KAMLOOPS – A few costumed participants and some clashing ideologies sparked a lively debate in Kamloops this evening as Canadian David Frum, now one of the leading political intellectuals in America, addressed a near-capacity crowd in Thompson Rivers University’s Grand Hall.
Frum, speaking at a free public presentation as part of the TRU President’s Lecture Series, loosened up the crowd with a few White House anecdotes, including characterizing President George W. Bush as a leader whose brain’s “smart aleck” and “self-preservation” nodes were constantly at war.
Moving into the topic of his presentation, “Understanding the Middle East,” Frum listed economic breakdown, social unrest, political dictatorships and repression, xenophobia and religious intolerance as the major drivers behind terrorist attacks originating from “the most stagnant and dangerous part of the world,” and blamed political regimes in the Arab nations for intensifying and directing anger outward.
His views were hotly contested by many who stood at the microphones during the question period that followed his talk.
TRU professor in the School of Business and Economics, Monia Mazigh, corrected Frum’s depiction of Algeria and Morocco as Middle Eastern countries and cautioned the former President G. W. Bush speechwriter not to “turn a blind eye” to factions in Arab countries trying to promote democracy.
The final question was asked by a student from the Middle East who identified himself as “Sultan.” The youth shared first-hand knowledge of terrorism in his own country, advanced the view that “the US is the most violent country in the world,” and asked how the US could “oppose violence through violence.”
Blaming propaganda promulgated by state-controlled media in the Middle East aiming to “channel resentment against external targets” to deflect social unrest due to “a political system gone awry,” Frum wrapped up the evening with a final comment that “the ultimate tragedy is that people in the Middle East are determined not to see what afflicts them.”
Next Frum traveled to Kelowna where he addressed a fundraising event for the Okanagan-Coquihalla Conservative Association, the constituency of Canadian Public Security Minister Stockwell Day
For more information, please contact TRU President Roger Barnsley at 250-828-5001
