taxes and those who collect them have never been popular. The Beatles, for example, had a song “Taxman,” one of the most memorable lines of which was “If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.” As social critic Jim Goad said in his book The Redneck Manifesto, even the “wimpy, peace-loving” Beatles sang about the evil taxman. In the 1980s comedy series Diff’rent Strokes, the character Willis explains to his brother Arnold that, “The IRA are the Irish terrorists. The IRS [Internal Revenue Service] are the American terrorists.”

Now, however, some people are not content to simply sing or joke about the evils of revenue collection. Here in Canada, we have seen the emergence of an organization called the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF). It is headed by a gentleman named Kevin Gaudet, who writes columns for a number of community newspapers and occasionally appears on radio talk shows. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation describes itself as a “citizen’s advocacy group dedicated to lower taxes, less waste and accountable government.” It has a website, www.taxpayer.com, and in the past published a newsletter in print. I have to admit the newsletter is an interesting read and, unlike much social commentary, is actually humorous. For instance, did you know that one of the first revenue rebels in history was Lady Godiva, whose husband promised to lower the municipal taxes if she rode naked through the town on horseback? After she took him up on his dare, the taxes went down. (In her use of nudity as a form of social protest, the good lady appears to have pre-dated the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals by nearly a millennium.)

The goal of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is to, by their own admission, promote more responsible use of our tax dollars and, if necessary, collect less of them in the first place. Some of the subjects discussed on their site include political leaders’ salaries, government funding for institutions like hospitals, schools and public television stations, and spending on prisoners – all of which and whom they feel receive too much money from government coffers and, ultimately, our pocketbooks. The Federation recently reported a victory in helping end Old Age Security (OAS) and Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) payments to federal prison inmates like serial killer Clifford Olson.

They also ask why, for example, the people of Regina, Saskatchewan should be required to shell out money to repair the City’s Mosaic Stadium when the private sector could very well pick up the tab.

Needless to say, the CTF hasn’t been immune from criticism. They have often been portrayed as mere mouthpieces of the Canadian right. On one hand, a number of past and present Federation members have belonged to or worked for the Conservative and other right-wing political parties. The current CEO, Kevin Gaudet, served as Director of Opposition Research for Reform Party leader Preston Manning, while one of its former heads was Jason Kenney, now Citizenship and Immigration Minister under Stephen Harper. On the other hand, it’s perhaps a bit simplistic to dismiss the CTF as Tory toadies. The Federation has after all criticized Conservative administrations. A past issue of the CTF newsletter described the Ralph Klein regime as “my big fat Alberta government,” presumably in reference to its members’ bloated salaries.

Other critics imply that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation are against public financing of essential social services. In an article entitled “Top 100 reasons why I don’t take the Canadian Taxpayers Federation seriously,” a site owner calling himself “BCerinToronto” bashed the group for protesting federal funding to among other things the Canadian Television Fund and Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. He ends by telling the CTF to “leave the sick children alone.”

Personally, while I am sympathetic to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s concerns and while it is probably true that our various governments waste money on many useless endeavours (such as the Canadian Television Fund), my emphasis would be on “less waste” and “accountable government” rather than necessarily “lower taxes.” I don’t mind paying taxes for legitimate social services like hospitals or educational institutions. However, what we hand over to the government should be used efficiently so that we get the best performance for our money.

Take the above-mentioned Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. I was a patient there nearly four years ago when I gave birth to my daughter. The nurse attending me was rude, both to me and to my mother; incompetent (she gave me contradictory and potentially dangerous advice); and utterly useless. So I would say yes, let’s fund Sunnybrook, but let’s also ensure that employees like the nurse in question – who by the way is not doing charitable work; as a recipient of my tax dollars she’s actually working for me – either shape up or ship out, so to speak.

So unlike Willis in Diff’rent Strokes, I don’t believe the Canada Revenue Agency (our equivalent to the IRS) are the Canadian terrorists. We do have an obligation in a democratic society to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” But we should make sure of what exactly it is we owe to Caesar and that Caesar is actually rendering it back to us to the best of his abilities.

06
Nov

Naheed Nenshi and the New Canada

By Emilia Liz 6 Comments
Categories: Canadian Politics, Politics and Society

October 18, 2010 was a historic day in the eyes of many Canadians: Canada elected its first Muslim mayor. The mayor-elect in question is Naheed Nenshi of Calgary, a Muslim of South Asian descent. Nenshi, who was born to parents who had fled Tanzania, a country in East Africa to which many South Asians migrated when both regions were under British rule, won 40% of the popular vote following his ‘Purple Revolution’ campaign.

For a large number of people, Nenshi’s victory was indeed a revolution. Indo-Canadian television station OMNI News, for example, compared it to the election of President Barack Obama in the United States two years earlier. OMNI commentator Zuhair Kashmeri saw Nenshi’s win as a sign that mayoralty in Canada was no longer the exclusive domain of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Among the general Canadian population, some suggested that the election of a Muslim mayor in Calgary meant that Alberta might not be the redneck haven it was often portrayed as being. Others noted the irony in the victory of Nenshi in the supposed backwoods of Alberta versus that of (White) right-wing candidate Rob Ford in the reputed bastion of multiculturalism Toronto.

