From the Editor

By Metta Spencer | 2021-04-01 12:00:00

Along with flowers, spring brings good news—at last. The end of the pandemic can be foreseen by late summer, if we all stay vigilant a bit longer. Joe Biden turns out to be far more progressive than anyone expected and has reversed many horrible US policies made during the previous four years. And with this very issue, Peace Magazine is going digital! You can share our news and analyses more easily to friends overseas, where we’ve been unable reach before, owing to the slowness and cost of mailing paper copies beyond Canada. See page 13 for the ad explaining PressReader’s offer and urge your friends to subscribe. Thanks!

But overall, the world is still a scary place, and here we consider some of the challenges. Canada is represented at the United Nations by Ambassador Bob Rae, who consented to be interviewed on Project Save the World’s talk show about human rights. (As you probably know, Peace Magazine sponsors Project Save the World, so as to cover five urgent global threats in addition to peace and war.) We were joined in the conversation by a retired human rights lawyer, Paul Copeland, who is deeply immersed in the disaster in Myanmar; a Canadian diplomat with long experience in China, Charles Burton; and a Venezuelan activist in Belgium, Calixto Avila. At one point, Mr. Rae describes the bracing nature of his current job as “swimming with sharks.” We wish him well!

Two other articles—one by philosopher Trudy Govier and the other by Ottawa activist Robin Collins—discuss the same new “wokeness” social trend that is well-analyzed in a book titled Cynical Theories. We give both Govier and Collins lots of space, since they are trying to explain an obscure, complicated doctrine that is becoming politically influential, at least in North America. It claims to be a progressive leftist movement but is not at all liberal. Read it and weep.

Then, if you aren’t frightened yet, read Franklyn Griffith’s review of A Farewell to Ice and the newsworthy item about the undersea Arctic methane, possibly the most ominous new threat to humankind. Fortunately, good minds are working toward solutions, which we promise to discuss as soon as they are ready. Happy spring!