With Glowing Hearts?
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It was heartening for a long-time Canadian nationalist like myself to see such an outpouring of national feeling during the recent Olympic Games in Vancouver. It is of course ironic that an event touted to bring the world together in brother/sisterhood under the interwoven rings of the omniscient IOC quickly devolves into flag waving, competing anthems and national medal tallies. Canadians proved that they could chest thump with the best of them, particularly after the medal haul became respectable.
But what kind of nationalism was it? Flag waving and anthem singing to be sure. (I have always secretly wished that we had a better tune, and I personally elide “all thy sons command” and skip Trudeau’s intrusion of “God keep our land.” Notably, our "national" anthem has different words in French.) For those of us old enough to remember earlier Olympics, when a single gold medal seemed a miracle, and we hung our heads at the superior accomplishments of Finns, Norwegians, Austrians, Swiss and Swedes, there was as much relief as pride as our athletes collected another gold in some sport most of us did not even know existed.
The opening ceremonies expressed something of the diverse feelings Canadians have of themselves, with a nod to the First Nations and to our geographic diversity. They missed expressing much of our cultural diversity, though, and inexplicably left out at least half of our history, with little reference to Quebec—while we puzzled over that boy or girl trapezing endlessly over virtual wheat fields. Here in Edmonton I was at pains to explain that there was NOT too much French—it is actually the lingua franca of the Olympic movement. (Has anyone since Diefenbaker made a worse stab at a few French words than Furlong?) They will be speaking it in Russia too (heads still shaking for the poor Russians having French “rammed down their throats”.) Thus my concern that simple flag waiving papers over the deep fractures that prevent Canadians from experiencing a deeper sense of community. (For the measure of the "Olympic effect" on national pride, see the survey conducted by The Historica-Dominion Institute.)
The Olympic organizers can’t be blamed, though, since it would seem pretty didactic to trot out all the required ethnicities. The fact is that our nation has a long history of pluralism and deeply divided opinions about identity, each with its own narrative. At least two of these ideologies, Aboriginal and French, have very strong separatist strains. Others have an acidic strain of regional resentment.
The prevailing ideology of multiculturalism is deeply contradictory, not least for those of mixed race. Andrew Chung, with a Chinese father and a mother from Newfoundland, has written of the difficulties of fitting in with either race. “I have never been the same as most everyone else, never accepted as white nor truly as Asian,” he writes. Chung argues that the official policy of multiculturalism, so exploited by politicians, actually encourages immigrants to live in clearly defined enclaves within Canada.
Is this why we are so relieved to have an opportunity to wave that maple leaf together when we can? To place such significance in a hockey game? It is not that silly. We did invent hockey and we dominated it for a long while and much of the rest of the northern world have embraced it as well. Our young men and women, from Halifax, Montreal, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Regina, London, Thunder Bay, Sorel, Sicamous and places beyond, played together, and they had to beat the Americans. (Would we have been such poor losers as they turned out to be?) Anyone who denies that a big part of being “Canadian” is not being American simply does not understand our history. (We are glad to be “not British” either, a fact that seems still to inflame the British press against we former colonials!)
One disturbing (and ineffectual) aspect of the closing ceremonies was that unfortunate trotting out of expatriates who made their lives in show business in the United States but took time out to come back and tell us that they still loved us. With all the incredible Canadian talent on display—who indeed could match the unique and diverse talents of Neil Young, k.d. lang, Avril Lavigne, Garou, Michael Boublé, Alanis Morrisette, Nikki Yanofsky, Nellie Furtado, Brian Adams, Ben Heppner, Measha Brueggergosman, Nickleback, and it goes on—the organizers still thought that we are insecure enough that we needed to be validated by aging expats.
