Arthur DeFehr, president of Palliser Furniture in Winnipeg and recipient of numerous business awards, recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the accounting firm of Ernst & Young. Following are his acceptance comments.

A number of years ago I was hiking in Nepal with two older and very accomplished friends. They were in serious discussion about the question, "How do you want to be remembered?"

The question lies at the very core of your being. What are your most essential values? What helped you make choices when you came to those fateful forks in the road?

Palliser Furniture has a mission statement developed by three generations of the DeFehr family and key management. It begins with the words: "Our mission: To be a community of people...." By "community" we mean a place where people feel safe, a place of friendship, and a place where they can realize their dreams.

We do not mention profits, but fully appreciate the financial requirements necessary for survival and health.

The second part of our mission statement is "Our values." Our mission is what we do, but our values are the "why." This part begins: "Building on a heritage of faith...." That heritage is the Christian/Mennonite faith of my father and the faith in God that I claim for my own. This section goes on to speak of integrity, the dignity of each person, the environment....

Palliser is a microcosm of our globe. If you stroll through our plant you will hear 40 languages spoken and see 70 nationalities represented. We invite others to bring their heritage and their faith to the Palliser community-if that heritage supports the values that we believe are core.

We live in a world where it is politically correct to say that no civilization or faith or culture is better than any other. I say that we need to judge by outcomes, including those of our own society.

Western civilization has produced unprecedented personal freedom, political participation, economic progress and technological advance. However, others judge us more harshly on our plunder of the environment, our materialistic view of progress and our cultural imperialism.

The magazine Fast Company announced in a recent issue that they looked for movers and shakers, and one of the categories was "social entrepreneur." I look forward to the time when awards are given for social entrepreneurship. We need to celebrate the balance between our great tradition of personal freedom and our collective conscience.

The balance we seek is also between faith and civil society. Violence and excess are too frequently committed in the name of religion, culture or patriotism. I judge faith by its contribution to inner and outer peace.

Today we live in a world with no effective power centre. The fringes of every religion or cause have the power to disrupt and destroy. My freedom fighter is your terrorist. My religious exclusiveness becomes your prison.

In 1965, I walked the road from Selma to Montgomery in protest against a society that said black people were not equal. A century earlier their ancestors had not even recognized that black people were human.

In 1972, my wife Leona and I worked in Bangladesh after the civil war. Bangladesh exists because there were those who said Hindus and Muslims cannot live in the same land. The great Hindu nation of India still denies that its caste system is racist.

The great Jewish tradition brought us a rich heritage, yet permits its extremists to settle land in violation of any known principle of law or human rights.

The Muslim world feels aggrieved for a variety of calamities. Many of these problems are brought about by the failures of their own leaders and the inability of their religion to come to terms with a more complex society. Many turn to anger and violence. Too many claim they are doing this in the name of God.

Unfortunately, I could go on.

Several years ago I posed a question at the World Economic Forum in Davos to a panel of religious leaders. "Would you," I asked, "recommend that your own religion state clearly its opposition to violence as a way to solve problems between people and nations?"

One after another the Muslim cleric, the Jewish rabbi and the Orthodox priest explained why it was essential that they reserve the right to use violence to defend their interests. It was painful to listen. A senior Catholic spokesman said that he would personally recommend a stance against violence, but that his superiors would never agree with him.

This is from our leaders. What, then, can we expect from the crowds in the marketplace?

Freedom and tolerance are very fragile. We must learn to live as a community, but we also need to challenge the voices and the actions in our tradition and every other tradition when they reserve the right to be the judge, jury and executioner in matters that affect them.

-MEDA release

Stories of conflict
must be balanced

In several decades of journalism I have learned the importance of credibility. Not that accuracy and objectivity were always attained, but the effort to achieve these cannot be overstated.

One series of stories in which I was involved concerned a Michigan town with a hog farm on its boundary. The foul odors led to public meetings and a battle in court. When it was over, our newspaper got letters from both sides in the dispute, thanking us for empathizing with their position.

There was a lesson here. When you treat both sides fairly the credibility of the publication is enhanced. Also, when all the facts that can be learned are laid out, it can lead to a process in which appropriate action becomes clearer. On the other hand, being one-sided can lead to suspicion and mistrust.

In your April 22 issue, I counted seven stories and an editorial that contained opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian situation, and all of them sided with one of the disputants. A point of view is to be expected in an editorial, but a wider perspective should be presented on the other pages.

Rather than commenting on the stories, I would like to note how the innocuous-looking list of dates, entitled "The war over Palestine," can stack information in a certain direction.

"1897-First Zionist Congress names Palestine as Jewish homeland (population less than 10 percent Jewish)." It is not difficult for the reader to view this as a Jewish land grab. However, the congress was called in the aftermath of the Dreyfus affair in France in which another series of pogroms against Jews led many Jews to believe that their only hope of security lay in their own homeland.

"1917-Britain captures Palestine.... Massive immigration of Jews." It would probably be more accurate to say that the British assumed a Palestinian mandate after Turkey, aligned with Germany, was on the losing end in the war.

"1948-Israeli War of Independence; 780,000 Palestinian refugees." What is not mentioned is the 800,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands as a result of that war.

"2000-New Intifada. Severe restrictions on Palestinian life." This intifada broke out after Yasser Arafat rejected a proposal that would have returned 96 percent of the West Bank and East Jerusalem to the Palestinians in exchange for peace.

"2002-Israeli military attacks Palestinian areas." As with the Zionist congress in 1897, no context is provided. The attacks were in response to a wave of suicide bombings that had traumatized the Israeli public.

It may be that after considering these statements or others, the reader will decide that the Israelis are wrong and the Palestinians are right. So be it. But at least that conclusion should be reached with a more objective presentation of what has been happening in that part of the world for a long time.

-Paul Hershberger, Goshen, Ind.

Bible memory
emphasis refreshing

The Bible quizzing article (May 6) was great. Thanks for a whole-page emphasis on Bible memorization. How refreshing and wholesome. Congratulations to our "Swiss" Mennonite siblings for keeping up this tradition.

Bible memorization is certainly not unknown among "Russian" Mennonites, though not quizzing. Our three older grandsons (ages 11, 15, 17) have memorized lots of Bible portions, and the youngest repeatedly concludes his letters with words such as, "I am reading I Samuel; what are you reading?"

I am also reminded of our pre-immigration stay in Fallingbostel, Germany, in 1949, when Bible quotation contests were held for us adolescents. Yes, I did well, but may have been outlasted by Arthur Hiebert whose family headed for Wellesley, Ontario.

-Dietrich Rempel, Abbotsford, B.C.