Articles

Monday September 30, 2019 The Globe and Mail

“The criminal madness of the [Nazi] occupier was seconded by the French, by the French state. Those black hours soiled our history forever. … France … committed the irreparable.”

These words were spoken by French president Jacques Chirac on July 16, 1995, and in the days since his death, he deserves credit for moral courage. The occasion was the anniversary of the infamous Vélodrome d’Hiver roundups of Parisian Jews on July 16 and 17, 1942, when French police incarcerated more than 13,000 Jewish men, women and children in a sports stadium on orders of the occupying Nazis. Before the war ended, 76,000 Jews had been deported to Nazi concentration camps with French collaboration. Only about 3,000 returned. [more]

Tuesday June 4, 2019, The Globe and Mail

Watching the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls present its final report to federal government officials in Gatineau, Que., earlier this week was a searing experience. The ceremony helped to restore respect and dignity to the more than 1,000 murdered women whose lives were taken by perpetrators who preyed upon their vulnerability.

Many of the Inquiry’s hundreds of recommendations regarding the safety of Indigenous women and girls look like useful proposals, such as a possible shift to Indigenous-specific sentencing options, improvements to the restraining-order system for violent partners and inclusive police work. The Canadian government has vowed to move on the file. [more]

Wednesday April 10, 2019, The Globe and Mail

In her final work, The March of Folly, the late historian Barbara Tuchman defined her subject as “the pursuit of policy contrary to public interest.” Her criteria for folly were threefold: An alternative course of action was available; the actions were endorsed by a group, not just by a particular leader; and the actions were perceived as counterproductive in their own time.

Among Ms. Tuchman’s far-ranging examples were the Trojan Horse and the American war in Vietnam. Were she alive today, she might have included the increasingly dangerous trajectory of Israeli politics. [more]

Friday February 22, 2019, The Globe and Mail

In the history-soaked Spanish-colonial city of Guanajuato in central Mexico where my husband and I winter, life is ordinarily calm. Mariachis serenade diners in the central plaza of the town, and in the evening, couples parade about the garden in a last vestige of the Spanish paseo. The cobblestones and the blue and ochre houses speak their own magic. Four decades ago, my late parents built a home here and I have been returning ever since. [more]