Mallick: Rebel page is the real thing

Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Toady thou never wert.

The skylark in question is that bright-eyed and braided young page, Brigette DePape, 21, whose mother is proud of her, as am I, as are thousands of Canadian young people who put idealism before an intern-type job that leads to fancy well-paid things if you’re willing to shut up.

The central question of life is “Do you go along to get along?” Ralph Nader once told me and a thousand other University of Toronto students at Convocation Hall. Decades later, most of us of course do. DePape does not. She is the real thing, the Canadian version of the child in the fable pointing out that the emperor has no clothes.

I do wish she’d been in the lineup at a bank this week when a young man starting shouting at the teller about “the Jews” owning “all the banks.” One older woman was also in line. She told her daughter later that she could feel her heart pounding wildly. “I am Jewish, you know,” she said.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1002856--mallick-rebel-page-is-the-real-thing?bn=1