In April 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, I was a young man of 16: old enough to fight, kill, and die for a British government I was too young to vote for. Forty years on, the UK voting age is still too high (18) and the Army recruitmentRead More

I want to escape from my own threshold. Where to? The street is dark And conscience shows up ahead of me, white, Like salt scattered for pavements. Osip Mandelshtam (1891-1938)   On 23 January 2015, 49-year-old Ruslan Kotsaba – journalist and blogger, president of the Ukrainian Pacifist Society and anRead More

On March 3, Canada announced new emergency measures to support Ukrainian refugees. We have opened a special pathway for Ukrainians which waives all fees and normal visa requirements, we have established a special family reunification and sponsorship pathway for extended family members of Canadian citizens and permanent residents, we areRead More

The work, my friends, is peace, more than an end of this war – an end to the beginning of all wars, yes, an end, forever, to this impractical, unrealistic settlement of the differences between governments by the mass killing of peoples — Draft of undelivered Jefferson Day speech byRead More

I assumed my first 2022 contribution to the Spectator would be pretty upbeat, especially since New Year’s Eve was spent in a hilarious re-watching of various episodes of Father Ted that included a few I hadn’t seen before. And thanks to YouTube documentary introducing the actors, I got to seeRead More

  Sometimes it seems we are living in different worlds — Vladimir Putin, 23 December 2021 There is another world, and it is this one — French poet Paul Éluard   The curtain was raised on 2022 with the stage set for not one, not two, but three major regional conflicts,Read More

This year, 2021, marks the centenary of the first appearance in Canada and Britain of the red poppy as the official emblem of war remembrance: a single symbol of sacrifice that has dominated the rites and rhythms of November 11, Armistice Day, each year since. The idea of selling artificialRead More

Souls pass through torrent and the whole situation is intolerable. David Jones, In Parenthesis   The Welsh author David Jones (1895-1974) titled his experimental Great War memoir In Parenthesis for three reasons: “because I have written it in a kind of space between – I don’t know between quite what;”Read More

“There was no shortage of resources to avoid the tragedy of a Famine. … Instead, the government pursued the objective of economic, social and agrarian reform as a long-term aim, although the price paid for this ultimately elusive goal was privation, disease, emigration, mortality and an enduring legacy of disenchantment.”–Read More

Many things about 2020 have been disconcerting, to say the least, but here in Nova Scotia we are faced with other issues of particular social significance – the racism revolving around the fishing industry. As per the Oxford Dictionary: Racism is prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person orRead More