Rosa Parks Tribute

THE TRIBUTE TO ROSA PARKS

An Essay
By Izzy Sommers
For November, 2005
In Welland, Canada

The tribute to Rosa Parks in Washington, DC, by our American neighbours, is a wonderful event for everyone, Americans, Canadians and people around the world. The tribulations of groups of people, in the minority, in many countries has been well-documented and is a horrible indictment of those countries. Perhaps the USA, Germany, Iraq and South Africa were the worst offenders but Canada and the UK and others, are not innocent. Some countries, like Brazil and Dominican Republic, have succeeded in integration in ways that are amazing, in comparison to most countries, and are to be commended, and emulated. Overall, today's atmosphere is a lot less offensive, but the potential for discrimination seems to be close to the surface. Civil rights of all people are better protected today than ever before in history, but examples of infringement of those rights are exposed, daily.

Here in Welland, Ontario, Canada, there is an uneasy, relatively friendly peace between the three large, ethnic, Christian groups, English, French and Italian, who have well-established neighbourhoods and churches. Most people get along with their neighbours and little by way of challenge to civil rights is made. There is little by way of graffiti, or other defacement of property, that is ethnically offensive. Other Christian groups, such as Hungarians, Poles and Germans, are well accepted. Some have their own churches and small neighbourhoods. Afro-Canadians and Moslems are small in number, but slowly rising in population. As yet, there is no mosque here. Jewish folks have dwindled from over 50 families to under 15 people, and the two synagogues that were here, and active, 50 years ago, have disappeared.

I don't believe Canada has the equivalent of a person like Rosa Parks, who quietly and bravely took a stand for Afro-Americans, and all minority groups, that started a dramatic change in policy. I'm positive there were many quiet and brave folks who did take unheralded stands for civil rights for everyone. The present uneasy relationship between the Francophiles and the Anglophiles might actually result in civil war, or it's equivalent, soon. Disturbingly, the powers that be in the Province of Quebec and the Bloc Quebecois have recently proposed the formation of a small army and are encouraging a new referendum for separation. I had thought that Jean Charest might be the perfect mediator. Perhaps he was initially when he jumped from the PC's and federal politics to the Liberals and provincial politics. He has become the Prime Minister, but his effectiveness as a pacifist has diminished, apparently, in the past few months.

Congratulations to the USA for their honouring of Rosa Parks as an icon of civil rights for their country. She is the first non-president, non-male, ordinary Afro-American citizen, to lie in state in the rotunda of the Capital Building. Congratulations to Ms. Parks and her kith and kin, who must be very proud of her. We can all be very proud of her! She deserves all the thanks we can give her for doing something which helped to reverse gross unfairness in her country, and in many other countries, including Canada.

THE END