Balancing Act, 3

Gentle Reader, I have decided to fully come out to you about something. Here it is. Drum roll please, and now please pass me the envelope, Now I'm opening it, pulling out the page...and here it comes! Ready for this long awaited personal revelation? I do not celebrate Canada Day. Well, what did you expect me to tell you? Anyway, I have never bothered with Canada Day celebrations, never sang O Canada, never flown or carried or worn (fashion crime, or what? I might not be big on patriotism, but I still think it's disrespectful to wear the national flag like a garment of clothing. Any national flag, and it's especially tacky if it's the flag of your own country, worn in your own country. I may not be a barmy patriot, nor a mouth-breathing nationalist, but I do happen to respect this country, and not just because it is Canada, but I respect how important the traditions and institutions of Canada are to many Canadians (including this Canadian) and I really think people need to think once or twice or three times about how they are going to display, or flaunt the Maple Leaf. Even if I don't bother with it myself. But my relationship with Canada is a very mixed and complex affair. You see, Gentle Reader, I was born here. I didn't choose to become a Canadian, and if I ever was given the choice as an adult, I really don't know what I would do. I've never liked much that part in the oath of citizenship about becoming a loyal and obedient subject of the Queen, and I have nothing against our dear Elizabeth and I actually happen to really like her. But I am not kissing royal butt just for the privilege of belonging to this country, especially given that she doesn't even live here. There is also the whole aboriginal question, or, whose country is this? We are living on stolen land and I don't think that any Canadian citizen should rest easy about this, especially on Canada Day, and especially while singing the national anthem! Native Residential Schools, anybody? kill the Indian in the child? That wasn't very long ago, by the way. Anyway, in my prolonged decluttering project (the gift that goes on giving), I am now transcribing onto Microsoft Word various political writings and things of social and personal interest from around 2001-2003 or so, so here is a sample from an essay I threw together in the fall of 2001, shortly after the attack on the twin towers in New York City.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................."We appear to be entering into the first ever Global Civilization. Who knows what this is going to presage. Even though, just following the events of September 11, 2001, Oriana Fallaci, the noted Italian journalist and interviewer extraordinaire, among others, declared that we were in a “Clash of Civilizations”, between the Islamic countries and the “Christian” West, I think that the economic imperative of Globalism will give the lie to such resorts to hyperbole. This is certainly redefining our understanding of national sovereignty. The very concept of nation or nation-state as we have known them for the past two hundred years is certainly changing. In Canada, the ongoing experiment in Multiculturalism has provided a global challenge for nations to re-examine and change their way of thinking, in terms of what are the defining characteristics of nation and nationality. Under the blueprint of Multiculturalism, nationality is no longer determined, nor understood by common race, ethnicity, language, or religion. This is rather a hard bone to swallow in certain parts of the world, and even here in tolerant and inclusive Canada, there remain pockets of resistance, particularly among mostly male, older English speaking Caucasians, almost all of whom are poorly educated and unilingual. Like that man on the Skytrain. The car contained the usual ethnic diversity, including a number of East Asians. Two elderly Caucasian couples, who seemed to match the above criteria, were sitting near me. I imagine they were somewhere in their seventies. Almost certainly the men had “served” in the Second World War, or in the Korean War. “Looks like we’re outnumbered,” said one of the men in a loud voice, while looking around at the other passengers. He made a few other similar comments, all racially directed. Eventually he was striking up a conversation with a very blond white boy of about six, who was sitting with his mother. The man was saying things like, “There’s not many of you left nowadays,” and so on. I nearly said something to him, but I didn’t wish to get into anything. Besides, it was already obvious by the expressions on some of the other passengers’ faces that this man was damning himself whenever he opened his mouth. Fortunately, his kind are rapidly dying out."