Canada was long simply a stop-over for many immigrants on their way to the United States, and this was perhaps one source of our insecurity—that we are second prize. There are in every generation many Canadians for whom Canada is too small for their ambitions. They need to prove that they can make it on the big stage. This is natural in show business, there being very little opportunity in Canada. It is a bit more problematic in politics. Our aspiring Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff, is still struggling to establish his Canadian bona fides. In his recent book True Patriot Love he writes that, although he spent most of his adult life living outside the country, at least his impressive family qualifies him as 100 percent Canuck. As Daniel Francis writes in his review in Geist magazine, “It is an unusual approach to politics: if you can’t vote for me, vote for my relatives.”
Ingatieff’s uncle, George Grant, did stay home and his book, Lament for a Nation pretty much blamed the Liberal Party for destroying any chance of a distinct Canadian identity. I edited the second edition of that book at McClelland & Stewart and was profoundly affected by its pessimism, by the idea that we could have been so much more. If we mean by nationalism waving flags at sporting events, then Vancouver proved that it is still alive. If we mean political and economic independence and above all a distinct culture with some immunity to the entertainment imperatives of our neighbours, I am not so sure.
As Hillmer and Chapnick write in the introduction to their book Canadas of the Mind, “there is a strong tendency to regard Canada as an experiment with its destiny still to work out….The Canadas of the mind habitually reside in the future.” Let’s hope so. James Marsh
But what kind of nationalism was it? Flag waving and anthem singing to be sure. (I have always secretly wished that we had a better tune, and I personally elide “all thy sons command” and skip Trudeau’s intrusion of “God keep our land.” Notably, our "national" anthem has different words in French.) For those of us old enough to remember earlier Olympics, when a single gold medal seemed a miracle, and we hung our heads at the superior accomplishments of Finns, Norwegians, Austrians, Swiss and Swedes, there was as much relief as pride as our athletes collected another gold in some sport most of us did not even know existed.
The opening ceremonies expressed something of the diverse feelings Canadians have of themselves, with a nod to the First Nations and to our geographic diversity. They missed expressing much of our cultural diversity, though, and inexplicably left out at least half of our history, with little reference to Quebec—while we puzzled over that boy or girl trapezing endlessly over virtual wheat fields. Here in Edmonton I was at pains to explain that there was NOT too much French—it is actually the lingua franca of the Olympic movement. (Has anyone since Diefenbaker made a worse stab at a few French words than Furlong?) They will be speaking it in Russia too (heads still shaking for the poor Russians having French “rammed down their throats”.) Thus my concern that simple flag waiving papers over the deep fractures that prevent Canadians from experiencing a deeper sense of community. (For the measure of the "Olympic effect" on national pride, see the survey conducted by The Historica-Dominion Institute.)
The Olympic organizers can’t be blamed, though, since it would seem pretty didactic to trot out all the required ethnicities. The fact is that our nation has a long history of pluralism and deeply divided opinions about identity, each with its own narrative. At least two of these ideologies, Aboriginal and French, have very strong separatist strains. Others have an acidic strain of regional resentment.
The prevailing ideology of multiculturalism is deeply contradictory, not least for those of mixed race. Andrew Chung, with a Chinese father and a mother from Newfoundland, has written of the difficulties of fitting in with either race. “I have never been the same as most everyone else, never accepted as white nor truly as Asian,” he writes. Chung argues that the official policy of multiculturalism, so exploited by politicians, actually encourages immigrants to live in clearly defined enclaves within Canada.
Is this why we are so relieved to have an opportunity to wave that maple leaf together when we can? To place such significance in a hockey game? It is not that silly. We did invent hockey and we dominated it for a long while and much of the rest of the northern world have embraced it as well. Our young men and women, from Halifax, Montreal, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Regina, London, Thunder Bay, Sorel, Sicamous and places beyond, played together, and they had to beat the Americans. (Would we have been such poor losers as they turned out to be?) Anyone who denies that a big part of being “Canadian” is not being American simply does not understand our history. (We are glad to be “not British” either, a fact that seems still to inflame the British press against we former colonials!)
