Persian New Year celebration held at CNC
A
bout 40 students gathered at CNC on Wednesday afternoon for the college’s first ever celebration of Persian New Year, known as Nowruz.
The event was organized by CNC student Saba Ebadzadsahraei, who said she was motivated to organize the event to combat incorrect perceptions about Iranian culture.
“It’s the first time I’m doing this because I’m the only Iranian student in the entire college,” she said.
“I want to show them that we have celebrations, we have a different culture, a rich culture.”
Ebadzadsahraei said students often know little about Iranian culture, and tend to associate the country only with global conflicts.
She said the Nowruz celebration marks the beginning of spring each year. The roots of the national Iranian holiday date back as far as 3,000 years. It traces its origin to the Persian traditions of Zoroastrianism, the dominant religion in the region prior to the advent of Islam in the 7th century A.D.
As Middle Eastern pop tunes blared out of a nearby amp, students gathered around a table decorated with seven items – barley, wheat germ, dried oleaster fruit, garlic, apples, sumac and vinegar – which together represent the beginning of a new season. Cake was dished out at another table nearby.
Ebadzadsahraei said she first arrived in Prince George as a student after her brother first came as a student at UNBC.
“If there was some gang activity in a person’s younger life, to it at least being considered when somebody’s trying to legally purchase a firearm, I’m not opposed to that,” Zimmer said Wednesday.
“We should know what gang activity is there... so at least it would alert authorities to that activity.”
But Zimmer said that’s about as far as the bill goes in combatting gang-related gun violence. He said the Liberals should also have made a firmer commitment to such efforts as intercepting illegal firearms as they cross the Canada-U.S. border.
“I’ve been told so many times that gang members don’t often go into a firearms store and buy a gun legally,” Zimmer said. “They do it illegally and we need to do more to prevent that from happening in Canada.”
The Liberals have devoted more than $327 million over five years, with $100 million a year thereafter, to address criminal gun and gang activities. But Zimmer expressed skepticism over how effectively that money is being rolled out.
“Even though that money’s allocated, we’ll see what it will deliver,” he said.
—
—
Added to Zimmer’s concerns is that gun retailers will be required to keep records of firearms inventory and sales for at least 20 years and require the purchaser of a hunting rifle or shotgun to present a firearms licence, while the seller would have to ensure its validity.
He said it amounts to establishing a “backdoor registry” in the form of a reference number for the sales and purchases of nonrestricted firearms.
“It’s more bureaucracy for law-abiding firearms owners and not really attacking gangs like we hoped they would,” Zimmer said.
— with files from The Canadian Press