While I understand the South Asian community’s elation, I would like to make my own clarifications. With all due respect to Mr. Nenshi and to Calgary, being elected mayor of a city can’t be equated to becoming president of an entire nation. Canada furthermore has had, and has, non-White mayors. They include Niagara-on-the-Lake Mayor Art Viola, who is of Filipino descent, and the Lebanese-Canadian Mayor of Windsor, Ontario Eddie Francis (note: I personally find it somewhat curious that Arabs are classified as ‘minorities’ by the Canadian government even though many of them – such as dear Mr. Francis himself – are physically indistinguishable from Greeks or Southern Italians). However, Nenshi’s Muslim faith causes him to stand out in a way that Viola and Francis do not. Both Francis and Viola are Catholic. Perhaps Filipinos and Lebanese Christians are Westernized enough to be seen as mainstream: after all, how ‘exotic’ can someone with the name of Art or Eddie be?

Naheed Nenshi’s religion has sparked commentary. Some have wondered darkly whether he might try to impose sharia law on his constituents. This possibility seems fairly remote. For one, Nenshi belongs to a moderate branch of Islam, the Ismailis. Ismaili women, for instance, are allowed to marry non-Muslim men, whereas women in mainstream Islam are not (though Muslim men can wed Christian or Jewish women). Secondly, even if Nenshi were an Islamic fundamentalist intent on bringing sharia to Calgary, as mayor his power to do so would be limited, just as that of Toronto’s Rob Ford – who has been quoted as saying that marriage should be exclusively between a man and woman – to ban same-sex marriage would be.

Finally, what does Naheed Nenshi’s election as mayor tell us about Canadian society in general? Does it mean that racism in this country is a thing of the past? I would say no. On the other hand, Canada does appear to have come a long way, so to speak, from the days when prejudice against groups ranging from the Irish to Ukrainians to Jews to Chinese to Japanese abounded. Also, should a candidate’s faith (or lack thereof) be a factor in deciding whether or not to vote for him or her? Again, I would answer in the negative, unless of course he or she were going to attempt to impose it on others – which Nenshi shows no intention of doing. In the end, all we can hope for is that Nenshi will govern the city and serve the people of Calgary well.

15
Sep

Is the War Over? Reflections on Iraq

By Emilia Liz 2 Comments
Categories: Politics and World Politics

Is the war over?  President Barack Obama is reportedly pulling the US troops out of Iraq after more than seven years on the battlefield. Polls show that the American public’s support for the invasion of Iraq has declined during this time – though of course some of the non-supporters opposed the war from the beginning and did not “convert” to the other side. As someone who is part American myself (my mother is from Wisconsin ), I have always been against the war, albeit as an isolationist rather than a pacifist. However oppressive Saddam Hussein may have been towards his own people, he posed no threat to the United States . His much-feared (and much-doubted) stockpile of nuclear weapons never materialized. Hence the premise for the war was based on a non-reality at best and a deliberate falsehood at worst. Nor were Hussein’s alleged links to al-Qaeda or other Islamic fundamentalist groups ever proven; for one thing, religion did not play any part in his government.

Watching the military endeavour in Iraq was painful at times: the mistreatment of prisoners of war and the spectre of young men – and some young women – returning to the United States physically or, perhaps even worse, psychologically damaged by the fighting come to mind as prime examples. In coldly materialistic terms, the war has ended up costing an enormous amount of money. And for what, I wonder: a country halfway around the world that really had nothing to do with the US and the everyday lives of ordinary Americans.

On the other hand, I’m not totally comfortable with the anti-war faction. It was to a certain degree taken over by those who saw the war as a Western imperialist venture. For instance, in The Walrus magazine commentator Tariq Ali described the abuse of Iraqi detainees by American forces as “Western civilization at its rawest.” A reader cleverly pointed out afterwards in a letter to the editor that many Western nations, including the United States ’ NAFTA partners Canada and Mexico , declined to join the war effort. Likewise, one pacifist website accused the Roman Catholic Church of not speaking out as loudly against the war as they do against abortion because Iraqi children were not “White” – a curious leap of logic given that the Catholic Church condemned US intervention in Iraq from the very start. Unfortunately, the anti-colonialist kooks diminished the anti-war movement’s credibility.

To conclude, I hope this war is really over. I am proud as a Canadian that Canada never took part in it – no matter how much Stephen Harper was accused of being a Bush toady, he made no move to send Canadian troops to Iraq . And fingers crossed that the troops will come home once and for all.

01
Aug

The Swastika: Can it be Rehabilitated?

By Emilia Liz 2 Comments
Categories: History

Whenever a prisoner is released from jail, an important question must be answered: can they be rehabilitated? In other words, will they integrate into and become a productive member of society? Are they at risk of causing further social disturbance? Can we be reasonably certain that they will put their past behind them?

