Dons of arrogance
By Ivan Morgan \ May 26, 2023
A man wakes at 3 am. He gets out of bed carefully to not wake his wife. He tugs on his jeans, sweatshirt, and work boots, and drives down to the wharf on a dark cold foggy morning to meet his crew and head out onto the harsh North Atlantic fishing grounds.
Tired from her day job, a woman feeds her kids supper then hauls on her coat to go clean offices late into the night. As a single parent she has two jobs.
A young man earns cash delivering food for a food delivery service. It’s a hard slog but he needs the cash.
What do these folks have in common? They all give a portion of their hard-earned wages as taxes.
Our university is supported by those people. It was founded in 1925 to honour the young men (and in those days it was young men) who died in the First World War, and sadly grew to include those who died in the Second. It is called Memorial to remember those who, as Rex Murphy recently wrote, never got to attend.
Today the current leaders of our university have chosen to mark our support, and the memory of those lost young lives, with arrogance.
I am referring to the latest uproar about university leaders refusing to allow graduates to sing the Ode to Newfoundland at convocation because of problems they had with some of the lyrics.
Universities must have autonomy. They must be protected from the day-to-day political whims of those in charge (so do we, but that’s a column for another day). We give them the money to operate (75 per cent of their budget) and protection from our meddling – there are no strings attached to the cash we give them. From time to time (and this is one of those times) they thumb their noses at the rest of us. It’s not the first time and probably won’t be the last. It’s the price we all pay to protect our university.
The Opposition, playing politics, proves my point by demanding government force the university to sing it. Too silly. They know government can’t force them, they just want to score points when government says it can’t. Games, games, games. This is exactly why the university needs protection, no matter what.
You cannot order people to be respectful. If the leadership at MUN decides to be arrogant and disrespectful, that’s the right we have given them. One thing I learned at a young age is sometimes people in charge aren’t respectful, aren’t considerate, and frankly, aren’t that smart. It happens.
Odes are silly when you think about them, and they can be dangerous when people invest too much in them. That being said, who is getting worked up by sun rays crowning pine clad hills?
It’s one thing to sing a song, it’s another to finger wag and insinuate that by not singing it you are a “cut above,” morally superior, especially when your livelihood is funded by the very folks you are dissing. People have said to me, “How can they do that?” I know how. One thing I have learned in politics is when someone is completely convinced of their moral superiority, they can justify anything they do.
I worked for 12 long years in the House of Assembly. I have seen things. But I was never so proud the other day when they all burst into the “Ode.” They did that because they represent us and are answerable to us. That’s politics. The university crowd isn’t and cannot be.
Cavendish Boyle wrote that pretty ditty while he was governor 125 years ago. He wrote it for people back then, not necessarily for us. They liked it; many of us today still do.
Should our Ode be looked at? Absolutely. Rewritten perhaps? Why not? Is it still applicable? Let’s have a conversation.
Where once my mother stood, I stand? Where once our parents stood? I am not religious, but I respect those amongst us who believe in God. Is it such an assault to my sensibilities to allow others freedom to believe in what I don’t? Is it so terrible to sing along with them?
An Ode should be something we all agree on, it should unite us, not divide us.
Do we need a new one? You don’t want me writing it. If I was Premier, I would hire the Foo Fighters and task them with writing a new Ode. When they asked me for some direction, I would tell them “Channel your inner Motorhead!”
Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com