About the speaker
Qais
Ghanem, born in the British colony of Aden, graduated in medicine from
the University of Edinburgh, before coming to Canada in 1970. He then
obtained six medical specialty American and Canadian degrees. He
retired as director of Sleep Medicine at the Ottawa and Montfort
hospotals eight years ago.
He has been a human rights and social
justice activist, is a poet, author of seven books, radio host and
columnist for Gulf News, Yemen Times and Huffington Post.
Over the years he served on the following
boards as either president, board member or on the organizing
committee: Canadian Society of Clinical Neurophysiologists (CSCN), Arab
Canadian University Graduates Association (ACUGA), National Council for
Arab Relations (ACCAR), Canadian Authors Association (CAA-NCR), Making
Ottawa Safer Together (MOST), Ottawa Peace Festival, Physicians for
Global Survival (PGS), and Fair Vote Canada (FVC).
Mystery Novels in English by the Author:
2011 - Final Flight From Sanaa
2012 - Two Boys From Aden College
2014 – Forbidden Love In The Land Of Sheba
2019 – Democracy Deity And Death
Book Co-Authored by the Author:
2012 – (co-authored) My Arab Spring
Books Written in Arabic by the Author:
2014 - Arabic/English poetry: From Left to Right
2017 - Smashwords e-book Hiwar Bidoon Khisam
2019 - Let Us Chase Him to Tunis
2019 - Intiqam Al-Khadimah
2019 - Aakher Tayirah min Sanaa
2019 - Al-Hob Al-Muharram
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Media
Club of Ottawa
Executive 2019-20
President,
June
Coxon
Secretary-Treasurer.Iris
ten
Holder
Email:
Programs
Publicity
(Right click to copy email address)
Board
of
Directors: June Coxon, Iris ten Holder, Helen Bednarek Van Eyk
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Featured speaker
Qais Ghanem
Qais Ghanem was scheduled to speak at the
Media Club meeting in April 2020 to discuss his most recent book,
Democracy, Diety and Death, and how he transitioned from working as a medical doctor to becoming an author .
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Qais Ghanem:
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It would have been
a lot nicer to talk to you, smile at you, and answer your questions
face to face, but the insidious Corona conspired to make that
impossible! Thus, I am grateful for the opportunity given to me by June
Coxon, to address you here.
I was born in the British Colony of Aden, Yemen, to an educated family
with two medical doctors and four Ph.Ds. And yet, most of my siblings
can recite the Quran by heart, and pray five times a day, preferably in
the mosque, whereby they expect greater rewards in paradise.
But, as you will see from my abbreviated CV below, I also had the
wonderful opportunity to live and therefore to closely interact with
people of so many different cultures, languages, customs and, above
all, religions. I travelled in the ME, India, China, Japan, Thailand,
Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies, and extensively in Europe. I
studied medicine in the UK, USA and Canada.
Here, I had the wonderful opportunity to create and broadcast my own
radio show, Dialogue With Diversity, which I supported financially, and
which won the prestigious annual award of CEMA (Canadian Ethnic Media
Association) two years in a row, only the second time that ever
happened! The program was broadcast from downtown Ottawa on CHIN radio
for five years.
It was a weekly interview of two or three people, always gender
balanced, from different countries and cultures. It started with Nepal
and Italy and covered 50 different nationalities, cultures, religions
and sexual orientation …. wherever “diversity”
occurred. It was so easy to realize that all those different
ethnicities and religions were as nice, and kind and honorable and
friendly and proud and Canadian as each other. I was invited to their
“national days” and got to know them more.
It was a weekly interview of two or three people, always gender
balanced, from different countries and cultures. It started with Nepal
and Italy and covered 50 different nationalities, cultures, religions
and sexual orientation …. wherever “diversity” occurred. It was so easy
to realize that all those different ethnicities and religions were as
nice, and kind and honorable and friendly and proud and Canadian as
each other. I was invited to their “national days” and got to know them
more.