Now this question is being asked not of a human being but of a thing: the swastika. Some individuals and groups are saying that after years of being associated with the Nazis and the horrors they perpetrated, the swastika deserves a chance at rehabilitation. Most recently, this demand has been made by the International Raelian Movement, the religion/cult generally known for its images of little green men and weird sexual practices (they later clarified their position by stating that they didn’t advocate promiscuity but felt that people should be free to express their sexuality in any way they wanted as long as they didn’t hurt anybody else). But even before this, some people had expressed reservations about the across-the-board demonization of the swastika. Indian-American activist Rita Chaudhry Sethi, for example, called the swastika an “extremely common, ancient Hindu symbol” and wondered why South Asians should be criticized for displaying it simply because Adolf Hitler chose to appropriate it.

Indeed, the swastika has a long and, before the Nazis, illustrious history. In Indian-descended religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, the swastika symbolized the cycle of life and rebirth and the movement of the universe and the planets. It was a sign of harmony and prosperity. Even today some homes and places of worship in South and Southeast Asia place a swastika in the doorway just as some Westerners keep a lucky horseshoe. One Buddhist temple in Toronto has a swastika at its entrance. But the swastika can be found even further afield, such as in pre-Hispanic Mexico. And surprise of surprises, there was even one on the floor of the Ein Gedi synagogue in Israel.

All this changed, of course, when the Nazis decided to claim the swastika as their own as a symbol of the Aryans, the people who conquered Northern India about 1,500 years before Christ and gave that region the Indo-European languages spoken there today. For this reason, the swastika tends to elicit strong reactions in Western countries. Germany, for instance, has banned the swastika and other Nazi regalia in an attempt to eradicate a less than complimentary part of its past. Prince Harry (son of Charles and Diana) was roundly condemned for wearing a swastika to a dress party. And here in Canada, an Ontario teacher of Ukrainian descent was temporarily suspended from her position when she had her students paint the swastika, which she said was a good luck sign in her native Ukraine, on their Easter eggs.

So can the swastika be rehabilitated? Without ever forgetting the atrocities committed by the Nazis, can we now allow the swastika to take its place in the sun? I will admit that I myself could probably never wear, say, a swastika necklace. To me, it would feel like an affront to my many friends and family members who suffered because of the Nazis, like my high school ex-boyfriend’s father who, as a soldier in the Canadian Forces stationed in London, narrowly escaped death when a bomb from the Luftwaffe just missed the church in which he was attending Mass; or my father-in-law, who as a small child in England was forced to go into a bomb shelter; or my aunt and two uncles who served in the US army during World War II.

However, a small part of me hopes that the swastika loses its stigma, which after all it did nothing to deserve. At the very least, individuals like Rita Chaudhry Sethi and the Ukrainian-Canadian teacher, who come from cultures where the swastika as a tradition pre-dates Hitler by hundreds if not thousands of years, should not be shamed for using it. I am not sure whether the swastika’s reputation will be restored in my lifetime. But hopefully someday the swastika will return as a symbol of peace and good luck.

23
Jun

Top 5 Kangaroo Sites

By Emilia Liz 0 Comments
Categories: Interesting...

As anyone who follows my writing can figure out, I love kangaroos.  My habit of carrying my daughter in a “pouch” (Baby Bjorn) when she was an infant earned me the nicknames of Mama Kangaroo, Captain Kangaroo (even if the TV character was actually a man) and the Kangaroo Lady.  I’m even convinced that I was a kangaroo in a previous incarnation.  So I’ve decided to list the top 5 kangaroo sites on the Internet.

5.Ausflag: Our Own Flag (http://www.ausflag.com.au/)

Those of us who grew up in Canada in the 1960s or before might remember when the flag in our schools, public offices and other venues was the Union Jack.  Then we decided we wanted a symbol that represented us, Canada, and unfurled our now world-famous maple leaf.  But while we Canadians have ceased using the Union Jack for our national flag (though some provinces, like Ontario, do retain it on theirs), Australia hasn’t. That country’s current flag is blue with a Union Jack on the upper left-hand corner, a large star beneath the Union Jack and five stars on the other half of the flag. Today, however, many Australians have decided they too want their own flag, one that best represents their nation and its people.  And what better image to represent Australia than the kangaroo – which, by the way, already appears on the logos of a number of Australian national institutions such as the airline Qantas.

The website Ausflag suggests several ideas for a new Australian flag right here, http://www.ausflag.com.au/designs.asp.  All four are very attractive, but as you might guess, the one I like best is that in the upper right-hand corner.  This flag, which was designed by Ausflag executive director Harold Scruby, depicts a kangaroo, in silhouette against the sun, over the great red continent.  It is, in Scruby’s words, a “revolutionary rather than evolutionary” flag.  If I were Australian, I would be proud to have this beautiful animal stand for my nation on our flag.

4.Tie Me Kangaroo Down (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D-LmRNdQiQ)

This is the original kangaroo song.  It was written and performed in 1957 by Australian artist Rolf Harris, who contrary to what I initially believed is still alive today and recently performed at the Glastonbury Music Festival in England.  “Tie Me Kangaroo Down” is quite a unique song in that it uses an instrument called a wobble board, a type of keyboard that Harris designed himself and that can be heard just as the song begins.

