A rchive Date
[ 26-03-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Mass Media ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/downing.html
Why the young are more likely to be anti-war
By JOHN DOWNING -- Toronto Sun
March 26, 2003
I grew up in life and newspapers surrounded by people who had heard what Milton called "the brazen throat of war." It made me aware of the horrors of even a just war, but I accepted in my gut that sometimes you fought because that was the right thing.
When I went to high school and university in the 1950s, I just knew, from Korea and the Soviet spectre that hovered over all of us, that I would have to go to war one day. So I tried to control that by joining the RCAF reserve and becoming a weekend airman. My best, and most useful, summers. If the news business hadn't worked out, I might have been an air traffic controller. It left me convinced a year of military service for everyone would be good for our youth ... and the country.
In the 1960s, as a reporter and editor at The Toronto Telegram, I was surrounded by veterans who could make the angels weep with their memories on Remembrance Day and in books about what they had endured. Some still marched and drank and played indoor softball at the armoury, and in summer went off to Cyprus or Gagetown for manoeuvres.
As the Cold War melted, I figured I was safe from the battlefield, but now I worried about my three sons. Then those fearful thoughts died when the Soviet empire fell with the Wall, and the world reaped a peace dividend and was pleasant in the 1990s ...unless you were dying in ethnic cleansings.
All the signs were there that this was really a fool's paradise in the West, but most ignored them until, on 9/11, the shroud was ripped off the worldwide threat of terrorism.
In the last two weeks, it has been all war all the time for me, and not just on CNN. I finally saw We Were Soldiers, a good movie made last year about the first bloody battle of Vietnam, and a film with deserved success at Sunday's Oscars, The Pianist, about the Warsaw ghetto. All the futility and horror of war are portrayed for all to see, but also just how cruel a sadistic enemy can be if not confronted and stopped.
We're told that movie-makers care most about what students want to see, and the second most desirable group is adults up to 34. These anti-war demonstrations draw heavily from the same groups. As kids, those of us over 55 ran around playing cowboys and Indians, before that wasn't correct for two reasons. At the same age, many of these anti-war demonstrators played video games by the day, shooting or blowing up countless war monsters. And they went to movies like Saving Private Ryan, the opening scene of which was so realistic, veterans of real wars walked out, shaken by what it recalled, or just didn't go in the first place.
Somehow, all these make-believe-wars have expanded the natural anti-war feeling among our young - natural because they're the ones to be shot at. When you scan the demographics of sentiment, you see that older Canadians like me back the Americans more than the young do. No doubt some of that is due to the same experiences I've had.
John Wright, the respected Ipsos-Reid exec and poll spokesman, isn't sure age or the generation gap is the factor I say it is, despite some proof for my side. When Canadians over 55 were asked if we should join with the U.S., 65% said we should stay out, compared to 67% for those 35-54, and 77% for those 18-34. When Canadians over 55 were asked if they supported the U.S. taking military action, 49% were in favour, while 52% of those from 35-54 and 59% of those 18-34 were opposed. (I suspect what skews the polls a trifle is an unstated reason, that some respondents are really more anti-American than anti-war.)
Wright argues "a lot of this has to do with motive." The issue confounding Canadians is whether this war is really about oil, or distraction from domestic issues, rather than weapons of mass destruction. He's been saying in office discussions that "100 years ago or 50 years ago, we would have looked back at the newspapers of the day and hypothesized that they may have represented the public view. We would have summarized that off to war was the popular sentiment, and it would be over in six months or whatever based on editorials.
"This is probably one of those profound times when editorials, columnists and others do not represent in any way, shape or form the majority opinion in this country. And it will be interesting to see because, you know, 50 years from now, what they will look back on is the polls, and they will say that the editorials of some of the newspapers of this country were so out of step and out of line with Canadian views ... That to me is almost the bigger issue, the views of the political punditry is just so different that what it is in reality."
I expect the future will look back more kindly on today's views of the Sun, just as history shows us that the appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s was a dreadful mistake.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com. Downing appears Fridays, Sundays
 World Fact Book (CIA]
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