Discovering Jean-Daniel Lafond, Remembering 9/11

Jean-Daniel Lafond and September 11, 2001 seem to be years apart. September 11, 2001 was a day of tragedy and loss the world has never encountered previously. Jean-Daniel Lafond is a much lesser tragedy that Canada has faced before.

Officials in New York have released 15 hours (plus) of FDNY and EMS tapes being released that vividly describe the last moments and thoughts of the victims caught in both towers and below. The tapes (available for download on some sites) bring that horrible day back to families of the victims in a rushing torrent of emotion and to those of us who played witness to the events through the media.

John Ralston Saul, the outgoing coattail rider, had some opinions on the tragedies of that day that I have and never will remove from my head. In an interview with Charles Adler he stated that he could not believe the humanity shown from the people trapped in the towers given that they were in the financial sectors (I do not have the exact quote, Mr. Adler may be able to provide). He implies that these people generally do not show human traits and he, as a profound human, was surprised that they were in the end, human.

As it seems our incoming coattail rider, Mr. Lafond, seems to share a tangential opinion of 9/11.

Following the attacks in America that day, Mr. Lafond was doing an interview with the Montreal Mirror about documentaries he was making and had made. The interviewer, Matthew Hays asks the then Rencontres president Jean-Daniel Lafond about 9/11. Here's a quote from the Montreal Mirror's site:

Filmmaker and Rencontres president Jean-Daniel Lafond waxes philosophic on the state of the art of documentary filmmaking practice, particularly in the wake of 9/11. "How many September 11ths will it take," Lafond asks, "for our societies to question their own acts before dropping bombs?"

Mr. Lafond, a CBC-described philosopher, implies that we need to face the guilt of our past as a continent before taking action on the worst attack on our soil in history? Past guilt should be left to those who choose to live in the past and who cannot live in the present or think in the future because they will lose their most valuable ability, hindsight.

Perhaps now that the events of 9/11 are in our past Mr. Lafond would like to consider them, think on it and provide us with a philosophic view that casts the guilt upon our western ways once more.

The media is reporting today that Jean-Daniel Lafond has been asked to pledge his commitment to Canada because of his FLQ leaning views and close friends with FLQ ties. In addition to the questionability of Mr. Lafond's status as a warm-blooded Canadian, it must be asked if he is as well a warm-blooded human.