The video includes pictures of kangaroos as well as other examples of Australia’s extraordinary wildlife, such as the koala and duckbill platypus.  It’s a song that young and old – in my family’s case, from my three-year-old daughter to my 72-year-old father – can enjoy.

3.True Blue Roos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMTyhnyAwaQ)

I deliberately listed this site right after Roo Gully for a reason.  This song was written by Australian country singer Craig Giles (see his website here at http://www.craigiles.com/). It tells the story of two kangaroos at Roo Gully named Sonny and Max.  It begins with the line “Sonny and Max are real good mates [note: ‘mates’ in the Australian sense of companions rather than romantic partners] and they call them double trouble.” And the video shows Sonny and Max indeed getting into trouble, helping themselves without permission to a bite of one of their owners’ ice cream, crawling under a parked truck, and fighting on the middle of a living room floor and promptly scurrying outside. “True Blue Roos” is a nice tune with a catchy beat you can tap your foot to. Moreover, you get to see not only the cute kangaroos but the beautiful Australian scenery on the Roo Gully resort.  By the way, Craig Giles is touring the American South this fall, so any readers from that area might consider going to see him perform there.

2.Roo Gully (http://members.iinet.net.au/~roogully/)

I wrote about the world-famous Roo Gully Wildlife Sanctuary in August of 2008 (http://www.cynicsunlimited.com/2008/08/31/roo-gully/) so I won’t go into it in great detail here.  It’s located in Boyup Brook near the city of Perth in southwestern Australia. Owner Carol Lander takes care of orphaned and injured kangaroos and other animals with the ultimate goal of releasing them back into the wild or, if that’s not feasible, providing them with an environment as similar as possible to their natural habitat.  The site contains some beautiful and interesting videos (such as that of a joey – baby kangaroo – being born) as well as the life stories of some of the various kangaroos who have made Roo Gully their home over the years.  There’s also information on donating to Roo Gully or “adopting” a kangaroo of your own.

1.Cracked.com (http://www.cracked.com/funny-2615-kangaroos/)

I was called a slut in print. Because I like Black and Hispanic men? (I joke that I share Madonna’s tastes in men but have the good sense not to keep marrying White men in a feeble attempt to “cover” myself.)  No, because I’m a kangaroo.  According to “The Opening Eye” of Cracked.com, female kangaroos are “dirty, dirty sluts.”  Apparently right after she gives birth a female kangaroo will copulate with the “first hit-n-split douchebag to buy her a Foster’s” and get pregnant again.

It gets worse.  I’m also a heartless murderer.  We’ve all heard about boxing kangaroos. Adding a bit of kick-boxing into the mix, a kangaroo is capable of delivering a “Mortal Kombat-style claw-first kick to the abdomen” of his opponent. If that doesn’t work, the kangaroo will pursue the enemy into the water and use his (the kangaroo’s) forepaws to hold the opponent underwater long enough to drown him or her.  But kangaroos have their redeeming qualities.  Baby kangaroos are “agoddamndorable.”  If you succeed in hand-rearing an orphaned one, it will instinctively cuddle up with you when you come home.  And as the author writes, who doesn’t need that after a tough day at the office?

Anyway, check out the whole story at http://www.cracked.com/funny-2615-kangaroos/ and click on “View Comments” to read my effort to defend the female of my species.  And join in the conversation yourself!

20
Jun

Winding Down – My Journey Towards Menopause

By Emilia Liz 0 Comments
Categories: family

About a year and a half ago I wrote an essay about having an only child. I said in it that although I was fairly certain I would not have any more biological children, I had decided against a tubal ligation in the small likelihood I chose to have another baby. Now nature seems to have made the choice for me.  I’m going through perimenopause, the phase of a woman’s life just before menopause.

While menopause is thought of as the complete cessation of menstruation, ironically one of the first signs of perimenopause is that a woman’s periods come more often.  My own menstrual cycle, for example, has gone from its previous monthly schedule to between 21 and 25 days. Eventually, though, menstruation becomes less frequent than usual and ultimately stops altogether.

When I realized that my consistently short cycles were not merely one-time aberrations and that I was indeed undergoing perimenopause, I had to take in the implications of that – beyond of course the temporarily increased spending on feminine hygiene products. The most important question was whether or not I would be able to have another child. My doctor told me flatly that if I really wanted to, I’d better start working on it now.  I still appear to be ovulating. However, at my age – I’m 41 and three-quarter years as I write this – the eggs I have left are less likely to be fertilized in the first place and, if they are, more likely to end in miscarriage. Even if I were successful in getting pregnant, there is also the higher risk of Down syndrome and other chromosomal abnormalities in the resulting fetus. I don’t relish the idea of being forced to choose between having an abortion on one hand and bearing a developmentally disabled child on the other.

There’s also the question of the dynamics with my existing child, now three years old.  She’s a fairly easy and even-tempered girl (she’s never given me a sleepless night, even as an infant), and we’ve sort of settled into a comfortable rhythm with both of our schedules. But another baby could throw this symbiosis completely off-balance, especially if he or she were not quite as adaptable as my daughter. And no matter how “good” she is, my little one is still after all a little one and I’m not sure I could handle two kids under a certain age at the same time. To paraphrase the Prophet Mohammed’s advice about taking another wife, if you fear you cannot deal justly with two or more, have only one.

