Posted on 12/30/2002 9:16:39 PM PST by quidnunc
Anti-Americanism, a staple of cultural and political life in Canada for longer than anyone can remember, has begun to feel different since the first pictures of the World Trade Center towers appeared on our TV screens Tuesday morning. We can't hope that anti-Americanism as a habit of thought was buried beneath the rubble of those falling buildings, but there's no doubt that events are forcing us to reconsider this persistent strain in our national psyche.
The process of coming to terms with September 11 will include rethinking, in ways that may involve pain and embarrassment, Canadian attitudes to America. In particular we will have to compare them with the attitudes of the Islamic extremists who motivate suicide bombers by calling the United States the Great Satan. Do our views, and those of the world's most dangerous fanatics, have anything in common?
We usually take this Canadian prejudice lightly, as a kind of foible, but we may have to begin seriously questioning it. Anti-Americanism is not the game that we have so often considered it. America is the most vital and progressive country in the world, the most significant source of democratic impulses, our best friend by far, and the place where much of our culture originates. If our intent is to be authentic and consistent, can we afford to share anything with those who base their politics on hating America?
Perhaps we should acknowledge that reflexive anti-Americanism (as opposed to honest disagreement with the United States) is a poison afflicting large parts of the world, a poison we should purge from our own system.
The late Frank Underhill, the University of Toronto historian who in 1933 wrote the founding document of Canadian democratic socialism, considered the everyday anti-Americanism of his fellow intellectuals laughable. He used to describe Canadians as the great pioneers of this sport; he suggested that foreign countries eager to work up public hatred of America should send delegations to Toronto to see it done by experts.
He of course knew that the founding of Canada was in part an act of anti-Americanism, a rejection of the new Republic by people who came north as United Empire Loyalists because they chose to remain subjects of the Crown. But by the 20th century this historical movement had evolved into a neurotic and unthinking resistance to American ideas and even a kind of snobbery, both unfounded and pathetic. Typically, anti-Americanism in Canada focuses on all that's tasteless or greedy in the United States and compares it with all that's most admirable in Canada. This is now the one form of prejudice that is accepted almost universally in Canada, tolerated in university classrooms and at dinner parties where racism and homophobia are considered shameful.
We rarely argue about this subject, and therefore rarely sort out our ideas. Our habit is to dismiss periodic outbreaks of anti-Americanism as minor incidents that we can quickly forget — the way that the Liberal party, for instance, forgot 1988.
That was the year that the Conservatives destroyed Canada forever by signing a Free Trade Treaty that gave the Americans total power over every aspect of our life. Or so their opponents predicted.
The Liberal leader, John Turner, based his national election campaign on fear and hatred of the Americans — and came fairly close to winning. But when the election was over and Brian Mulroney's Tories had signed the agreement, the Liberals began a long, furtive creep toward the Conservative position. By the time they were returned to power in 1993, with John Turner forgotten and Jean Chrétien the Prime Minister, the Liberals had adopted, without debate, the very policy they had denounced as treason. Having torn the country apart emotionally, turning husbands against wives and parents against children, they simply abandoned the subject. They probably think of it today as a minor incident, another political gimmick that didn't quite work, but surely it left a residue of anti-U.S. distrust.
In the arts we deal with this ingrained prejudice differently. If we disagree with anti-American artists and works of art, we simply ignore their content and talk about style, form and freedom of expression. So anti-Americanism, no matter how silly or inconsistent, flourishes unhindered. We see this perverse approach to American power and influence as simply another form of creative expression.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at robertfulford.com ...
Anti-Americanism in Canada wears a smiling face and considers itself both innocent and morally superior. But it has always seemed to me among the ugliest manifestations of the Canadian spirit, and a self-inflicted wound on our intellectual life. Last week, in the wake of the Sept. 11 atrocities, my readers offered new insights into it.
A piece I wrote for the National Post on Sept. 14, about Canadian anti-Americanism in the new context created by terrorism, attracted more e-mail than anything else I've written. Full of emotion, crammed with usually hidden resentments, these letters taught me several things about a subject I've studied for years.
First, I learned that many Canadians understand and dislike what one of them called "this most debilitating Canadian malaise" but have felt they either couldn't or shouldn't articulate their misgivings. A correspondent told me, "I have waited years to read something like this." I enjoyed the Montreal reader who called me a spoilsport because the heading on my piece said U.S.-bashing is no longer a game — as he wrote, "What other game do Toronto intellectuals know?" Another reader said I was sure to be hated by the Toronto intelligentsia and a third said it was "very brave of you as a member of the arts community to take such stands." That's generous, but inaccurate. We have not yet reached the point where we ostracize each other for our views.
