On Friday afternoon I was participating in the Radio Noon Book Club. This week we were reviewing Kevin Noble's "No Man's Land". The story is a novelized account of the
The book and play are terrific and all Newfoundlanders and Labradorians should read it, especially the youth.
In either case there were eight of us in the CBC radio studio downtown and several more on the telephone from various parts of the province. We all took turns giving our opinions on Kevin's work with Anne Budgell (the host) moving us along various particulars. She also had her own opinion, of course.
The make-up of the studio guests was very interesting, including; Mike Kehoe, a fervent Newfoundlander and I believe a nationalist, if not an anti-colonialist, a woman Helen who moved here from
Anyway as the review moved on Mike was getting very passionate about it all. He deeply respects Kevin, as a writer, but was having a difficult time with this book because as he put it, "it smacked of colonialism". I suspect it was not the book but this growing feeling in our province - that where we are is not where we should be.
For me the program became much more than a book review; I was witnessing a resurgence of deep feelings of regret and in some cases welling anger at our lot. I was witnessing the emotion necessary to step back and take a long look at the path our people have taken. In many ways we have been doing that a lot lately. The comparisons to
Newfoundlanders and Labradorians were "used" that day on
We have always been used that way. Our bright young men and women, leaders and the future of our nation slaughtered senselessly. We cannot rewrite history but surely we can anticipate what direction we might have taken if certain events had played out differently.
We don't have to go back too far to witness how we are seen and used by the motherland, in this case
If we look at it from an economic perspective, our fish were used for
The energy flowing from the Upper Churchill fuelling the industries in
The time must certainly be here to rethink what we are doing and why. We must join together in
When listening to the radio, watching television or reading the newspapers about events in this province, there seems to be a missing link. One that bridges all that information together and provides a way for people to contribute, express or lobby their concerns in their own time. After-all, this is our home and everyone cannot fit in Lukie's boat and paddle their way to Upper Canada, nor should we!