So I’ve, again, concluded that I only want one child, at least for now.  I’m open to adopting later on when my daughter is older and less dependent on me.  But with the decision to forgo any further biological reproduction comes a certain sadness. It’s a visceral emotion, essentially, as I’m perfectly content with the child I have now and don’t possess any overwhelming urge to procreate at this point. Yet there’s a certain bittersweet feeling that I won’t ever experience pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding again, that I won’t have another genetic child whose looks and temperament and so on I can compare with my daughter’s and say, “That’s where he/she gets it from!”  This sadness quickly passes, though. Not only am I satisfied with my daughter, but I “have” a lot of other children – a bevy of nieces and nephews and now a great-niece (the daughter of one of my sister’s biracial sons and his wife).

I suppose the other thing I must confront in approaching “the change” is the fact that I’m getting older. I remember once when I was working in a hospital as a college student during the summer I had a 60-year-old patient tell me she felt sad on seeing the tampon dispenser in the hospital washroom because it reminded her of when she was young. I said most women my age would be pleased NOT to have a reason to use the dispenser.  Two decades later, I’m more understanding of her.  Over the years I’ve taken my menstrual cycle for granted: even if it could be a nuisance, it was just “there.” But as I know from my older sister, who’s undergoing her menopausal transition right now, and from friends who’ve already passed theirs, life goes on.  Not to mention that I’ll be spared from shelling out money for sanitary pads and another IUD!

11
Jun

The Artwork of Daisy Hsieh

By Emilia Liz 0 Comments
Categories: Entertainment

Hello, I would like to introduce the work of my friend Daisy Hsieh, a budding photographer. She takes pictures of everything from animals (a favourite of mine), people (including her very cute son, the little boy doing martial arts), landscapes and buildings. So maybe we could start with some samples of her work.

Daisy’s website can be found at http://www.photomafias.com

22
May

The Artem Affair – Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Russian Adoption Agencies

By Emilia Liz 0 Comments
Categories: family and Society

Last April people around the world learned of the sad plight of Justin Hansen/Artem Saveliev, the eight-year-old Russian boy sent back to his homeland alone on a plane by his American adoptive mother Torry Ann Hansen. Ms. Hansen, a registered nurse who had adopted Artem less than a year earlier from an orphanage in Russia’s Far East, wrote a letter to the orphanage saying that the child was violent and mentally unstable and that she “no longer wished to parent him.” She furthermore accused the orphanage staff of having misled her about Artem’s condition.

Much of the Saveliev/Hansen affair remains a mystery.  Torry Ann Hansen apparently home-schooled Artem and did not attend church or belong to any social clubs.  Though she said she consulted a psychiatrist about her son’s problems, she never actually took the boy to be examined directly. The only member of the Hansen camp speaking to the media is Torry Ann’s mother Nancy, who confirmed her daughter’s claims. The boy’s adoptive grandmother stated that he threatened to burn the family’s house down and attacked his aunt (Torry Ann’s sister) with a three-pound statue after she asked him to correct his math homework.  Meanwhile officials in Russia who met Artem on his return have denied witnessing any of the behaviour he supposedly exhibited in the United States. They even reported that he wept at the thought of leaving his family there behind.

The general public’s reaction to the story was for the most part one of shock and horror.  How could a woman who had pledged to be a mother to this boy abandon him so callously, sending him on an airplane unattended?  Even if he did have issues, Ms. Hansen should have sought help from a psychologist or from the social services in her area. And if that did not work, she might have arranged to have Artem placed in a foster home or with another adoptive family.

However, a few individuals, while not condoning Hansen’s actions, expressed sympathy for her. Many of these were adoptive parents of children from the former Soviet Union with problems similar to those allegedly shown by Artem/Justin: physically hurting family members, pets and schoolmates, lying, running away from home and so on.  In almost all cases, the children’s difficulties could be pinpointed to alcohol consumption during pregnancy on the part of their biological mothers.

Unfortunately, a high percentage of birth mothers of Russian adoptees have been found to be heavy drinkers. One Swedish report discovered that a third of such women were known – note the word “known” – to be alcoholics. It is therefore not surprising that other studies have demonstrated that children adopted from Russia run a higher risk of behavioural and emotional disturbances than those from other parts of the world, like China. Alcohol is after all an especially powerful teratogen (substance that causes birth defects). It can lead to difficulties in the offspring of alcoholic mothers such as attention deficit disorder, poor impulse control and unpredictability.  I know – my (domestically) adopted niece has fetal alcohol syndrome. As Artem was born to a nineteen-year-old alcoholic woman, he may very well have had the disorder himself.

