Perceptions by Gerry
Warner
Would the
world be a better place if women were in charge of politics? This is not an
idle question, especially here in Canada where we now have five provincial
female premiers. (Funny that feminists
aren’t dancing in the streets over this, but we won’t go there.)
To
get serious again, and I do mean serious, I raise this question in light of
three courageous women in the news lately that should be an inspiration to all
of us, female and male alike.
Let’s
start with former American Congress woman Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords, who this
week testified in favour of stronger gun control laws in the US having been
almost murdered two years ago by a demented gunman in Tucson. Speaking in a
quavering but firm voice to a Senate investigating committee, she spoke only 72
words but those 72 words resonated across a country that is being literally
torn apart by millions of Americans and their paranoid insistence they have a
Second Amendment right to carry weapons and use them in any murderous way they
see fit. The Second Amendment, of course, referred to an armed militia and not
the crazed individuals who have assassinated presidents, rock stars and ordinary
people too numerous to count.
“Too
many children are dying. Too many children,” Giffords said. “We must do
something. It will be difficult, but the time is now. . . Be bold.” Her brief,
but powerful speech was over in a few seconds and then the heroic, partially
blind survivor of yet another American
shooting tragedy was led off the stage by her astronaut husband Mark Kelly who
pleaded for tougher background checks in a bellicose country that numbers at
least 300 million privately owned guns within its borders.
Then
there is Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, shot in the head and almost
killed by the Taliban last year for fighting for the rights of Pakistani girls
to attend school, and now returning to hospital to have a titanium plate placed
in her head to replace a piece of skull shot away during the attack. Yousafzai
plans to keep the piece of skull blasted away by the Taliban during the
gruesome shooting, according to a surgeon quoted in a New York Times article
Jan. 30. “(She) wishes to keep it, as a memory I guess,” he said of the
courageous 16-year-old, who intends to return to Pakistan and continue her
struggle against the Taliban who have vowed to attack her again.
Words
fail to describe that kind of courage.
Then
there is British Columbia, where politics is often described metaphorically as
a “blood sport” even though the blood, thank God, isn’t real. But this doesn’t
belie the fact that BC is still a dangerous place to practice politics. Yet,
despite this, Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts committed an act of political courage
last week the likes of which this retired reporter hasn’t seen in 30 years.
At
2 a.m., after a marathon public hearing over a controversial casino
application, Watts cast the deciding vote rejecting the casino bid even though
her own council was bitterly divided over the issue and she herself had
appeared to favour it earlier. "Fundamentally,
is it the right thing to do, to take it from one community and force it into
another that doesn't want it? The answer to that question is no," Watts
said according to the Peace Arch News. In listening to the public, especially
young people strongly opposed to the gambling hall, and going against her
fellow councillors and no less than Deputy Premier and Gaming Minister Rich
Coleman, who phoned two Surrey councilors prior to the vote in a heavy-handed
attempt to squelch opposition to the project, Watts showed a gutsy display of
integrity and courage seen all too rarely in B.C. politics. Some are saying she
may be the next leader of the Liberal Party in BC if the party losses badly in
the May election as many are expecting. Regardless of that, it’s immensely
refreshing to see a BC politician putting the public interest ahead of the
private interest for a change.
Brave women! All three of them. And again I
suggest the world would be a better place if more women like these played a
bigger role in politics.
Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and a Cranbrook City Councillor. His
opinions are his own
