Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies
For Canadian Eyes Only!
Welcome. Of course, non-Canadians may look too!
The Rockies look good at this time of the year, don't they?
The Citizen in a Democratic Nation
Democratic citizenship is not a benefit bestowed on a person by a government. It is the choice by a person to become part of a society. It is the acceptance by a person to live in a society according to the traditional self-imposed rules of conduct of that society. A person born into a society still has the choice of whether to be a citizen or not. He can emigrate, or he can commit a crime and lose citizenship rights.
If Canada is to be a nation we must define what nation, nationality, and nationalism mean to us.
The essential meaning of 'nation' is people born and living permanently within accepted boundaries'. This definition has been weakened by historic population movements. People of different nationalities and races, after a generation, become nationals of a country by birth. This has been a natural method of nation-building. It has not been without problems. Visible differences, usually of skin colour or facial shape, but also of a non-permanent nature, such as clothing, single out some people as not being 'original' nationals. Racial prejudice is the easiest of vices to develop - and the most harmful to a nation.
How does a nation become a nation? How can Canada become one? The writer is most familiar with the history of the country of his birth, Scotland. We can compare Canada with Scotland and take stock of the parallels and differences.
Scotland, like Canada, has a southern border with a much larger, more powerful neighbour. Like Canada, Scotland's borders are well defined by the sea. Scotland is a mixture of very different peoples that took many hundreds of years to become 'Scottish', that indefinable element that other people recognise as 'nationality'. In Canada we are still not sure what makes us 'Canadian'. It may take a few hundred years of learning to live together for people to recognize a Canadian when they meet one - without the help of a red maple leaf on the back-pack!
Let's look at the other parallels. The land the Romans called Caledonia was wild, rugged, cold, and sparsely populated. Unable to conquer it, they withdrew behind a defensive Hadrian's wall in the 5th Century. This was the border between Pax Romana, or Roman Civilisation, and the savage tribes they called the Picts.The Fall of the Roman Empire brought invasions by Germanic Angles, among others, who drove the Romanised Britons out into Wales and south-west Scotland, creating the Celtic Fringe of Europe. The Anglo-Saxons settled along the east coast as far north as the Firth of Forth. The Picts retreated to the north. The Scots came over from Ireland and colonised the western islands. The Pictish tribes amalgamated with the Scots and did not develop as a distinctive nation. By marriage and battle the Gaelic-speaking Scots absorbed the Welsh-speaking Britons and the English-speaking Anglo-Saxons as far south as the present border with England.
As if this multicultural mix were not enough, the French-speaking Normans, after they conquered England in 1066, infiltrated Scotland and became the ruling class there.The Norse had already appropriated the North of Scotland and the Western Islands.
Canada's original peoples were overwhelmed by the arrival of English-speaking and French-speaking settlers. The first 'true' Canadians would be the mixed race Metis, the result of inter-marriage between Europeans and the native population. Influxes of migrants from Europe, America, and Asia broadened the Canadian mix. One major difference between the mongrel Scottish nation and the mongrel Canadian nation is that Canada's mix has a skin colour component. Acceptance by Canadians of each other's origin will take a long time. In Scotland, Highlander and Lowlander are scornful of one another even to this day.
Will Canada be allowed the time? Scotland ceased to be an independent political nation in 1707 on union with England as Britain, yet after 300 years it is still recognizably a 'nation'. The re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament is a recognition of this feeling of nationhood - yet it has fewer powers than Canadian Provinces. Would Canada survive amalgamation with the USA for 300 years and still produce 'Canadians' readily distinguishable from Americans? Would Canadians still resent being called 'Americans', as the Scots do being called 'English'? This is the acid test of nationality. Nationalism is a slow flame that burns deep within the soul of a nation, and no matter what happens to a people it burns steadily for ever. The spark of Canadian nationalism is there, but can we fan it into a real flame? We certainly could if if Canada became a truly democratic nation. The strength of true Democracy lies in the people, of whatever origin, that make the nation.
Nationalists tend to believe that independence is all that matters. But independence from what? Granted it is independence from a controlling power. However, no nation can be independent of the world. We, as individuals, are dependent on our neighbours, although we put up fences, use drapes, install locks, and have privacy laws. To live in harmony, we respect our neighbouring family's individuality, its right to be itself, its freedom to be an independent unit in our society. A nation can be looked on as an independent, recognizably different, unit living in harmony with other such units.
The analogy of the nation being a family unit can be examined further, and related to Canada. Two very different individuals, after a courtship not without strife, agree to live together in a very spacious farm. They have children, they adopt children from longer settled families living in the same area. They bring in relatives, and take on live-in servants who eventually marry with their children.
Canada is a 'farm' run by two founding peoples, English and French. Canada brought in people of similar background from Europe and other parts of the world. It adopted native peoples. It brought in people from Asia to work on projects. With this heterogenous mix Canada started the creation of a recognizable national unit.
Sometimes the family has its differences. Perhaps the adopted children feel they want to live in a separate house on the farm, but still be a part of the family. Some of the children of the original couple feel the servants and adopted children are not really part of the true family unit, have some funny habits and should be kept in their place. Perhaps a relative of the couple feels that because he was closely related to them, his ideas about how the farm should be run are always better than those of the others who are not closely related.
Perhaps the original founders of the family talk about divorce. Are their differences so strong? Do they realize the effect a divorce would have on the rest of the family members? If separation takes place will it be so bitter that they cannot speak to one another again?
If individuals, families, nations have respect, which is a just regard and appreciation of the worth of others, all can live together amicably. When discussing Democracy in political terms we must keep in mind that the underlying quality of Democracy is respect, for without it Democracy is an empty prize.