As the aunt of an adopted niece and nephew and potential adoptive parent myself, I feel compelled to comment on the Artem/Justin case.  I first of all consider it unconscionable to put an eight-year-old on a plane unattended.  What strikes me too, though, is Torry Ann Hansen’s apparent naïveté. Did she really think that a young boy who had spent the first five years of his life with an alcoholic mother and another two in an orphanage would magically adapt to life in a foreign country with a new family?  It seems incredible that as a nurse Hansen would not suspect that Artem might have had behavioural issues stemming from his exposure to alcohol in utero.  The news reports said that Torry Ann Hansen was seeking to adopt another child, this time from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia.  I hope she doesn’t; she should realize that adoption is not for her.

I might also ask myself what I would do in a situation like Torry Ann Hansen’s.  I can state with virtual certainty that I would never put a young child on a transoceanic flight by himself. But if, supposing for the sake of the argument that her allegations of her son being uncontrollably violent are true, would I have stuck with him through to the bitter end, enduring aggression on his part and danger not only to myself but to my other family members as well, and kept him in my care at all costs?  That I cannot say for sure. I would have in all probability attempted to get as much help as I could for him and myself, perhaps from social services, from a psychologist or psychiatrist or from a member of the clergy. But if all this failed to produce results, I just might have surrendered him to social services, with a guarantee that they place him either in another adoptive home or in a well-run residence for troubled children.

What I like to think, however, is that I would do my best never to find myself in a similar scenario as Ms. Hansen’s in the first place. To begin with, I would not adopt a child with a history of prenatal exposure to alcohol or other drugs. (Note: I would take in my niece if anything ever happened to my sister and her husband, but I wouldn’t deliberately seek out a child at increased risk for fetal alcohol syndrome.) And as it’s not always possible to know the background of an adopted child’s biological parents, I would in all likelihood eschew adopting from Russia, given the high rate of alcoholism among birth mothers there.

I wish the best for Artem/Justin in the future.  And hopefully Torry Ann Hansen will come out of this experience a little wiser as well.

Last April people around the world learned of the sad plight of Justin Hansen/Artem Saveliev, the eight-year-old Russian boy sent back to his homeland alone on a plane by his American adoptive mother Torry Ann Hansen. Ms. Hansen, a registered nurse who had adopted Artem less than a year earlier from an orphanage in Russia’s Far East, wrote a letter to the orphanage saying that the child was violent and mentally unstable and that she “no longer wished to parent him.” She furthermore accused the orphanage staff of having misled her about Artem’s condition.

Much of the Saveliev/Hansen affair remains a mystery. Torry Ann Hansen apparently home-schooled Artem and did not attend church or belong to any social clubs. Though she said she consulted a psychiatrist about her son’s problems, she never actually took the boy to be examined directly. The only member of the Hansen camp speaking to the media is Torry Ann’s mother Nancy, who confirmed her daughter’s claims. The boy’s adoptive grandmother stated that he threatened to burn the family’s house down and attacked his aunt (Torry Ann’s sister) with a three-pound statue after she asked him to correct his math homework. Meanwhile officials in Russia who met Artem on his return have denied witnessing any of the behaviour he supposedly exhibited in the United States. They even reported that he wept at the thought of leaving his family there behind.

The general public’s reaction to the story was for the most part one of shock and horror. How could a woman who had pledged to be a mother to this boy abandon him so callously, sending him on an airplane unattended? Even if he did have issues, Ms. Hansen should have sought help from a psychologist or from the social services in her area. And if that did not work, she might have arranged to have Artem placed in a foster home or with another adoptive family.

However, a few individuals, while not condoning Hansen’s actions, expressed sympathy for her. Many of these were adoptive parents of children from the former Soviet Union with problems similar to those allegedly shown by Artem/Justin: physically hurting family members, pets and schoolmates, lying, running away from home and so on. In almost all cases, the children’s difficulties could be pinpointed to alcohol consumption during pregnancy on the part of their biological mothers.

Unfortunately, a high percentage of birth mothers of Russian adoptees have been found to be heavy drinkers. One Swedish report discovered that a third of such women were known – note the word “known” – to be alcoholics. It is therefore not surprising that other studies have demonstrated that children adopted from Russia run a higher risk of behavioural and emotional disturbances than those from other parts of the world, like China. Alcohol is after all an especially powerful teratogen (substance that causes birth defects). It can lead to difficulties in the offspring of alcoholic mothers such as attention deficit disorder, poor impulse control and unpredictability. I know – my (domestically) adopted niece has fetal alcohol syndrome. As Artem was born to a nineteen-year-old alcoholic woman, he may very well have had the disorder himself.

As the aunt of an adopted niece and nephew and potential adoptive parent myself, I feel compelled to comment on the Artem/Justin case. I first of all consider it unconscionable to put an eight-year-old on a plane unattended. What strikes me too, though, is Torry Ann Hansen’s apparent naïveté. Did she really think that a young boy who had spent the first five years of his life with an alcoholic mother and another two in an orphanage would magically adapt to life in a foreign country with a new family? It seems incredible that as a nurse Hansen would not suspect that Artem might have had behavioural issues stemming from his exposure to alcohol in utero. The news reports said that Torry Ann Hansen was seeking to adopt another child, this time from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. I hope she doesn’t; she should realize that adoption is not for her.

