RE: “Gandhi statue unveiled at Carleton,” Oct. 6-12, 2011
I passed by the Gandhi statue for the first time Oct. 6. It certainly does justice to the man and it looks nice on campus. But it’s kind of weird.
The statue was a gift from India to honour Gandhi, someone the Indian high commissioner to Canada called “the greatest man of all time.” You can’t turn down a gift like that. But let’s face the facts. Carleton isn’t exactly the most popular kid on the block. We don’t have the history or architecture our local competitor U of O can boast. We’re big, modern-ish and really unremarkable. Placing a statue of Mohandas Gandhi here in far-flung Ottawa, on a university campus with a predominantly non-Hindu student body, is questionable to say the least.
Why are our grounds home to a statue of an Indian civil rights icon who probably never heard of Carleton — a man who has already received decades of positive attention from billions of people around the world and already has an ass-load of statues in his likeness? Isn’t there some Indian cultural centre or Hindu temple that would appreciate this a lot more?
Let’s carve out a name for ourselves and erect a statue of someone who means something to Carleton, and vice versa. Here are a few candidates:
A. Former prime minister and Carleton chancellor Lester B. Pearson. This guy won a Nobel Peace Prize for how he handled the Suez Canal crisis. Also, he was prime minister during the introduction of universal health care, student loans and the current Canadian flag.
B. Sir Guy Carleton. Our school’s namesake defended Canada against American invaders and sculptors love making statues of people from that era.
C. Henry Marshall Tory. He was the first president of the university back when we were Carleton College. Check out his Wikipedia page and tell me a statue of him wouldn’t look badass.
These are just a few other dead guys for your consideration. At least they’d give a damn.
— Matt Casey,
third-year journalism