We feel very privileged, honoured and blessed to interview Dr. Anne Mackenzie Pearson for Wave Brazilian Magazine.
Anne is the granddaughter of the Honourable Lester Bowles Pearson, a Canadian politician, diplomat, and statesman who served as the 14th prime minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968. Lester Pearson was born on April 23, 1897, in Toronto. He pursued a career in the Department of External Affairs and served as Canada’s ambassador to the United States from 1944 to 1946. He was also the Secretary of State for External Affairs from 1948 to 1957 under Liberal Prime Ministers William Lyon Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent. In 1953, Pearson was a candidate for the position of Secretary-General of the United Nations but was vetoed by the Soviet Union. However, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for organizing the United Nations Emergency Force to resolve the Suez Canal Crisis, which brought him global recognition. Pearson became leader of the Liberal Party in 1958 following the Liberals’ defeat in the 1957 federal election. Despite suffering two consecutive defeats by Progressive Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in 1958 and 1962, Pearson successfully challenged him in the 1963 federal election. He won re-election in 1965. One of his notable achievements was leading the effort to create Canada’s national flag. Lester Pearson passed away on December 27, 1972. In 1984, Toronto’s airport was renamed “The Lester B. Pearson International Airport” in his honour.
Anne’s father, Geoffrey Pearson, was also a diplomat, serving in his last posting as Canada’s ambassador to the Soviet Union. He, too, supported the United Nations and its core values, as did Anne’s mother, Landon Pearson, who served as a senator for 11 years in Canada’s Senate and was a renowned advocate for the rights of children.
Anne was born in London, Ontario, but lived most of her childhood abroad because her father was a diplomat in Paris, New Delhi, Mexico City, and then Moscow. Anne also traveled widely in her teens and twenties, many times on her own, including several years spent in India doing research for her doctoral studies. Anne completed her education with a PhD in Religious Studies from McMaster University in 1993. Later, she completed a certificate in Alternative Dispute Resolution at Mohawk College (Hamilton).
Anne’s academic areas of expertise are in South Asian religions, Gandhi and modern India, gender and religion, and the theory and practice of nonviolence.
Even before completing her PhD on Hindu women and ritual fasting practices, she started to teach part-time at McMaster University and later at other universities in southwestern Ontario. During these early years of teaching, she met her husband Mark Vorobej, who is Canadian-Ukrainian, and together they had three daughters. Teaching part-time enabled Anne to become involved in different organizations, not just academic work. While at university, she joined Amnesty International and the Dundas Mundialization Committee, a committee started as a citizens’ group approximately 56 years ago in Dundas when it twinned with the City of Kaga, Japan. Anne was also part of the Bahá’í Studies faith group in the mid-1990s and, from there, became more involved in additional organizations, such as the Hamilton Interfaith Group. She continued to teach part-time until 2006, when she became a full-time professor of religious studies.
Rosemary: You are the granddaughter of Lester Pearson who is one of the most admired Prime Minister of this century and left quite a legacy. How did your grandfather influence your life and your choices?
Anne: I would say my grandfather and also my parents had a profound influence on my life choices. Becoming a specialist in Hinduism was influenced of course by my father’s posting in India when I was a young teenager. But, in general, the concern with social justice, with peace– that was transmitted to us by our grandfather and parents. Also, we were brought up with such core values as generosity, humility, compassion, and service. I think that one of the things that my grandfather really influenced me on was this concept of internationalism. He spoke a lot about the dangers of extreme nationalism in this time in human history. A healthy patriotism is fine and there’s no problem with that! And of course, he brought in the Canadian flag which honoured the distinctiveness of Canada, but he said that we live in a world that was so interconnected that we also need to develop a sense of world citizenship. Many people have observed that, but he practiced it in his diplomacy, he practiced it as a Prime Minister, he practiced it in his personal life, continuing it after being retired as Prime Minister in 1968 when, for example, he worked with the World Bank. He promoted the sense of mutual interdependence, of our need to commit to the welfare of others, while we also look to our own needs–these kinds of ideals. Although, I was 15 when he died, these seeds got planted deep in me, and in my siblings as well.
Rosemary: How many siblings do you have Anne?
Anne: There were 5 of us. My mother had to transport us all from one country to another, which was quite a job!
Rosemary: Were you close to your grandfather?
Anne: Well, because we were away a lot, and he was so busy, we didn’t see a lot of him as I was growing up–except for the period when he was Prime Minister, we happened to be living in Ottawa. So, during those 5 years that he was Prime Minister we used to have Sunday lunch with our grandparents at the Prime Minister’s house on Sussex Drive. I have lots of happy memories of that time. My grandfather loved us 10 grandchildren. He was not afraid of getting down on his hands and knees and chasing us around different rooms at the house and sharing his peanuts and ginger ale with us! I was between the ages of 7 and 10 at that time. He was a very warm, loving grandfather.
During that time, my father was involved in disarmament negotiations at the United Nations. Because both my grandfather and father had been so involved in the UN and its agencies, that also influenced me to become involved in the Hamilton branch of the United Nations Association in Canada. Now I also serve on the National Board of UNA-Canada.
Rosemary: Is it fair to say that Lester Pearson started the multicultural movement in Canada?