I might also ask myself what I would do in a situation like Torry Ann Hansen’s. I can state with virtual certainty that I would never put a young child on a transoceanic flight by himself. But if, supposing for the sake of the argument that her allegations of her son being uncontrollably violent are true, would I have stuck with him through to the bitter end, enduring aggression on his part and danger not only to myself but to my other family members as well, and kept him in my care at all costs? That I cannot say for sure. I would have in all probability attempted to get as much help as I could for him and myself, perhaps from social services, from a psychologist or psychiatrist or from a member of the clergy. But if all this failed to produce results, I just might have surrendered him to social services, with a guarantee that they place him either in another adoptive home or in a well-run residence for troubled children.

What I like to think, however, is that I would do my best never to find myself in a similar scenario as Ms. Hansen’s in the first place. To begin with, I would not adopt a child with a history of prenatal exposure to alcohol or other drugs. (Note: I would take in my niece if anything ever happened to my sister and her husband, but I wouldn’t deliberately seek out a child at increased risk for fetal alcohol syndrome.) And as it’s not always possible to know the background of an adopted child’s biological parents, I would in all likelihood eschew adopting from Russia, given the high rate of alcoholism among birth mothers there.

I wish the best for Artem/Justin in the future. And hopefully Torry Ann Hansen will come out of this experience a little wiser as well.

21
Mar

Hebrew

By Emilia Liz 0 Comments
Categories: Language and Religion

It used to be that the essential components of a gentleman’s education included Latin, Greek and Hebrew. (Not so much attention was paid to a lady’s education.) While today Latin and Greek are still offered at many high schools and universities and are mandatory for secondary students in some European countries, it is difficult to take a Hebrew course outside of a synagogue or Jewish day school. But even if we never study Hebrew, it befits us to know more about a language that has helped shape the culture of the West.

One characteristic that distinguishes Hebrew from Latin and Greek is the language family to which it belongs. Latin and Greek are Indo-European languages, a group of languages that encompasses most of the tongues spoken in Europe – including English – as well as several in Western Asia and Northern India. Hebrew on the other hand is part of the Afroasiatic family of languages that as their name implies are native to Africa and Asia, to Northern Africa and Southwestern Asia more specifically. Hebrew can be narrowed down even further to a particular branch of the Afroasiatic family, the Semitic. The Semitic branch includes a number of living languages, like Arabic, Maltese, Aramaic and Ethiopia’s Amharic, as well as several extinct ones, such as Phoenician, Edomite and Moabite, the speakers of some of which are mentioned in the Old Testament (Ruth, for example, was a Moabite woman).

The first writing in Hebrew dates back to the eleventh century before Christ. Though the Hebrew script might strike most Westerners as undecipherable, it is actually based on the same alphabet, the Phoenician, that gave rise to the Latin alphabet. One difference between Hebrew and Latin script is that the former is read from right to left rather than from left to right.

Hebrew was at first spoken on a daily basis by the ancient Jews. After their exile in Babylonia in 600 BC, though, the Jews adopted Aramaic as their everyday means of communication. Hebrew was nevertheless still employed for religious and literary purposes, just as during the Middle Ages Latin was used in the Catholic Mass and in scientific treatises. For instance, while Jesus’ mother tongue was Aramaic (no, Jesus didn’t speak English), he most likely knew Hebrew as a ritual language.

As the Jews moved throughout Europe and other places during the Diaspora, they tended to take on the languages of the people – Russian, English, Spanish, etcetera – among whom they lived, all while retaining Hebrew for religious services and literature. At times the Jews modified these languages to create their own forms of speech. The best-known example of this is Yiddish. Yiddish is basically a variety of German but contains a substantial amount of Hebrew vocabulary and is even written with the Hebrew alphabet. This fusion can be illustrated in the Yiddish words for “dog.” Two such terms are used: “hunt” from the German “hund” (as in “Dachshund”) and “kelef” from the noun of the same meaning in Hebrew.

What, one might wonder, brought Hebrew back from the brink, so to speak, of being an almost purely ritualistic medium to become the mother tongue of over five million people? Though even in the nineteenth century there were attempts to revive it as a spoken language, the real boost occurred with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. The promulgation of Hebrew acquired a nationalistic slant for many Jews: it was a language they could call their own. Undoubtedly Hebrew’s resurrection was aided by the fact that it had remained in use for religious ceremonies; for a considerable proportion of Jews it had never truly disappeared, which may explain why the revival of Hebrew succeeded while that of Gaelic in Ireland after that country’s independence from Britain did not. Hebrew is now the official language of Israel together with Arabic.

Finally, one might ask what has Hebrew contributed to English and other modern Western languages. At first glance, most English words of Hebrew origin tend to refer to Jewish objects or concepts, such as “menorah” or “mitzvah.” One Hebrew noun with an interesting history is “chutzpah.” While in Hebrew it originally meant “impudence,” in English “chutzpah” has taken on the positive connotation of “grit.” Some Hebrew words have ironically managed to make their way into Christian religious vocabulary. “Pesach” – Passover – becomes the Italian “Pasqua,” Spanish “Pascua,” French “Paques,” Swedish “Pask” and our own “paschal,” all signifying Easter, not a fortuitous transformation, as Jesus’ Last Supper was essentially a Passover meal. In a curious twist, “Pesach” has
ended up (through “Pascua”) in the Tagalog language of the Philippines as “Pasko,” meaning however not Easter but Christmas.