I had previously come up with Potlucks 4 Peace (P4P), a
dialogue between a gathering of a group of Arabs and Jews. Since my
retirement from the practice of medicine, I have weekly met, for
coffee, with this bunch of elderly, (like me!) Arab men and
occasionally women. They come from different countries, and
backgrounds: Christian, Muslim or secular. It goes without saying that
the conversation turns into a debate about the chaotic state of the
Arab world. There is total agreement that things need to change, but
there is no agreement on how. Yet we continue to be friends and to talk!
Those
conversations were rich enough for me to put into my latest, and final,
book Democracy, Deity and Death which is what I was planning to
discuss with you. It is a provocative dialogue about life and death and
religion and politics, among four Arabs, three men and one woman: a
Lebanese Christian homosexual man, a Yemeni Muslim imam born in Wales,
a secular Egyptian professor of biology, and a secular Egyptian female
manager of a London bank.
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A R C H I V E S
Meetings
held in previous years:
The
highlighted links below will show a list of
speakers for the year |
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Ghanem is also the recipient of the following awards:
2009: The Canadian Ethnic Media Award
(CEMA), Radio Category - for the broadcast called “Three Female
Friends: A Jew, a Christian, and a Muslim,” broadcast on his
radio program Dialogue with Diversity on 95.9 FM
2010: The Canadian Ethnic Media Award (CEMA) - Radio Category - for the
broadcast called “Five Races in a Family of Four”
2010: The United Way Ottawa Community Builder Award. His name is
engraved on a brass plaque in the Jean Piggott Room, Ottawa City Hall
2010: The Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization (OCISO) Media Leadership Award
2010: Dream Keepers Citation for Outstanding Leadership
2012: Queen Elizabeth 11 Diamond Jubilee Medal for community activism
2013: Arab Canadian University Graduates Association: author and poet
2014: Order of Canada
2015: RBC Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Award
***
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Excerpt from the Book:
“What do you think about moving to Britain?” Abdul-Raheem asked his wife, Fatima.
“It is up to you. You’re the man of this family,” she responded.
“Yes, I know, but I am asking you because you’ll face a
completely different society there which you may not like – or
might even hate.”
“Well, you were born there, and you grew up there, and
you’re a good man, so it can’t be all that bad, I
suppose.”
“No, it isn’t bad, but you’ll feel the difference
more than anyone else in the family. I was born there, as you said, and
the children will soon fit in. They’re innocent and open minded,
and they’ll absorb the culture is around them. But do you want
this for your children?”
“Do you?”
“I think it will be good for their education and their future.
But they may lose their religion in the process, which I’d hate
to see. Western society is falling apart because it has abandoned its
religion, and with that, its moral values.”
“In what way?”
“Well, your son might tell you to mind your own business when you
advise him on something. Or he might not greet you when he comes into a
room. Or he might disobey you and leave the house when you tell him not
to.”
“They do that already!”
“And your daughters will do the same, if you stop them from going out to meet their boyfriends.”
“You’re their father; it’s your job to stop them before they bring shame and scandal upon our family.”
“Over there, neither the mother nor the father can do that. The
children could take us to court for forcible confinement.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s what the lawyers call it when the parents physically
prevent the child from going out. But if you are prepared to accept
laws like these, we can go. My passport is still valid, and I can get
passports for all of you. But you have to be part of this
decision.”
“You know best. I’ll follow whatever you decide.”
“Isn’t it funny? The world accuses Muslim men of oppressing
their wives. Yet when I ask you to make the decision, you kick the ball
back to me!”
Fatima laughed. “There’s just one thing I want to know; can
you take a second wife – a white woman – in Cardiff?”
“Not unless we’re divorced first.”
“In that case, let’s go!”
Abdul-Raheem could not stop laughing. He knew very well that he could
have made the decision all by himself. With the green light from
Fatima, however, he was able to move more freely and with enthusiasm.
The book is available for $15 from: Perfect Books (613) 231-6468; Books on Beechwood (613) 742-5030; or qghanem2@gmail.com.
Under
the circumstances, you could also get a copy from the Publishers Under
the circumstances, you could also get a copy from the Publishers
Demmocracy, Deity and Death
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