Yemen’s like Canada, eh [Archives:2004/710/Letters to the Editor]

Roy Yerex
[email protected]
Manitoba, Canada
Oh, my goodness. I just read the editorial by Walid Al-Saqqaf headed, “Our duty.” As to the comment from the person who said the editor was damaging Yemen's reputation in the world, let me hasten to disagree most wholeheartedly.
I often post articles from the Yemen Times on an op/ed page where international politics is debated. In my humble opinion, the responses I get slam one single message home, all the time. And that message is this: Yemen is just like anywhere else.
In Canada we have our fundamentalists who bring harm to society; we have people in and outside organizations, working hard to advance our society; we have our criminals and our decent citizens. We have our criminal organizations and our religious organizations – each striving in opposite directions, exactly the same way as in Yemen.
We have religious organizations that act like criminals and criminals that would want us to believe they are religious organizations. I'm satisfied that we have a tighter grip on deaths caused by people than Yemen, but not so tight a grip that allows us, in Canada, to gloat by any means. The truth shall make you free.
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