Hebrew’s principal contribution to the languages of the West lies in personal names that appear in the Bible. Though some of these names, such as Hannah or Moses, are primarily – though not exclusively – confined to the Jewish community, others, like John, James and David, have entered the mainstream with no Jewish ethnic connotation at all. Another mainstream name ultimately of Hebrew origin is my middle name and my mother’s first name, Elizabeth (“God is my oath”). The “El” signifies “God” and turns up as well in words like “Bethel” (“house of God”).

While a large percentage of names in most Christian majority nations are of Hebrew origin, they have nonetheless had their periods of boom and bust. Old Testament names, almost all of which are Hebrew, saw a surge in popularity after the Reformation and into the 19th century, when many Protestant families turned away from the Roman Catholic practice of calling children after saints with no connection to the Bible. Hence we have Abraham Lincoln and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Protestants are not the only ones however to look to Hebrew nomenclature: Spanish-speaking countries have their fair share of boys with names like Efrain, Neftali and Abel.

Whatever its history and contribution to the West, Hebrew shows no sign of dying either in the synagogue or in the street.

13
Mar

Languages of the Bible

By Emilia Liz 3 Comments
Categories: History, Language and Religion

A few years ago a broadcaster from Alberta, Canada was asking members of the public their opinion on the nation’s bilingual policy. According to one woman, Canada did not need any such policy. If English was good enough for Jesus, she said, surely it was good enough for Canadians.

Of course I had a huge laugh over this. In Jesus’ time the languages spoken in what we now call England were Celtic; the ancestor of modern-day English was introduced several centuries later when the Germanic Angle and Saxon tribes invaded the island, giving rise to the term “Anglo-Saxon.” But the Alberta woman’s statement raises the question: what language did Christ actually speak?

One can be forgiven for thinking that Jesus’ mother tongue was Hebrew. After all, Hebrew, in which the Old Testament was written, is considered the language of the Jews, and Christ himself was a Jew. In his daily life, though, he conversed in Aramaic, a closely related language that the Jews adopted during their exile in Babylonia and that more recently was used in Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ. Some words of Aramaic origin in English include the name Thomas (meaning “twin”) and “abbot” from “abba,” a term for father. Jesus might have known Greek as well. At the time of the New Testament, Greek had become a “lingua franca” in the Mediterranean area, and as Jesus had dealings with non-Jews, he may very well have used Greek on these occasions. It is unlikely, however, that he spoke Latin, which was known by few in Palestine other than the Roman administrators.

As stated earlier, Aramaic and Hebrew are very similar. They both belong to a group of tongues known as the Semitic languages, some familiar examples of which are Arabic, Phoenician, and Ethiopia’s Amharic. The Semitic languages are in turn part of a larger group known as the Afroasiatic family, which includes a number of tongues spoken in the Middle East and North and East Africa.

Many Semitic languages in the Bible, however, are today either extinct or used only by small groups of individuals. To a large extent, these languages were pushed to, or over, the brink by their sister tongue Arabic, which expanded following the rise of Islam. Among the now-dead languages are Moabite, Edomite, and Ammonite, whose speakers are mentioned in various parts of the Old Testament. Ruth, to whom a book of the Bible is dedicated, was a Moabite woman. Aramaic is now spoken by about half a million people in Lebanon and Syria. Although it is under constant threat from the more dominant Arabic around it, efforts are being undertaken to preserve the language.

Not all the tongues in the Bible fall into the Semitic and Afroasiatic categories. Others belong to the Indo-European family, a group that encompasses most modern-day languages of Europe and several in Western Asia and Northern India. Greek and Latin are well-known examples of Indo-European languages that make their appearance in the New Testament, which in fact was originally written in Greek. The Persians, of whose empire the Biblical heroine Esther became queen, also spoke an Indo-European language.

A lesser-known Indo-European people described in the Bible were the Hittites. At one time rulers of a large empire in the Middle East, their most famous member was Uriah, an officer in the Israelite army whom David had killed after his (David’s) affair with the former’s wife Bathsheba. Unlike Persian, Greek, and Latin, though, which live on today in various forms – as Iranian, modern Greek, and the present-day Romance tongues respectively – the language of the Hittites died without leaving any descendants, so to speak.

The most extraordinary Biblical language concerns the Elamites, a people mentioned in Genesis and Acts of the Apostles. They originated from what is now Iran and later conquered Babylonia. Interestingly, their language belonged to a family known as Dravidian, the most familiar member of which (to Westerners at least) is Tamil. Though Dravidian languages are at present largely confined to Southern India and Sri Lanka, they were believed to have once been spoken over a much broader area, hence the presence of the Elamites in Biblical lands.

So if my friend from Alberta were to meet Jesus, she would be well advised to bring along a Greek or Aramaic interpreter!

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