jean chretien, speaking with cbc's 'national' host peter mansbridge, explained some of his views on what he seems to think were the root causes of not only the events of september 11th, but also western civilizations present existence.
while not a fresh perspective on the situation, chretien's words are unique coming from a G8 leader. what is to make of this?
some context
as many of you, i am sure, know, chretien has been at the forefront among world leaders in the effort to relieve the debts of third world nations. bono has made good friends with chretien and lloyd axworthy(former chretien foreign policy advisor and pioneer politician in effort to rid world of anti-personel landmines). so his concern for such issues is not unprecedented.
however such a willingness to stir the pot is. chretien has, at times, in the past been guilty of having a loose tongue and has made some foolish gaffes during speeches. however, i doubt this was the case with the cbc interview. chretien has come under criticism in the past day(though much of it has been misguided opposition rhetoric claiming chretien 'condoned' terrorism with his statement) but his people stood behind his statement today and others, both in his party and in opposition, have also supported the comment-this all comes just days after chretien met with g. bush and, for now, declined to directly comitting canada to supporting any military offensive on iraq alongside the u.s.
at the same time, it must be said chretien's retirement is upcoming in febrary 2004, and according to many close to him he is hellbent on social spending and improving canadian society until that time.
any thoughts?
peter mansbridge in interview with jean chretien
Peter Mansbridge: By the end of the day, what were you thinking about in terms of how the world had changed?
Chr?tien: But I've said that it is a division in the world that is building up. And I knew that it was the inspiration of it. For me, I think that the rest of the world is a bit too selfish, and that there is a lot of resentment. I felt it when I dealt with the African file for the Summit of the G-8. You know, the poor, relatively, get poorer all the time. And the rich are getting richer all the time. You know, now we see the abuse of the system with problems in the United States at this moment with the corporate world, you know. When you think that, you know, you have to let somebody go in Cabinet because perhaps relatively very minor things ... of guidelines. And there was billions of dollars that were basically stolen from the shareholders. The above portion was not aired on the CBC program
And we have to you know solving the problems when we read history. Everybody don't know when to stop. There is a moment, you know, when you have to stop. There is a moment when you have very powerful (inaudible).
I said that in New York one day. I said, you know talking, it was Wall Street and it was a crowd of capitalists, of course, and they were complaining because we have a normal relation with Cuba and this and that, and, you know, we cannot do everything we want. And I said ... if I recall, it was probably these words: `When you're powerful like you are, you guys, is the time to be nice.' And it is one of the problems. You know, you cannot exercise your powers to the point of humiliation for the others. And that is what the Western world, not only the Americans, the Western world has to realize, because they are human beings too, and there are long-term consequences if you don't look hard at the reality in 10 or 20, or 30 years from now. And I do think that the Western world is going to be too rich in relation to the poor world. And necessarily, you know, we look upon us as being arrogant, self-satisfying, greedy and with no limits. And the 11th of September is an occasion for me to realize that it's even more.
while not a fresh perspective on the situation, chretien's words are unique coming from a G8 leader. what is to make of this?
some context
as many of you, i am sure, know, chretien has been at the forefront among world leaders in the effort to relieve the debts of third world nations. bono has made good friends with chretien and lloyd axworthy(former chretien foreign policy advisor and pioneer politician in effort to rid world of anti-personel landmines). so his concern for such issues is not unprecedented.
however such a willingness to stir the pot is. chretien has, at times, in the past been guilty of having a loose tongue and has made some foolish gaffes during speeches. however, i doubt this was the case with the cbc interview. chretien has come under criticism in the past day(though much of it has been misguided opposition rhetoric claiming chretien 'condoned' terrorism with his statement) but his people stood behind his statement today and others, both in his party and in opposition, have also supported the comment-this all comes just days after chretien met with g. bush and, for now, declined to directly comitting canada to supporting any military offensive on iraq alongside the u.s.
at the same time, it must be said chretien's retirement is upcoming in febrary 2004, and according to many close to him he is hellbent on social spending and improving canadian society until that time.
any thoughts?