The real problem isn’t the immigrants, it’s what they’ve overcome

July 23, 2015 · 0 Comments

Dear editor:
It takes a newspaper with “a mind of its own” to publish a nameless letter. It’s refreshing it has opted out of following the trend. Most newspapers act like they are afraid of publishing anything other than over-used words, phrases, sentences, fluffs and powder puffs, and for that they demand personal information.
If some people are not smart, not brave, not educated, they too should be given a spot on the podium, even if invisibly. They too have something to say, and they too serve a purpose. This no-name person, gender unknown may or may not be important, has caused a first in this paper: the stirring of at least five persons, male and female, to respond, knocking off the long letters from politicians that were at times used to fill page four. Never before has page four borne so many contributors all at once, and on the same subject (as to why the politician’s got painted purple, that’s left to speculation).
A lot of focus was given to the absence of the writer’s name. It’s a reminder of the people who go, for a relatively short time, into a quiet shop and focus on the absence of “music”.Not that they care about listening to music, but they had become so used to that kind of noise in other places that they miss it when it’s not there; their norm had been tipped over, and they are lost.
Let’s not put undue pressure on this newspaper’s editor to abandon the idea of publishing another no-name brand. Let’s get the information out as to what lies beneath the smiles. It comes as a shock, disappointment, and annoyance when some of “the nicest people” express a loathing for immigrants, while full of smiles, kindness, and their own expressed belief that they are sure their place in heaven is guaranteed. Better to know if there are enemies, and where they are rather than to apply the silencer which would be better used on all those ear-blasting machines running loose incessantly in the summer.
The no-name writer is correct about people innocently waiting to cross the road and are honked at for no reason and given that finger, and this does seem to be a new act in town, and people are talking about it quietly. It seems to be that same someone that gives a bad name to her people, a people that constantly complains about racism, yet racism comes in all forms and from all races, and within the races too.
The nose! Nobody wants to be walking by and get flung at for lack of Kleenex. Still, people have been made to live in such destitution that generations have passed never to have known such a thing as Kleenex exists. Hard to believe? Like it is hard for them to believe that in Canada, billions of tons of food and merchandise are being buried because of greed and waste, on the backs of global slave labourers. To many immigrants something new exists in Canada: the dining table nose artists who are primed and propped in a “civilized” manner for a meal and whips out the Kleenex and gets down to nose suctioning like it’s part of the ritual of dining. One takes care not to witness it twice.
The first world takes so very much from the third world in all types of resources that cannot be paid for with a few million dollars of “aid” money left to unaccountable, inhumane governments, as if your government is just “giving away “your money. For swimming pools to be left free for immigrants who don’t want to be seen by all and sundry in their wets or skimpies is a small request in comparison.
In the first world babies are born into affluence, excessiveness, gluttony and general good living that brings a lot of smiles. Apart from the affluent, in the third world babies are born into woes. Little children bear griefs and sorrows on their faces. Parents have little to smile about, yet at times they do find soft, weary smiles. Is it any wonder they too may have their own suspicions that lead them to carry a frown or a hard stare?
Immigrants from certain parts of the world are automatically disliked, distrusted, and suspected. But really they are caring, sharing, self-reliant, inventive, people who had to make a life with little or nothing, with no cheques in the mail for them, and they are brave beyond imagination because they had to survive impossible conditions.
Rather than being disagreeable with each other, shouldn’t the fight be against those who make it impossible for people to stay in their birth lands? The agony of leaving their loved ones for years and at times for decades to be unwelcomed in foreign lands is not something first worlders will ever know; millions of them live in third world countries without the degradation of being called immigrants. They are “expats” who can live in compounds, away from the locals, paying taxes optional, living large with maids, servants, drivers, cooks, nannies, all cheap labour from a humble people who graciously hold their hands and guide them when they are lost. Does it sound like gluttons taking candies from babies?
What does no name have to worry about? Owning too much stuff and not knowing what to do with them, but has to go shopping for a feel good? Or the grave fear of grey hairs or natural hair peeking out from under hair dye? Injustice thrives when people fight each other. It takes courage to fight the real evil.
Gloria Ramnath,
Shelburne