One disturbing (and ineffectual) aspect of the closing ceremonies was that unfortunate trotting out of expatriates who made their lives in show business in the United States but took time out to come back and tell us that they still loved us. With all the incredible Canadian talent on display—who indeed could match the unique and diverse talents of Neil Young, k.d. lang, Avril Lavigne, Garou, Michael Boublé, Alanis Morrisette, Nikki Yanofsky, Nellie Furtado, Brian Adams, Ben Heppner, Measha Brueggergosman, Nickleback, and it goes on—the organizers still thought that we are insecure enough that we needed to be validated by aging expats.
Canada was long simply a stop-over for many immigrants on their way to the United States, and this was perhaps one source of our insecurity—that we are second prize. There are in every generation many Canadians for whom Canada is too small for their ambitions. They need to prove that they can make it on the big stage. This is natural in show business, there being very little opportunity in Canada. It is a bit more problematic in politics. Our aspiring Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff, is still struggling to establish his Canadian bona fides. In his recent book True Patriot Love he writes that, although he spent most of his adult life living outside the country, at least his impressive family qualifies him as 100 percent Canuck. As Daniel Francis writes in his review in Geist magazine, “It is an unusual approach to politics: if you can’t vote for me, vote for my relatives.”
Ingatieff’s uncle, George Grant, did stay home and his book, Lament for a Nation pretty much blamed the Liberal Party for destroying any chance of a distinct Canadian identity. I edited the second edition of that book at McClelland & Stewart and was profoundly affected by its pessimism, by the idea that we could have been so much more. If we mean by nationalism waving flags at sporting events, then Vancouver proved that it is still alive. If we mean political and economic independence and above all a distinct culture with some immunity to the entertainment imperatives of our neighbours, I am not so sure.
As Hillmer and Chapnick write in the introduction to their book Canadas of the Mind, “there is a strong tendency to regard Canada as an experiment with its destiny still to work out….The Canadas of the mind habitually reside in the future.” Let’s hope so. James Marsh
Comments
Before we define our nationalism, we may pause to (try to) define our nation. The general understanding of nationhood suggests that a nation is based on commonality. In the European construction of nationhood, that commonality historically is language. Other ideas of nationhood suggest race or religion as the common bond. None of these satisfactorily defines Canada as a nation. In fact, in the long view of human history, the idea of nationhood is fairly new. There were no “nations” in classical antiquity; there were republics, kingdoms, confederations and empires, even collections of clans that formed alliances. But there were no nations in the sense of a territory inhabited by people with a communal bond and who maintained economic and political independence.
Ernest Renan suggested in 1882 that nation is formed by the act of forgetting parts of the past on the part of a group with much in common: “l’essence d'une nation est que tons les individus aient beaucoup de choses en commun, et aussi que tous aient oublié bien des choses.” Although this definition rests on commonality, it does not provide a satisfactory definition of nationalism in a country as young as Canada.
Benedict Anderson wrote in 1983 that nations, or communities, are imagined, because we can never know all the people in our nation and yet in our minds we hold the idea of a communion with our fellow members. But in Canada, this is problematic; Canada has, as James asserts, “a long history of pluralism and deeply divided opinions about identity, each with its own narrative.” Canada, through diversity and multiculturalism, is redefining nationhood. We are more than a single common heritage, to borrow from slam poet Shane Koyczan’s stirring welcome at the Vancouver Olympics. We do not, and cannot, have a distinctive identity, a single concept of nation or nationality because there is no single way to be Canadian. And if we were to define some single vision of nationalism, what would it be? Let’s hope not American style jingoism!
In this cultural mosaic, there is no single way to experience that “glowing heart” feeling; we each bring our own background to the moment. What the flag-waving and anthem singing of the Vancouver Olympics displayed is the essence of nationhood, a spiritual principle, as Ernest Renan described it, that shows that Canadians have a common “rich legacy of memories” and a “present-day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of [our] heritage.”
Canada is a young country with “its destiny still to work out.” In the midst of our excitement at this recent communal show of national pride, we should remember what American statesman Adlai E. Stevenson said: “Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.”