Dear Friends of Western Civilization,

I aim to publish a book on Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto, to demonstrate how far the city has come from the original vision of Bruce McLaughlin in 1968, whose aim was to establish a city independent from Toronto from an already existing back-water small town. He built Mississauga from the ground up, literally.

I have also two other books which are almost completed. One a memoir-type book which recounts my journey through countries and ideas, which I have titled "Apprenticeship in Beauty," starting from the most important moment of my life when my family and I had to move to Paris because of an encroaching revolution in my birth country Ethiopia, when I was only nine years old. I celebrated my tenth birthday a month after we arrived in Paris. Another book is long-term project on an academic investigation of beauty and Western Civilization: Reclaiming Beauty: Saving Our Western Civilization. I have a publisher interested in this book but I need to provide a completed manuscript, which is about 75% there.

Through UNESCO funds, the Paris-based international organization where my father was stationed after leaving Ethiopia, and various school scholarships, I was able to attend primary and secondary boarding schools in England: in the beautiful Kent countryside, and in Dover, city of the White Cliffs. My Western loyalties were formed through these formative years.

Now, after several years in Toronto, I reside in Mississauga, where I have been diligently keeping track in my blog Reclaiming Beauty of the state of affairs in the Western World from my Mississauga outpost, documenting news, events, and my impressions for about five years .

It was never my intention to move to Canada. I always presumed I would be an American, having completed college and graduate studies in the US east coast. But life's circumstances placed me here, now a Canadian.

My move to Mississauga was a blessing in disguise. I realized that I had inadvertently stumbled upon a gold mine. It brought into sharp focus all the themes and ideas l had been studying and writing about for about twelve years now, starting my blog Camera Lucida in 2005, and my blog Reclaiming Beauty in 2011. Over the years, I wrote for articles in various magazines includIng American Thinker and Frontpage Magazine, converging politics, culture and the contemporary world. In 2014 I was invited to presented a paper at The Power of Beauty conference at the Franciscan University, in Steubenville Ohio.. My paper was titled: Reclaiming Beauty: Saving Our Western Civilization.

The pseudo-suburban city of Mississauga has a downtown which consists of a giant mall and a city square with the City Centre buildings that include a library and City Hall/Civic Centre which was inaugurated with the visit of the Duke and Duchess of York in Mississauga in July 1987, who were also present at the opening of the Art Gallery of Mississauga that same year. A a hidden, "Jubilee" Garden named to commemorate Queen Elizabeth's 50-year reign in 2002, became part of the "square" that same year.

Is that what constitutes a City Centre?

Nonetheless the library is a world class learning and research centre, run by accomplished librarians, the AGM obtains millions of dollars in grant money, and the Jubilee Garden is maintained by dedicated and knowledgeable gardeners who keep the garden alive all year round - Winter, Summer, Spring and Fall. Rain, shine or snowstorm.

Mississauga's history was an ambitious vision by Bruce McLaughlin, a white Canadian, starting around 1968. Immigration and non-Canadian residents were far from his mind. There was something exciting and fresh about Mississauga when it started out as a city built from the ground up - literally.

About a year ago, I asked one too many controversial question at an AGM gallery event about the lack of Western art on display at the gallery, and subsequently, I received an email from the galley's (still current) director, Mandy Slater, a white woman, to cease my "antagonistic" behavior and not to frequent gallery any more, with my name submitted to the Peel Region Police and the Mississauga Security division, should I not comply. I believe I was targeted because she felt I could obstruct the her long term vision of transforming the gallery into a venue for "alternate" exhibitions by of non-white and multicultural artists. Indigenous and homosexual artists have also been added to her exhibition and programming agenda as "underrepresented" groups.

I haven't entered the gallery since then. But the AGM's prolific website provides me with all the information I require on the gallery's exhibitions and programming, and which allows me to follow and monitor their activities. As well, most of the staff post photographs and commentary on their various social media sites. Now most of the staff and curators are non-white. The gallery's recent exhibitions, over the past two years, have focused on immigrant and non-white artists, including homosexuals and "transgendered." The gallery aims to build a gallery that exhibits "alternate visions," alternate, that is from the, oppressive and discriminatory white and Western art view, according to its (now former) curator of contemporary exhibitions Kendra Wainsworth.

The contemporary reality of Mississauga is far from the independent city that McLaughlin envisioned. It is now more than 60% non-White, with a plethora of "nationalities," with Chinese and Indians dominating. Rather than an independent city, separate from big-city Toronto, Mississauga is held captive by multiculturalism. Indians, Chinese, Filipino, Arab Christians, and a conglomerate of Middle Eastern Muslims influence key political and socio-cultural decisions in favour of multiculturalism, and specifically their own cultures. Nowhere is this more visible than at Celebration Square in the Civic Centre's large esplanade. Every summer, each of these cultures presents a full weekend of activities ranging from food stalls to Movie Nights to "celebrate" their culture. A mood of nostalgia and "old country" dominates these festivals. The City of Mississauga is the major funder for these, mostly free, programs.

The reality of Mississauga , though, is far from this exuberant multiculturalism. Mississauga has some of the highest poverty rates in Ontario, most of them recorded in the city's non-white ethnic neighbourhoods, and a non-existent "mosaic" of mixed multiculturalism, with an increasingly self-segregating population separating itself by race, ethnicity and religion. And the various socio-ethnic groups do not work together, in art or other cultural and social programs, especially where their "identities" are involved, and some are even antagonistic towards each other (Indian Hindu and Muslims, for example).

I will present all this material in my book on how a once confident city, with confident citizens, now has devolved into this multicultural outpost, which is diligently restructuring society and culture, and serving as an example for other Canadian cities to follow.

Links:
Mississauga Demographics: 2016 Census
Duke an Duchess of York at the Art Gallery of Mississauga inaugural exhibition
Art Gallery of Mississauga (About - Wikipedia)
Art Gallery of Mississauga (About - Official site)
Mississauga City Hall
Mississauga City Centre
Bruce McLaughlin: The Father of the City of Mississauga
Michael Snow, Art Gallery Mississauga inaugural exhibition 1987
Michael Snow's Still life in 8 calls
When the Mississauga City Centre Was Built
Aerial Shots of Mississauga, early 1970s
1987 – The Civic Centre Officially Opens
Mississauga Civic Center Architects
Hazel McCallion: Mayor Hurricane Hazel: 1978-2014
"Mississauga" : Song by Tommy Hunter, Released 1974
Art Gallery of Mississauga: Kendra Ainsworth and Colonial Art
The Head Table
Camera Lucida: A place to explore and shed light on how art, society and culture converge
Reclaiming Beauty: Saving Our Western Civilization