On the wrong side of history
Mcgill’s pro-hamas protest defiles university’s legendary military past
It was sadly only a matter of time before Canadian university students, in true monkey-seemonkey-do Canadian copycat manner, followed the lead of their U.S. counterparts. Donning keyehs, they’ve established pro-hamas, pro-palestinian protest encampments at our leading universities.
It started at Mcgill, where I obtained my rst university degree.
It seems the painful and ugly torch of anti-semitism, once so endemic in mainstream
Quebec society, is now being recycled by elitist young auent Canadian ideological allies of a foreign terrorist movement.
To borrow a classic Marxist term, these “useful idiots” to the Hamas terrorists in Gaza are promoting a cause with violent intentions that utterly contradict the students’ safe, secure, secular Canadian middleclass lifestyle. is is the same orderly, peaceful lifestyle these student protesters will absolutely insist on once they graduate, literally and guratively, from the indulgent ideological makebelieve playpens that today’s woke university campuses have become.
But what I need to address is not the blatant contradictions inherent in the pro-muslim, violent, misogynist cause of Hamas, and the highly secularized anti-conservative lifestyle choices of many of their Canadian student allies. What needs to be raised now are the historical contradictions reected in the ground on the Mcgill campus these pro-palestinian supporters have chosen to colonize.
It might appear the location of the pro-palestinian encampment is an innocuous recreational spot in front of Mcgill’s original buildings, one where students, like my much younger self in the 1980s, relaxed, socialized, played soccer, snogged and read books, all within the bounds of law and decency.
But there is a military history to the main Mcgill campus’ front lawn, one that should be respected — a legacy the propalestinian encampment at Mcgill is littering on and de ling.
As depicted in hundreds of photos and personal accounts from the First World War, Mcgill’s main campus grounds were once used as a drill and training space for the thousands of students who enrolled in the Canadian Army during the First World War.
It may seem remarkable given the elitist entitlement inherent in today’s university culture, but during the First World War, units like the 7th (Mcgill) Siege Battery and the 10th Siege Battery were all raised and initially trained at Mcgill. Additionally, a company of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and the 1st Canadian Tank Battalion were also mobilized at Mcgill. Also, the 3rd Canadian General Hospital and the 2nd Canadian Sanitary Section of the Canadian Army Medical Corps were birthed on the Mcgill campus.
Before heading overseas, these units would often conduct their drills, parades and training on the current site of the pro-hamas camp.
A remarkable 3,059 Mcgill students joined in the First World War, and a staggering 363 lost their lives — much more than the total Canadians killed in Afghanistan.
ese units incorporated numerous students and alumni of Mcgill. Likewise, a good many professors at Mcgill left their academic posts to serve. Most notable among Mcgill’s serving faculty was John Mccrae, of the
3rd Canadian General Hospital.
Lt.-col. Mccrae is best remembered today for having written the iconic poem In Flanders Fields. Many began their service drilling, parading and training on the same turf as the illegal propalestine Hamas encampment.
So who are the real forces of colonization on Mcgill campus grounds today?
e moral divide between the students training on that ground a century ago and today’s occupiers could not be more acute. During the First World War, the Mcgill students who congregated and trained on that eld were engaged in a legitimate government- and university-endorsed cause.
ey were ready to ght and die to uphold Canadian values, as de ned at the time — rule of law, and peace, order and good government by way of constitutional monarchy, which bred our conspicuously generous forbearance toward acts of protest and civil disobedience.
But are today’s pro-palestinian student colonizers of Mcgill’s First World War’s parade square equally ready to go overseas to democratic Israel’s frontier, face the IDF’S mostly Jewish, Hebrew-speaking citizen soldiery, and ght and die for their professed cause? I think we all know the answer to that.
Deep in their narcissistic hearts, Mcgill’s pro-palestinian protesters know the Canadian peace, order and good government deal founded, fostered, and largely fought for by white, Judeo-christian “cis” men like myself o£ers a much better constitutional human rights arrangement than the foreign ideals they are propagating.
It’s because of our Canadian ideal of forbearance that youthful arrogance, hypocrisy and blind nihilism can actually be indulged and allowed to trump accountability — for a while, anyway.
But let’s now restore peace and decorum to this once respectful university campus, beginning with some memorable words of wisdom from my old battle-scarred, medalclad regimental sergeant major:
“Get o£ of my parade square!”