The Editor,
All newcomers to Canada establish their lives in this huge and beautiful country hoping for a better life. Some do so to escape persecution and seek refuge.
We cohabit this land with both visible and invisible minorities. I can point out people with different eyes, different skin, or perhaps unorthodox attire based on their religious traditions.
Peace to all unconditionally.
Language both divides and binds us: its fluency, accents, and adherence to a single syntax or pronunciation varying across time and place. This is how many look to separate Canadian-born Canadians and recent arrivals. But people learn and no matter who you are, if you really want to get your message across then you will make the necessary effort to ensure that your linguistics abilities do not hinder the process.
Those are some of our differences. But what about similarities? We contract similar diseases. We procreate in an identical manner. We express emotions (or lack thereof) in nearly identical ways. We raise kids. We hold our elderly and our scholars in high esteem (most of the time). We all cherish freedom and nationalistic beliefs, sometimes good but at times not so. We go to war for various reasons — at times quite questionable — and attempt to learn from our mistakes.
Many of us love fashion, Hollywood or Bollywood, gossip, shopping, money and materialistic goods, which seemingly make us happy. We all share vices such as jealousy, vindictiveness, animosity or even hatred.
But on the other end of this spectrum, we share love, kindness, warmth and plain friendliness. And we share fear.
The COVID-19 crisis demonstrates how that bloody coronavirus is impartial to the shape of our eyes, skin colour, age, level of education, social status, wealth or political affiliations — that we all suffer equally and face the gloom and doom indiscriminately.
Are we one as a society regardless of minor differences? Should we unite to together to overcome any obstacles? These are questions we need to answer so that when the next COVID-19 moment arrives, we come together.
Janina Furmanik, Coquitlam
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