Editor:
Re: Jubilee winner rejects honour, Feb. 7.
The article concerning Pummy Kaur’s return of her Diamond Jubilee Medal had an inaccurate headline. It should have read: Jubilee winner accepts medal solely for purpose of rejecting it.”
Many deserving people in our community have been honoured with the Diamond Jubilee Medal. Kaur’s conduct strikes me as ill-mannered.
If you are offered an honour and do not want it, then politely decline it. Don’t accept it, reject it and then self-publicize why you rejected it.
Ms. Kaur, many people in Canada are grateful for the peace, rule of law and eventual prosperity that Canada’s constitutional monarchy has allowed their families to have. A lot of other countries have not been so fortunate.
A review of the UN’s Human Development Index shows that most constitutional monarchies – not just ours, but Japan, Sweden, etc. – are at the top of that list.
In fact they were seven out of the top 10 in 2011.
Paul Schwartz, Surrey
• • •
As an Irish Catholic, I daresay my ancestors and I have about 400 or 500 more years of “English persecution” to complain about than do Pummy Kaur’s.
I have some sympathy for Kaur’s belief that “restitution” is owed from the British monarchy, but I could not agree with her less.
I encourage Kaur to relish her Jubilee Medal from the Queen and look upon it as a small symbol of the magnificent legacy of the British Empire which built this great nation.
Kaur and many of her kinfolk benefit abundantly from the British rule of law and the pillars of western civilization that prop up the majority of the developed world today.
If not for this legacy of democracy and individual rights, Kaur and I might still be nothing more than slaves, locked in feudal battle with the neighbouring “tribe/clan.”
Paul Griffin, Surrey
