A student speaks out

Re: Queen's trustees vote to remove Macdonald's name from building, Oct. 20

For a bastion of learning to be cowed into such an act of historical desecration either shows complicity or that the hallowed institution Dean Mark Walters represents is no more formidable than the doormat on my porch.

Speaking as a Canadian university student who has witnessed the daily madness to be found on modern campuses and in the student papers, I can surely say that this decision will only fuel a growing trend of national self-hate and neuroticism among young people today. How is it reasonable to bow to those who would gladly remove such memorials themselves by force? Does it make any sense whatsoever to judge the figures of the past by modern standards? I suppose we should denounce Aristotle then, who promoted slavery and obviously contributed nothing of value to the world. Or perhaps the great Tommy Douglas, who justified eugenics in his dissertation before championing universal health care.

This push to remove such figures is nothing more than historical ignorance and a misguided emancipation of the passions, which seeks to destroy rather than create. What kind of a world have years of these concessions created where even Winston Churchill is not safe? If only Dean Walters could experience membership in the modern student body he might share my concerns that we are heading into very dangerous territory.

William Weston, Montreal