2011 International Book List: Terry Glavin

Questions for Author Terry Glavin:

1. What is the best international affairs book you have read in 2011 (Canadian or otherwise?)

Fawzia Koofi, Letters to My Daughters: A Memoir.

2. What was the biggest international event of 2011?

The Arab Spring.

3. Who was the biggest international influencer of 2011?

Mohamed Bouazizi, the fruit-seller of Sidi Bouzid, whose suicide sparked the Tunisian revolution.

4. Who was the biggest Canadian international influencer of 2011?

Royal Canadian Air Force Lt.-Gen. Joseph Jacques Charles Bouchard, commander of NATO’s intervention in Libya.

5. What was Canada’s best international moment of 2011?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s warning at the October Commonwealth summit in Perth that Canada would boycott the 2013 heads-of-government gathering in Colombo unless the Government of Sri Lanka investigates accusations that its generals committed war crimes against the Tamil people during the atrocities of 2009.

6. What was Canada’s worst international moment of 2011?

In July, in response to a question about Beijing’s rancid human rights record, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird gave every impression that he was unaware that the Nazis are no longer running Germany and the Stalinists are no longer running Russia: “When you say millions have been killed by the regime, I mean, obviously countries we work well with, like Russia and Germany, have been through challenges in their history, but we now count them as allies.”