Anne: Trudeau really picked that up in a significant way, but it was in keeping with my grandfather’s world view. Pearson had initially focused on bilingualism and biculturalism–a time, the 1960s, which saw the beginning of the Quebec separatist movement, and he was deeply concerned about the breaking up of Canada into 2 solitudes. So, he initiated commissions of inquiry into bilingualism and biculturalism, and he helped to make French the second official language of Canada to encourage Anglophone Canadians to learn French, and Francophones to learn English, so that they have this shared sense of identity as Canadians. And so, the next step would be creating the concept of a multicultural Canada–the multiculturalism that Trudeau picked up on.
Rosemary: So, do you feel that in today’s world, multiculturalism is working the way that it was supposed to be? I know that the Honourable Sheila Copps was also extraordinarily strong in that movement.
Anne: It’s hard to say that it is working as it should because as the decades go on the context shifts. But I think the fundamentals are there and they do work. And the fundamentals have been informing a Canadian identity that really is increasingly multicultural. So even if Canadians are not as enthusiastic, perhaps, as they used to be in some ways, I think we should be proud of what we have achieved as a nation, as an international nation. We need to keep working at this unity in diversity experiment!
Rosemary: A certain amount of expectation of accommodation that favours an individual’s culture seems to be the demand today. As a peacemaker, perhaps bringing violent conflicts from one part of the world to Canada may not align with your grandfather’s ideals and legacy as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Do you agree with that?
Anne: Yes, I agree. It’s naturally difficult for many newcomers to Canada to let go of their former culture, their allegiances, their world views. And that’s ok to a certain degree, certainly. But newcomers, just like long-time Canadians have to make efforts to accommodate one another, and this might mean letting go of some prejudices or former practices. A human rights lens might be a good way to look at these issues, but remember, human rights are both individual and collective, and no human right is absolute, especially if it infringes on others’ human rights. Plus, we have to think of our duties and obligations to others, not just our own rights.
Rosemary: Anne I understand you have a Brazilian relative?
Anne: Yes, my son-in-law has a Brazilian heritage.
Among many jewels earned on her crown, Dr. Anne Mackenzie Pearson was the recipient of the YMCA 2024 Peace Medal and was honoured on Wednesday November 27, 2024 at the annual YMCA Peace Medal Breakfast, which was held at the Hamilton Convention Centre by Carmen’s. This was the 37th year, the awards by the YMCA of Hamilton Burlington Brantford were presented to individuals and groups who have extensively contributed to promoting tolerance and social justice in their communities and elsewhere. The Hamilton Spectator described Anne as a champion in their November 27, 2024 newspaper article entitled, “Here are the winners of this year’s YMCA Peace Medal awards” : “Pearson is a local advocate for peace and social justice who volunteers with organizations such as the United Nations Association in Canada, Empowerment Squared and the Gandhi Peace Festival. She works to promote intercultural understanding, nonviolence and community cohesion, with her work seen through the Interfaith Stone in the Hamilton Peace Garden and the book, “Waging Peace in Hamilton.”
Tareq Hadhad, who along with his parents and his siblings became refugees during the war in Syria was the keynote speaker at the 2024 YMCA Peace Medal Breakfast. The Hadhad, came to Antigonish, N.S. during the war, and the family restarted his father’s chocolate-making business. The Hadhad family’s inspiring story has been made into a movie, and been the subject of many news stories over the years. Hadhad is a former Syrian refugee who rebuilt his family’s chocolate business in Canada, creating a brand that promotes peace, entrepreneurship and the positive contributions of newcomers.
We, at Brazilian Wave Magazine would also like to congratulate Anne on great achievements, and contribution to humanity, making this world a better place.
NON-ACADEMIC (VOLUNTEER) ORGANIZATIONS AND POSITIONS (most recent only): Chairperson, Hamilton Interfaith Peace Group Vice-Chair, Board of Directors, Empowerment Squared Local Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Hamilton (2001-2018); Dundas LSA (1996-2001) President, United Nations Association in Canada, Hamilton Branch Board member, UWC Pearson College of the Pacific (Victoria) Board member, and co-vice-chair, Toronto Board of the Parliament of the World’s Religions Past Chairperson, Gandhi Peace Festival, Hamilton 2 Past Co-chair, Interfaith Advisory Committee to the Hamilton-Wentworth School Board Faculty, Wilmette Institute (online learning; Wilmette, Illinois)
ACADEMIC ASSOCIATIONS: Canadian Society for the Study of Religion Member, Canadian Advisory Council, Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute (2002 – 2004) Member (1995 – 2002), Chair (1999 – 2001), Secretary (2001-2002) Executive Committee of the Association for Bahá’í Studies (North America) Member, editorial board, Journal of Bahá’í Studies (1995-2003)
BOOKS: Single author: 1996 “Because it gives me peace of mind”: Ritual Fasts in the Religious Lives of Hindu Women. Albany: State University of New York Press. Editor and contributor: 2017 Waging Peace in Hamilton—An Illustrated History of the Journey Towards Peace, Nonviolence, and Justice 1960-2017. Edited by Anne M Pearson, Khursheed Ahmed, and Joy Warner. Toronto: Bellwoods Press.
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