Many Canadians are deeply conflicted on the United States, and in my observation these conflicts lead to an uneasy and almost shameful sense of envy. My acquaintances include hard-hitting anti-American nationalists who preach a powerful keep-out-the-barbarians rhetoric on cultural policy but nevertheless follow with orgasmic fervour the Toronto Blue Jays of the American League. There are journalists who could never have formed their styles without studying American predecessors yet feel they can and should condescend to American culture. A British Columbia man, upset about the lumber dispute, wrote to me that he dislikes Americans because they change the rules when things don't go their way. On the other hand, he and his wife plan in future to spend six months a year in San Diego.
I heard from many Americans living in Canada who understand this subject better than I ever will. They resent reflexive anti-Americanism but believe they should not disclose their feelings, as if to do so would mark them as ungrateful immigrants. Sept. 11 seems to have changed some of them. One wrote: "I have lived, by choice, in Canada since 1993. Frequently, I have felt the need to apologize for being born and raised American. Never again." I've been astonished by the number of Americans who feel they are objects of contempt. In private life, this runs deeper than even I suspected.
An American graduate student in Western Canada wrote to tell me of years spent dealing with anti-American prejudice. Educated Canadians often frame their comments as jokes but make it clear they are not really joking. After Sept. 11, a student asked her: "Don't you really think the Americans had it coming to them?" If her skin were not white, she says, this hostility would be obviously racist. "This week has been a very lonely week for an American in this country." Still, she believes she's not allowed to complain. She didn't want her name or university published.
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Robert Fulford in The National Post, September 22, 2001)
To Read This Article Click Here
Quote:
In recent decades, these distorted feelings about the United States have encouraged us to join their enemies in finding them intransigent or greedy. We have purposely not noticed how easygoing they have been on countless occasions. U.S. diplomats have shown prodigious tolerance for terrorists and have always been anxious to sit down and talk so that even the vilest killers can have one more chance to change into what international opinion calls "moderates." Last week, when Yasser Arafat, of all people, proclaimed himself the enemy of terrorism and gave blood to Americans for a photo opportunity, Americans were still so polite that (as far as I know) not one of them uttered a single bitter laugh in public.
But they are changing, under the influence of Sept. 11. They now find themselves called to a great and risky enterprise. As it happens, we Canadians share most of their values and much of their culture. For those reasons, and our proximity, we should be able to understand them better than anyone else and work with them to frustrate the nihilism being spread by a distorted form of Islam. Instead, we find ourselves limited in our response to the great world conflict of this era. We are at times nervous, cagey, scared, reluctant — and all because of this gaping self-inflicted wound, our thoughtless but pervasive anti-Americanism.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I rag on Canadians, ansd why I shall go on doing so as long as I perceive them to be crypto-enemies of the U.S.
You need to go buy a tinfoil hat buddy. Canada remains one of our closest allies, a few unfortunate statements notwithstanding. I live in NYC. People all over the country constantly disparage New Yorkers. Some go so far as to say they hate New York. Yet, when is really matters, like on 9/11, we all stand together. Canada did the same. We're family. Like Carrie Fisher said in Austin Powers "we may say we want to kill each other, but we don't really mean it." Thinken up your skin and be glad we don't have France as a northern neighbor.
Pfui!
Does President Bush and his administration look upon Chretien and company in the same way as they mighy someting disagreeable on the sole of their shoe because the Canadians are our closest allies?
Canadian politicians play the anti-American card for the same reason that Middle-Eastern satraps do, it sells with the home folks.
With friends like these...
If they were one of our closest allies they would be giving us more support.
We don't need their military but we could use their wholehearted diplomatic backing, and I haven't seen any sign of that.
The Canadians aren't our enemies, but they're not our best friends either.
RACIST??? What an utterly STUPID comment. Just because a comment is demeaning and insulting does NOT make it "racist".
Right around the time we kicked some more at Queenston ,Chateauguay and Chrysler's Farm. :)
btw, When Waterloo was fought, Canada was English, and the French Canadien had long since sworn his allegiance to England. Ever heard of Charles De Salaberry or his Régiment de Voltigeurs Canadiens ? The American army did. Didn't like it much.
And at the end of that very same day a significant number of Canadians, if they are being honest, will offer the opinion that the Islamofascists have other legitimate reasons for wanting us dead.
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