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| Tommy Douglas ~Two races share today the soil of Canada. These people had not always been friends. But I hasten to say it. There is no longer any family here but the human family. It matters not the language people speak, or the altars at which they kneel.~ Wilfrid Laurier |
First things first. You need to know, dear reader, that I have a lot to say in this blog entry. If you get confused, or my writing is too passionate to understand, let me summarize;
1) - Book Burning can be ignorant and inspiring all at the same time
2) - Some people should either be given space to write a properly thought out column in the Globe and Mail, or not be published at all
3) - Canadians need to get off their bacon-fat, maple-syrupy rumps and vote not for the status quo, but for what is right (you know right - located precisely deep down in that hollow space somewhere between your stomach and transverse colon).
I have this terrible habit of having conversations with my colleague's while leaning on their door frames, my arms and legs casually crossed. As annoying as my posture must be, when I'm standing like that, often with a cup of tea in hand, I'm paying that colleague a great compliment. My body language is saying, "Tell me more."
Monday morning I had one such conversation with the chaplain who is fortunate enough to have her office located just next to my own. I'm sure you can imagine her unbridled joy at my constant, verbal run-off. We had a great conversation about our weekends (ok, my weekend), baking, films, art, and finally, the hot topic of the week, especially for students of religious studies; the proposed Koran burning in Florida.
Florida says it all folks. In my opinion the iconic state of overindulgence, consumerism and all things lacking significant thought. Please note the overwhelming presence there of men sporting white pants and white loafers. Ignorant arrogance flaunted in it's highest form. Enough said.
Our Monday morning conversation, and the conversations that I shared during the weekend evolved into conversations about what it means to be Canadian. The conversations were not so much about Terry Jones the book burning nutso, but what ding-dongs like him can inspire in us - the democratic voting public. I believe if we separate the emotion of religion from the logic of politics, our political conversations can be inspiring and dare I say futuristically ground breaking.
Historically our great country is in that awkward stage akin to puberty. We've been around long enough to have our own ideas, but we're hesitant to give up the safety of our tested and true politics. Thats exactly what we need to do in order to break away enough to craft the political future of our dreams. It's often the zealots like Jones who say out loud what the bubba's of our nation are silently thinking. In this case it has inspired anyone with a stitch of logical thought to speak up and out. Sometimes we need the Terry Jones's to irritate our apathetic selves into action.
Historically our great country is in that awkward stage akin to puberty. We've been around long enough to have our own ideas, but we're hesitant to give up the safety of our tested and true politics. Thats exactly what we need to do in order to break away enough to craft the political future of our dreams. It's often the zealots like Jones who say out loud what the bubba's of our nation are silently thinking. In this case it has inspired anyone with a stitch of logical thought to speak up and out. Sometimes we need the Terry Jones's to irritate our apathetic selves into action.
Since I've been old enough to vote, our politicians have done a great job of just pushing the envelope enough to cheese us off, but not enough for our courteous and apathetic nation of voters to protest. No wonder the number of people inspired to come out of their nice cozy-wozy over-priced, over-sized, over-mortgaged homes is plummeting like a paper plane in detention room. Canada has always been blah blue or retisent red. Liberal or Conservative - go ahead, live on the edge, flip a coin. Face it -we're stuck.
Currently Canada is poised on the global high diving board with an opportunity to either dazzle everyone, or make a big, humiliating splash.
You all know by now that I love my Saturday Globe and Mail. I start light in the Life Style section and work my way into the heavier, more thought provoking Cover and Focus sections. One column that I generally skip is Leah McLaren's. This week her column, "Man, don't feel like a womyn", held my attention until the very end.
I, like McLaren also attended university when women's studies were not just trendy, but a mandatory part of most liberal arts credits. In the end, McLaren gives a piece of advice that students should, "Steer clear of trendy men's studies courses and stick with the classics. You'll learn more about men and women in one Shakespearean sonnet than you will in a whole feminist-theory program put together."
Upon graduation I vowed I would never again use the phrase "patriarchal society", but I also carried with me a vision for the future that included considering all points of view.
Skip to F3....Drew Hayden Taylor's column, "If you really must torch scriptures, why not start with the Bible?", and Stephen Marche's, "When words go up in flames". Both writers comment about the proposed Koran burning which was inspired by the proposal to build a mosque near ground zero in New York city.
Skip McLaren and Hayden. Unless the Globe gives McLaren more space to expound on why we don't need men's studies (like for instance we've been studying history written by men for the last, oh, say, 3 000 years), it's not worth the read. This subject deserves way more discussion, and even that snarky little bit I just put in parenthesis can be argued based on the effect of the women's movement during the past century.
And pul-eaze, Tayor's further example of taking two religions and pitting them against one another like Ali and Foreman takes us back to the Kindergarten of our existence as a civilization here in the western world. Note here that this is not a comment on the state of aboriginal affairs - it's a statement saying we're in way deeper than figuring out how to separate two bullies on the schoolyard. We have a brawl here people. We need more sophisticated systems for peaceable, equal living. Burying our heads in the classics as McLaren suggests or pitting two out of countless viewpoints against another are poorly thought out solutions to any problem.
Pitting one thing against another, in this case Christianity and Islam, or Christianity and Native Spirituality only inflates the ego of the other. What I'm suggesting is a more inclusive discussion about how,as Canadians we are going to maintain the political stability of secular politics as our population changes to include more and more new citizens from politically less stable countries.
What I suggest as a first step is that in a very un-Canadian way we wallow in the pride we've worked hard for. Don't get me wrong, I'm not waving a flag in pride over the Japanese interment, the horror of our history for Native Americans, or the type of what I like to call, "cock-rubbing" politics we've allowed our parliament to fall into (watch any debate in our legislatures). I'm talking about taking pride in being able to speak freely, build a church or mosque, or temple, or sweat lodge without fear someone's going to take our lives for our faith. We need to take a more obvious pride in the health care provision that's quietly being taken away from us like a toddler being weened from their blankie and give a big yank back on that blankie.
What I suggest as a first step is that in a very un-Canadian way we wallow in the pride we've worked hard for. Don't get me wrong, I'm not waving a flag in pride over the Japanese interment, the horror of our history for Native Americans, or the type of what I like to call, "cock-rubbing" politics we've allowed our parliament to fall into (watch any debate in our legislatures). I'm talking about taking pride in being able to speak freely, build a church or mosque, or temple, or sweat lodge without fear someone's going to take our lives for our faith. We need to take a more obvious pride in the health care provision that's quietly being taken away from us like a toddler being weened from their blankie and give a big yank back on that blankie.
Listening to City of Toronto mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi talk about his tunnel/traffic idea, I have a feeling we're in for a big disappointment during the next set of elections. It's our opportunity. We either dream big now, beyond the centuries old automobile and tunnels to an effective, green-clean-mass-transit-future or get gobbled up in the big compost pile of global, "cock-rubbing", wag-the-dog, Charlie-Wilson's-War, you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours politics.
We don't need liberals or conservatives, bloc-quebecois, or even the I-went-out-of-date-in-the-eighties, waffling NDP party. We need Gandhi's and Mandela's, and maybe even a great Canadian Tommy Douglas again. Stand up. Be proud, and whatever you do, don't fall for this fear-mongering "throw-your-vote-away" crap. Vote like you're in your grade 12 social issues class. Vote from that space deep down just between your stomach and your transverse colon.
