Bob Gabuna of Iqaluit points to the island province of Romblon in the Philippines, where his family are located.Gabuna led a relief efforts when Typhoon Hayian hit the Philippines in 2013. (PHOTO BY DAVID MURPHY, Nunatsiaq Online)
PERSPECTIVE
Open Letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
by Bob Gabuna
Dear Prime Minister Trudeau:
I send this correspondence from a perspective of a Christian. I am an immigrant from a Pacific Rim country, currently residing in the Territory of Nunavut.
Christmas is upon us. Christians searches inwardly for goodwill. What is happening around seems dark, we have an uncertain world. It bewilders the Christians because Christians are “people of the light”. Supposedly the era of colonialism is over, but there are residuals of colonialism that are bent in bringing the world into darkness – the darkness of spawned conflicts in the Middle East, the region where Christ was born.
The recent political exercise affirmed the national conversation that Canadians renounced the tired foreign policies of maintaining war assets in the Middle East. Canadians desire to speak of making life better, rather than death; light, rather than darkness; tolerance, rather than bigotry. We are locked in a debate about the unwinnable war without end in the Middle East wherein Canada deployed some of her war assets in those war torn region.
As a Canadian, I was thinking about a solution – a solution that has been tried and tested by Allied Forces after WW II. Instead of an army of soldiers with tanks, Canada and her North American and Western Allies dropped anchor off the coasts of Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Instead of guns and bullets, soldiers from dozen nations, bring with them bulldozers and construction materials and equipment.
Canada will take the lead to rebuild what were destroyed. America, Europe, including France, Germany, and Great Britain, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates with their petro dollars shall contribute to help fund a seven year project. Unarmed young able bodied Arab Moslems, Arab Christians, and Arab-Jews will be hired to help rebuild that were destroyed, and bring back the ravaged nations of Iraq, Libya, and Syria from the darkness of internecine fighting into the light of peace and harmony.
The only way of depriving ISIS of recruits is to design a program that will attract thousands of Syrian, and Iraqi fighters and refuges to return to their respective homeland and build their homes and till their land.
The U.S. led Marshall Plan that was undertaken after WW II was successful in rebuilding Europe. Such similar plan could be recreated and spread the cost equitably among peace loving participating nations.
Canada must rediscover her true identity as peacekeeper and peacemaker the world knew before. That what Canada did is always good and right.
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About the Author: Bob Gabuna used to write for a community paper based in Winnipeg since 1988. He went on hibernation for a long while to recover from Leukemia. He spent five years in the Philippines and pursued the commercial cultivation of Cassava for various industrial usages. Currently, he and his wife resides in the Capital City of the Territory of Nunavut. Bob sits as Member-at-Large, City Council, City of Iqaluit (Public Safety Committee), and as Director, Governance Council, WSCC, Northwest Territories and Territory of Nunavut.