Posted on 10/28/2005 3:00:35 PM PDT by Fair Go
The Sickness of Canadian Anti-Americanism By Jamie Glazov FrontPageMagazine.com | March 7, 2003
Canadian anti-Americanism has always been a perfect reflection of the pathological nature of anti-Americanism as a whole. Indeed, in Canada, where I am a citizen and have grown up most of my life, anti-Americanism has literally defined the national identity and culture of this country – and in the most repulsive and embarrassing ways.
Today, Canadian anti-Americanism is preventing our present Liberal government from giving full-hearted support to the U.S. against Saddam Hussein. The Canadian leadership would rather exhibit its “independence” of the Americans than to confront a brutal dictator who equals Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot in their monstrosity.
This reality explains why Mark Kingwell’s recent column “What distinguishes us from Americans,” in Canada’s national newspaper, the National Post, infuriated me as immensely as it did.
Kingwell defends the reality that much of Canadian identity has been built on Canada defining itself in opposition to the United States. He writes, “I have never understood why this is considered inadequate or feeble. If you were the only dissenter in a room holding a dozen people, standing up and saying `I’m not the same as you’ would be a clear mark of moral courage.”
Really?
Suppose this scenario occurs during the Second World War and the other eleven people want to stop Hitler in his tracks and to prevent the Nazification of the world and the mass genocide of Jews. Would exhibiting your “independence” for the sake of fulfilling your little-brother complex be a mark of “moral courage”?
Many Canadian nationalists think so.
The analogy I use above perfectly suits the embarrassing and immoral behaviour of Canadian nationalists throughout the Cold War, especially under the leadership of Pierre Trudeau, when anti-Americanism was seen as being more cutting-edge than confronting and fighting the genocidal Soviet regime.
This psychic illness is founded on Canada’s desperate desire to be “different” than the Americans -- a result of Canada being built on the “counter-revolution.” When the British colonies revolted against their masters in 1776, Canadians became the first anti-Americans. Canada is based on anti-Americanism. Without anti-Americanism -- as one author has quipped -- Canada would cease to exist.
While Kingwell conspicuously avoids the issue of how bearing the mark of “moral courage” translated into many Canadian nationalists engaging in Gulag denial during the Cold War, the historical record stands firmly in place: the Soviet regime was an expansionist and totalitarian regime that exterminated millions of its own people. Consequently, as the de-classified documents from the Soviet archives now prove, the Canadian nationalists who demonized the United States, and exonerated the Soviet Union, in the Cold War, for the sake of anti-Americanism, were completely wrong.
Yet no apologies are forthcoming.
But at least we now understand why Canadian “nationalist” writers and historians, such as John Warnock, Donald Creighton, and James Minifie, wrote interpretations and histories about the Cold War that demonized the U.S. and left names such as Joseph Stalin in the footnotes.
As a Russian émigré, I am not humoured by Kingwell’s assault on historical memory; I am not humoured by Gulag denial just as a Jewish person wouldn’t be humoured by Holocaust denial.
While I was engaged in my doctoral studies in history at York University in Toronto, I would confront many of my colleagues about this issue. Why, I asked them, were they reluctant to face the errors of Canadian nationalists vis-à-vis the Cold War? Were they not aware of how the documents from the former Soviet archives were discrediting almost everything Canadian nationalists had said about the Cold War? My colleagues’ favourite response was to shrug their shoulders and to dismiss my arguments as being too “hung up” on “the past.” The Cold War “was over,” they told me, and it was silly to chase down “old ghosts”. My “obsession” with the Soviet archives, they patiently explained to me, was analogous to “necrophilia.” And these were historians.
The only historical necrophilia they supported, it seems, was the variety that found more sins of American foreign policy and capitalism -- not of socialism.
Kingwell thinks it is a badge of “moral courage” to stand up to the Americans. How about during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, when Prime Minister John Diefenbaker refused to put Canadian forces on an increased level of alert (Defcon 3) in order to show that he wouldn’t be “pushed around” by President John Kennedy? Since Canada had a bilateral defence alliance with the United States for the defence of the North American continent, Diefenbaker’s inaction left an enormous gap in continental defence.
There is nothing “moral” about Canadian anti-Americanism. And nothing logical either. I have always found it humorous how Canadians look down at Americans for loving themselves “too much”, but how they simultaneously swell with a distorted form of patriotic pride at being unlike and better than Americans. Canadian nationalists also always pride themselves on their politically-correct tolerance and "multi-culturalism" while engaging in anti-Americanism -- a disposition, as sociologist Paul Hollander has demonstrated, that is directly related with racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism.
In Canada, of course, it has always been legitimate to be a bigot, as long as it involves hating Americans.
Kingwell refers to how little Americans know about us. He explains that “American ignorance is a staple of our richly ironic strain of humour.” Really? I never found anything slightly “rich” in this humour at all. Growing up in Canada, I was always greatly entertained by the endless and smug complaining about how "stupid" Americans are because of their ignorance about Canada. Let’s be serious: why would Americans in Los Angeles and New York City need to know anything about Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, or about anything else Canadian?
Kingwell ends his essay by saying that Canadians sometimes wish the U.S. “had a little more of what makes us great.” Uh, sorry, but a little bit more of what exactly? Perhaps, instead, it would be wiser for us to focus on giving up on clinging to the ingredients of our “moral courage”, which includes the joke of bilingualism – English Canada’s last pretence of possessing any unique characteristics whatsoever. Let’s admit it, without bilingualism, English Canadians would no longer be able to say, "We’re not like those Americans," without someone else rejoining: "Oh? And how is that?" And there will be no answer, because there will be nothing to say.
