To the Editor:
What has our politics come to? Yes, Lorne Eckersley, I have asked myself this question again and again since the last federal election. Your very thought-provoking March 8 This is the Life (“What has our politics come to?”) makes me realize that as an elder, I have the responsibility to share what I have learned or experienced in my 82 years of life. Some call it the wisdom of the elders, and Einstein said, “If we don’t learn from history we will repeat the mistakes of the past.”
I grew up under the Hitler dictatorship and later spent some oppressive years under the Soviet-created East German puppet dictatorship. My dad survived three years in a brutal Russian concentration camp.
After my escape to the West, I finally made it to a free country, to Canada, the country I love and call home now. As an elder, I feel it to be my responsibility, even in some small way, to keep what I consider the best country on Earth great and free for my children, grandchild and future generations.
Many times in history has a smart and calculating, often self-appointed, leader of a country or even a democratically elected leader taken full advantage of his position. This happened in Germany when I was only four years old, but I was 16 when I witnessed what this dictator had accomplished and laid Europe into ruins.
Our Canada was made for you and me and not for ideologues to push their will on us and destroy our sacred Earth and what generations have created and fought and died for. People from all parts of the world have come to Canada to be free and have helped build this great nation. It is with gratitude and respect that I thank the First Nations, the original owners of Canada, for their generosity to allow us to start a new life in our now wonderful Canada.
Creston