Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Canada Day, Canoes and Cons

I am not a flag-waving patriot by any stretch (one day and very, very many drinks at the Maple Leaf in Covent Garden notwithstanding). I don’t hold one person’s nation above another, and borders, I feel, are ultimately meaningless as we humans are fundamentally, uh, human. That said I am very fond of Canada. My affection for this country develops from travelling and working the length and breadth of it, as well the impressions gleaned from others in far off parts of the world. We are a tolerant and peaceful society, and for the most part, have a good thing going here. So with that in mind, and given the pro patria theme of this blog, I’m going to take a minute to share some of my thoughts on this past Canada Day.

This Day is something I don’t think the likes of Stephen or any of his partisan goons could ever really appreciate. On the evening of 1 July, I found myself in the Manitoba wilderness, sitting atop of piece of glacier-ground pink and grey granite, overlooking a vast stretch of Canadian Shield, above a fast moving set of Class II and III rapids. The mosquitoes were naturally thick enough to impair breathing, but a combination of being camped on a slightly breezy high feature and a hot fire kept almost enough of them at bay.

As ground level darkness grew with the sinking sun, leaving only the iridescent faint blue in the high-sky, we could see fireworks from a town on the far horizon; soon complimented by our own, like new-age beacons. And turning our heads, on the opposite horizon, a burnt orange moon, very full and amplified by the atmospheric lens slowly rose.

Here also in our small paddling party, were two very happy individuals who until a short time ago, had spent the majority of their lives as camp-bound refugees, driven from their homeland by a zealous military government intolerant of ethnic minorities. Much of their lives had consisted of poverty and fear. One has a disfiguring grenade injury received in childhood. This was their first taste of wilderness Canada and you couldn’t wipe the grins from their faces if you tried.

In the wilderness, there is no politics. There is nothing but trees, rocks, water, and the myriad creatures that inhabit them – minus the pickerel that clearly had better things to do than hang around my casts. Here I tend to go into a sort of trance. My under-used muscles burn with each paddle stroke but the trees and water calm the mind and block the pain. You forget yourself; the city is far way. Even the pouring rain can’t break the séance. This is the closest thing to a religion that I subscribe to now. Standing on ancient rock under a prehistoric night sky, life seems pretty ephemeral, but also much more sanguine: knowing things are temporary is comforting. Trudeau says it much better.
In the same essay Trudeau also demonstrates an understanding of patriotism that our current first minister so clearly does not:
I know a man whose school could never teach him patriotism, but who acquired that virtue when he felt in his bones the vastness of his land, and the greatness of those who founded it.

I suspect individuals like Stephen Harper are at heart, neutral creatures. They do not [cannot?] comprehend the almost numinous connection some of us can feel for the places we inhabit. They attain position to satisfy their own personal fetishes for power and control. They operate in the detached and technical realm. The mechanisms of government, I believe, are nothing more than vehicles for their egos. Canada Day, like their hobby wars and other people’s lives, is another opportunity to spin for personal-party interest. You could insert these people into any situation and they would use it the same way. They epitomise the most nefarious aspects of their lodestar of individual self-interest. To call them sociopaths, I think, would not be far wrong.

So Mr. Harper can have his Canada Day, parading around on his little blue stage on the hill by the river, in front of that building of ancient stone, once inhabited by wiser persons than he - for now. But we are fortunate he does not remember the slave’s words: "Respice post te! Hominem te esse memento!" His time will pass. The people and the land is the Canada that remains.

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