If we just manage to get over our little brother complex, then maybe we will also one day no longer have to victimize ourselves with those torturous and emotionally-excruciating conversations about Margaret Atwood and Pierre Berton, in which so many Canadians attempt to show their un-American stripes by discussing novels that no human being outside of Canada has ever heard of, nor would ever read under sane circumstances. And we would also be liberated from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, an entity that it takes masochism to tune into, and that wouldn’t survive five minutes if its life depended on the tastes and desires of Canadians themselves.
Indeed, if we purged ourselves of Kingwell’s mark of "moral courage", Canada’s celebration of mediocrity and, more importantly, its exoneration of evil regimes and mass murderers around the world, would finally come to its long-awaited conclusion.
He may have done his homework, but he's turning it in a little late. This is over 2 years old.
Still relevant. The problem still exits, still festers.
Too true.
Interesting point. I remember reading about 1/3 of the colonists were Loyalist. Most of them them left after the Revolution and they didn't all go back to England.
Indeed the first Canadians, apart from the French from what's called Lower Canada later (now Quebec), are the Loyalist Americans who remained loyal to the Crown in 1776. If I remember correctly, after 1783 most moved north to British North America and only a few returned to Britain.
Even today, their descendents still yield tremendous influence in political and cultural influence, particularly in Ontario. If you visit places like Kingston, Peterborough, Waterloo, Toronto, London, they have lots of monuments to the United Empire Loyalists. This is why Ontario on one hand is fiercely socialist (it is un-American), and on the otehr hand has the most sentimental attachment to the monarchy as the head of state of Canada (it is once again un-American to have a monarch as your HOS).
Wasn't the Royal American Regiment based in Ontario? What is it exactly?
Seems like the author of the article, who incidentally was a very well educated university professor, has really a raw nerve.
Having served in the Canadian Armed forces in my youger days, I get really pissed off at articles which intentionally try to destroy Canada, North America and the relationship between Canada and the U.S.
I'm always astonished at the apparent ignorance of so many of our friends that they would even give this sort of pure unadulterated horseshit any airtime.
You really have to wonder what motivates people who write this stuff and those who pass it on...
And, yes, it totally pisses me off.
It may offend you but the fact of the matter is the person who wrote the article was very well educated and informed. There can be no denying that the phenomenon exists. I am sure the insurgents in Iraq and elsewhere take great comfort from anti-Americanism in Canada and elsewhere in the world.
I'm sure the elitist highly educated University professor cannot be wrong...
I have met thousands of "ordinary" Canadians in my day and I come from a very large family (BTW, all highly educated as well) and the Canada and Canadian attitude described by the author are alien to us.
It's somewhat discouraging to see the level of ignorance.
I, like many, many Canadians donated generously to the U.S. victims of Katrina.
Why do you not see articles which report the fact that Canadians donated far more to their rich neighbour south of the border than to the victims of far worse disasters in Pakistan or Africa, eh?? Probably just another manifestation of our anti-Ameicanism, eh??
But believe what you want - continue to repeat the lies which could eventually result in the self-fullfilled prophecy where Canadians and Americans dislike each other.
I just don't get it...
I wonder if Glazov didn't get an unusually intense dose of anti-Americanism thanks to his being a professor and moving in those circles.
American university professors are anti-American enough. Just imagine what a Canadian university professor must be like.
If I were you, I would probably worry about your own nation itself less it implodes in a decade rather than worrying about other people blackmouthing Canada.
Did you read a survey two months ago saying that 1/3 of Canadians from BC to Manitoba want to consider secede from Canada and form a new country? I predict by this time in 2015 Canada will just be Ontario and the Maritimes and the rest will have left the confederation. The alienation is ideological - sick and tired of the ideological orthodoxy shoven down the throat by the "central English Canadians" on the part of the West. When Western Canada separates, I predict Australia will welcome them with open arms.
I think the PEW international poll of attitudes towards America and Americans, show that Canadians (a solid majority) view Americans more positively than any other country (except Poland and India - both for obvious political reasons).
Those who believe that are smoking dope.
There's as much chance of that as some of the southern U.S. States returning to Mother Mexico when they become predominantly spanish speaking.
Why? PHD generally means piled higher and deeper.
Read several of Glazov's articles before you give him much credit . In one he threatens to leave Canada , his bags he claims are packed , yet he's still here . If conditions in Canada and Canadian nationalists bother him that much , why is he still here ? This is not the land of his birth , what's keeping him from leaving ?
In a two parter he extolls the value of not being circumcised What can I say , maybe Russians have less to lose .
This article is well past two years old , full of generalities to the point one could write a book disputing them . If one cared . So what if Canadians are accused of having an anti American streak ? History will tell you we've only been invaded by the US 4 times , with at least 10 different armies . Maybe there's a reason we choose not to be American . The only county we've ever invaded was Germany .
Oh , I forgot , Russia too . But only once.
As a Canadian , why some one takes the time to hunt up such an article ,( it was posted on FD before), is beyond me. They need a life.
Thanks dude.
Nice to see another Canadian chime in on this.
Until you're post, it was ironic that I was exposed to more anti-Canadian sentiment in this thread than the total cumulative anti-American sentiments I've ever heard expressed in the past 55 years by Canadians..
Go figure, eh?
Someone or some parties are obviously preying on the ignorant in an effort to disrupt our relations with our American neighbours...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.