I've been looking for my birth certificate to make an application for Ontario Disability Support Payments. I was looking through some stuff in my room the other day and found a slew of old letters that were written to me when I was researching my Ph.D. in London in 1995. The birth certificate search got derailed as I read all through them.
Letter writing is a dying art, alas. Many of these letters were written by my sister Moira, including a couple from the Czech Republic where she was finishing a teaching job. I remember how her letters had a Czech stamp showing Miroslav Ondracek, the cinematographer who shot Milos Forman movies like Amadeus. At Goodenough College where I was staying there were some kids who collected stamps and posted envelopes you could put your used stamps in! They got quite a few Canadian stamps from me.
I'm sure glad I saved these letters! When I told Moira I still had her letters she said, "Throw them away!" But she was a really good letter writer, not just funny and readable but also with very neat handwriting. Father's letters, on the other hand, are barely legible. There's also part of a letter from Mother, which means a lot to me since she's no longer with us. And there are a few from friends I made in London who wrote to me afterward.
There was also a letter I wrote back in 1991. Here's part of what I said:
"The Allies are betraying the Kurds twice: firstly in not supporting their rebellion; and secondly in trying to force the refugees to return into Saddam Hussein's loving arms. The problem with Americans is that they think they can bomb Iraq back into the pre-industrial age and still not 'get involved' in the region's political problems. Some people say that by not supporting the Kurdish rebellion the United States lost her moral advantage in the region. I disagree. What America's cowardice proves is that this moral advantage was bogus from the beginning.
"One thing that bothers me is American liberals hedging their opposition to the war by praising Bush for articulating America's 'moral purpose.' In fact, he was simply propagating a straightforward lie. If we accept the argument that Kurdistan has to remain part of Iraq to protect the latter's 'territorial integrity' and the the Kurds can go jump, how much of an extension is it to apply the same rationale to Kuwait? If anything, Kurdistan with her longstanding unique identity--and three times Kuwait's population--is even less a legitimate part of Iraq than Kuwait, which was only separated less than a century ago.
"What's remarkable is that most Americans accept so easily that it's a jungle out there and they can no longer afford moral commitments, now that Iraq is crushed and 'morals' have served their strategic purpose. This doublethink over morals isn't limited to the American government: I fear the general population has connived in it. In their thinking, they way to a happy world is through Pax Americana, so anything that promotes Uncle Sam promotes the general good, and is therefore moral automatically.
"It all comes down to Lookin' Out for Number One. America's true purpose is obviously to protect the region's strategic status quo ante, first by reducing Iraq to rubble, then by preventing her destabilization. Divide and conquer, in other words. Uncle Sam's greatest nightmare is that someday the Middle East will be united by some political force that the U.S. obviously won't be able to control.
"You should reread Christopher Hitchens' article in January's Harper's. He prophesied exactly what would happen to the Kurds."
I'm glad that letter got saved too.
