When conflicts spread

[marcinmoka]

While our freedom to assemble and protest our views is a cornerstone of our modern society, I can't help but feel revolted at how this privilege is all too often used and abused.

Today, I was heading to campus at a particular Toronto institution and hoping for a quiet, uneventful night of studying. Yeah right. Simply getting to the doors was a battle. The reason: An expose on "Israeli Apartheid", with its usual collection of Chemagah wearing students and hippies, as well as its de rigeur "Pro-Israeli" opposition, waiving Israeli flags and placards.

While in principle, it's but a harmless exercise of our political freedoms. But the reality was two large groups, an atmosphere filled with tension, shouting and a heavy police presence, and daunting for neutral students merely wanting to get into the library.

Yet while I am relatively pro-Israeli, I'm just plain sick of these groups bringing a distant conflict, in such an in-your-face manner to a new front. And all this ironically, to a nation which attracts countless immigrants precisely because it grants so many a REPRIEVE from SUCH CONFLICTS. Hell, my parents and I moved here for precisely that reason.

If you seek peace, why go to such lengths to bring your conflicts with you? Daily reports in the media are one thing, they help us keep tabs on the wider happenings in the world, all of which can have an implication on our daily lives. However, the posting of hate and promotion of divisiveness on what seems to be every other telephone pole, nonstop rallies outside of Indigo or Chapters, blocking access to school libraries and the obvious misuse of policing resources which could be deployed elsewhere, has to be addressed.

Edited February 5, 2008 by marcinmoka

[DogOnPorch]

YouTube has some of these 'demonstrations' (read: screaming matches)...total 3 ring circuses. The Arab supporters tend to be a tad more volitile while the Israeli supporters whine too much. We'd all be both better off donating their time volunteering for food banks...

'Whine': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1oVuKWdFhE

'Volitile':

Well...you get the idea. I'd like to be able to get to the library, too.

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Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.

---Oscar Wilde

[marcinmoka]

I think my significant other summed it up best, upon hearing protests down Yonge St, she asked:

Did I miss something? Did Canada invade Palestine?