true patriot love, or something
It’s baby’s first Canada Day. Did you know when Canada Day was? Prior to arrival, I absolutely did not; I had to look it up when I saw it mentioned in the news. Canadian patriotism is a remarkably low-key thing, most of the time — at least, it’s low-key relative to the UK, where anyone even remotely left of centre knows that the St George’s Cross flag is abjectly unsalvageable for reasons of dogwhistle-based racism. Let us not even speak of the US. (I have been speaking of the US at length, and I’m not even there yet; today of all days I want to think about Canada instead.)
I went to a Canada Day party this evening, hence the photo of the very nice dog (her name is Lucca, and I would die for her). The thought of going to a St George’s Day party or similar in England would make my skin crawl a little bit. For readers not familiar with the intricate newspaper-based political behaviours of the UK: there’s a newspaper called the Daily Express, a populist right-leaning tabloid, which makes a point of including an image of St George with sword and shield in its branding. That’s who those symbols belong to now. Honestly, it’s kind of who they’ve belonged to for a while. I grew up knowing that the red cross on a white background meant either football or racism, or (for the real overachievers) both. All this to say I’ve been primed by my homeland to have a suspicious relationship to the idea of national identity, or even just a national flag.
(The UK doesn’t have a founding day, or an independence day, or anything to that effect — the Brexit contingent tried to make ‘independence day’ happen when we officially left the EU, but I’m pretty sure it’s not going to happen in the long term. We just have a legacy of empire and some badly-retold war stories, both of which have become foundational to current politics. Consider Harry Leslie Smith, actual World War II veteran, whose experience of the war and the period preceding it led him to act, in later life, as an unstinting critic of far-right populism and neoliberalism both. Compare and contrast the middle-aged right-wing yearning for the glory days of Britain’s wartime heroism, exclusively from people who did not live through it. But I am getting off my point.)
I’ve been paying attention to the populist movement for ‘freedom’ here in Canada, though it puts me on edge in a way that feels terribly familiar. I’m not Canadian; I don’t feel equipped to litigate these assholes, though I do feel confident in saying that they are assholes. What’s been most interesting to me has been the discussion of the meaning of the Canadian flag, which has arisen as a result of the populists’ obvious enthusiasm for it as a symbol of their cause.
Specifically, many Canadians seem certain that the flag can be reclaimed for good — that the populists are tarnishing its image around the world — that it has, in fact, an image around the world that can be tarnished.
This isn’t just white Canadians, either. One of the people quoted in the article I linked is a Lebanese immigrant, who draws a distinction between ‘true Canadian patriots’ and people like the populists currently marching for a second time on Ottawa. And like — I guess that’s more viable here than it would be in the UK. Canada’s reputation, globally, is better than England’s (whether that’s deserved is absolutely not for me to say). It’s seen as friendlier, more progressive, more welcoming. But it takes some serious mental stretching for me to accept, even hypothetically, that patriotism could signify anything open or kind.
It’s wild to me, in particular, because of an issue that is not remotely a factor in England — Canada’s treatment of Indigenous people. Many of you are reading this from England; you probably know about this in the abstract, up to a point. But here, Canada’s colonisation and genocide of the people who lived here first is a day-to-day concern. People generally know the territory their town or city is built on; Halifax, for example, is on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people, who knew it as K’jipuktuk before Canada existed. Land acknowledgements, as a way to recognise historical wrongs (or, when done poorly, as a gesture toward reconciliation with very little substance behind it), are not universal, but they are common. Isaac and I visited the Citadel when he was here, and we walked through an entire museum exhibit dedicated to the early occupation of Mi’kmaw. Speaking very broadly, people know at least a bit about this stuff. It’s an uneasy fact of living in a nation founded on colonialism.
It is not beyond me that the populists, at least in part, are likely pushing back against the responsibility many Canadians seem to feel for their country’s settler-colonial past and present. Freedom from the yoke of history and national guilt; freedom to be Canadian, for a very narrow definition of ‘Canadian.’ That’s a brand of patriotism that is, as I said, grimly familiar to me. But it’s still new here, hence the uncertainty about what the flag has come to signify now. I explained my qualms about flags in England to the new friend who drove me home tonight, and they were fascinated — but none of what I described was familiar to them.
I am here on a working holiday. For tax purposes I’m pretty sure I’m a non-resident. You would be within your rights to ask why I am taking all this so seriously, when I could instead be travelling around and having a good time.
The answer is… I take everything seriously, sorry! I am afraid I am just like this. If you thought I would suddenly discover the ability to breeze past the complicated shit thanks to being in a new country, you thought extremely wrong; if anything, I think I’ve gotten worse.
Also, like, I would feel a responsibility to not be a complacent jerk in any new country. The whole point of travelling is to open yourself to new ideas and experiences, right? But that is mainly just an outgrowth of the first answer, which is ‘sorry, gang, you bought into all of this when you subscribed to my newsletter.’
Happier news (I’m thinking ‘happier news’ needs to be a recurring segment in here): the Canada Day party was lovely, and I have made some wonderful new friends! I tried moon mist ice cream, which is deranged and which despite myself I kind of enjoyed. I have received my provincial ID card, which I acquired mainly for long-term practical purposes (for instance, having to relinquish my passport in Montreal for visa acquisition and then somehow get back from Montreal to Halifax) but which is also a really nice symbol of, I guess, Having Arrived. I relinquished the edited second draft of my manuscript to my agent earlier this week, which is a great personal triumph and I need you all to cross your fingers for me, please. Yesterday I walked to the waterfront and a baby smiled at me — twice, so I know it wasn’t an accident. It’s actually been a pretty stressful few weeks, but a lot of good has come out of them. Also I thought about flags a lot, I guess.