Ignatieff's the author.

Some of the books of Michael Ignatieff.

    Michael Ignatieff has written many books on politics. But as a poltical leader, he was a disaster. In the federal election of May 2011, Liberal leader Ignatieff led his party to a third place finish. The Liberals finished not only behind the winning Harper-led Conservatives, but also the usuallly third {or fourth or fifth} place New Democrats.
     Never before have the Liberals finished in third place. "They're the natural governing party of Canada," pundits used to say about the Liberals. They're not saying that anymore.
     Ignatieff resigned as party leader after the election. He now teaches at the University of Toronto. He's back in the news now, as a play based on his novel 'Scar Tissue' just opened at the Arts Club Theatre on Vancouver's Granville Island.
      Part of the reason for Ignatieff's inept leadership role, were the ruling Harper Conservatives. As soon as this jounalist and academic headed up the Liberals,the Tories sprang a series of t.v. attack ads. They painted this son of a Canadian diplomat, as an arrogant out-of-touch elitiste American, who had no idea what Canada was about.
       "I found  it absurd that people thought of him as a cold calculating intellectual, somehow less than human," Dennis Foon said to 'The Province' paper, about his meeting with Ignatieff. Foon was the man who turned'Scar Tissue' into a play. I think Foon is right here, and I don't want to give points to the Tories for their hatchet job on Ignatieff. But after reading some of Ignatieff's books, I think the author has or had, an image problem.
   For who after all was or is Ignatieff? Each of his books gives a different answer.
        If you read one of his early books namely "The Needs of  Strangers' you'd think he voted for the left-leaning British Labour Party. At that time, in the early 1980's, Ignatieff lived in England and taught history at a British university.
     In the 'Russian Album' he visits post-communist Russia to see where his Russian-born father once lived. The Communists had taken over the Ignatieff ancestral home. Ignatieff comes off as Russian aristocrat here.
    This is quite a stretch from  'True Patriot Love'. This book came out in 2009 and here Ignatieff was saying in effect:"I'm a Canadian, a true Canadian born and bred."
      After a 30 year absence from this son otf a russian-born diplomat now claims his ancestry on his mother's side.  Her brother was the well-known philosopher George grant who wrote 'Lament For A Nation' in l965. In this book, Grant claimed that Canada would soon be completely absorbed into the American Empire.
    Ignatieff disputes this. But 'True Patriot Love' reminded me of U.S. President Barack Obama's work called 'The Audacity of Hope'.  Both books struck me as election campaign books written to win votes in a coming election campaign.
    In the l990's, Ignatieff risked his life flying to conflict-ridden Yugoslavia, Rwanda nd other dangerous places. Out of these experiences, he wrote 'Blood and Belonging', 'The Warrior's Honour', and 'Kosovo and Beyond'. These books combined Ignatieff's now jounalistic skills with academic knowledge, and attracted attention.
    But a great change swept over Ignatieff aftere '9/11'. Ignatieff had now moved to teach at the Kennedy School of Government on the U.S. east coast. Once upon a time Ignatieff and his longtime friend and rival Bob Rae had marched against the U.S. war in Vietnam. Now he endorsed and supported the American invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. The British journalist Robert Fisk has claimed that these invasions have killed close to 1.8 million people. Over 150 Canadians died in conflict in Afghanistan. At no time has Ignatieff  ever said, "I'm sorry. I made a mistake suppoting these wars."
   In any case Ignatieff's support for these wars left a bitter taste in my mouth. A one-time peace loving liberal became a U.S. defence policy intellectual. Ignatieff wasn't the first person to make this switch. Nor will he be the last.
     But do read also his fine novel 'Scar Tissue'. Here a son watches dementia overtake his aging mother. And thankfully there's no politics in it at all.