Difficult but necessary
To write about Mario Bunge today, one year after his death on February 24, 2020, at the age of 100, is for me on the one hand difficult, but on the other necessary. Surrounded as I am by all of his books and things, day after day for a year, I feel his presence – so, how can I write about him as if he were gone? This is the difficult part. Yet, although much has been written by others about his political views, and even expressed by himself with his usual clarity, frankness and insight in his Political Philosophy (2009), little has been said about his political activity in Canada, a country where he had spent more than half of his life. Hence the necessity.
In an article from the Mcgill Newsroom, ‘Mario Bunge: philosophy and physics,’ my late husband, who was 96 at the time, explains why he decided to leave his native country of Argentina – tentatively at first in 1960 and then for good in 1963, wandering around in Europe until coming to Mcgill University in the late 1967.
He wanted to be away from politics in order to devote himself to his work without distractions. Yet, he could not help getting involved in it by becoming a member of the LPC (Liberal Party of Canada), charmed by the Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Elliot Trudeau who, although not a socialist for practical reasons, had joined the LPC in 1965 rather than the NDP (National Democratic Party), partly because of his belief that the latter would not be able to achieve power at the federal level.
A photo of the two of them in friendly conversation was taken at Mario’s 75th birthday party in 1994 at the Mcgill Faculty Club. By that time, Trudeau had been away from politics since 1984, and Mario had resigned from his membership at the LPC already in 1983 – so, what they talked about was probably not politics (I forgot to ask him).
In fact, as I discovered a few days ago, and had forgotten about, Mario had resigned his LPC membership in 1983. The reasons for doing so, and the recommendations he gave to the Director of the LPC at the time, with copies to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Donald Johnstone (a member of the Cabinet) and published in the Montreal Gazette, were laid out. Reading the text today, one realises that Mario had not been away from politics at all – the difference being one of focus. I find it the reasons he gives for resigning very revealing and I totally agree with his having done so. Although I myself was a member of the NDP and not the LPC at the time, Mario and I shared most of our political views. One of the reasons for not just us but for many of our Mcgill colleagues having come to Canada when we did was to dissociate ourselves from the United States, a country far more interesting than Canada no doubt but far more dangerous for the world at large. The US president at the time was Ronald Reagan. In foreign affairs he had denounced Communism and invaded Grenada, the bombing of Libya, the Iran-iraq war, the Iran Contra affair and the renewal of the Cold War. In 1987 Reagan described the USSR as an “evil empire.” The transition in the Cold War from detente to escalating the arms race was a matter of great concern for many of us. Mario, with his usual courage, had to take some action and he did so in his letter.
There is a photograph of Mario and myself, taken in 1978 at the Summit Park in Westmount (Greater Montreal) just above our house. It was that address that he printed on the letter in question, which he wrote as a private citizen and not as a Mcgill professor. From where we are up there in the photograph, one can see the Saint Lawrence River and beyond, and looking down (though not in the photograph) our house on Bellevue Avenue. We didn’t know it yet, but one day we would be living not up the mountain but below in Westmount Square, in one of the Mies van Der Rohe black towers that are visible in the photograph.
The dress I am wearing in the image is a Finnish Marimekko, which I loved. I have no idea where it is now. Mario of course, is dressed as usual with all those pens in his pocket, ready to jot down an idea anywhere he happened to be, oblivious of the fact that the ink in them would be ruining one after the other of his beloved white shirts.
I miss those days, I miss him.