I recieved this via email, I thought appropriate to pass on. A British newspaper salutes Canada . . .. It is funny how it took someone in England to put it into words... Sunday Telegraph Article From today's UK wires: Salute to a brave and modest nation - Kevin Myers, The Sunday Telegraph LONDON - Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan , probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops are deployed in the region. And as always, Canada will bury its dead, just as the rest of the world, as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does. It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again. That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent with the United States, and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two global conflicts. For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions: It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude it deserved. Yet its purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10% of Canada's entire population of seven million people served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle. Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, it's unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular Memory as somehow or other the work of the "British." The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone. Canada finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth-largest air force in the world. The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had the previous time. Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in which the United States had clearly not participated - a touching scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate Canadian identity. So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art Linkletter and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become American, and Christopher Plummer, British. It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers. Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of it's sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and are unheard by anyone else - that 1% of the world's population has provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces. Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest peacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia. Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular on-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia , in which out-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was then disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received no international credit. So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan ? Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac , Canada repeatedly does honourable things for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost. This past year more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too tragically well. yep yep and our dollar is worth more than the yanks buck too!!!! bet yall never saw that coming!@!!!!!
I value Canada. Look at how they harboured those stuck in airports during the 09/11 crisis period. I value them for offering sanctuary to those avoiding the draft in the sixties. I value them for offering reasonable prescription drugs to American's that can't afford to purchase them in the US. Canadian films in many cases are superior to US made films. I am hoping they will the reasonable and dissonant voice in all this SPP crapola, before it's too late.
What does this have to do with politics? This is in the wrong forum. This canadian nationalism BS gets kind of old after a while. That's what the Canada forum is for.
I fucking hate the Telegraph. *spits* This article sucks balls and is pure opinion - no real facts, save for a few tidbits about WWII. Canadians honour fellow fallen soldiers, other Canadians and the missions they have served. Why would we want international recognition? Because we want our soldiers to be stars? Canadians are very proud of their Armed Forces in fact, and we don't ignore them if somehow other countries seem to. /end
So you are saying Canada is not part of the NAU and the SPP? I see no problem in mentioning Canada and it's role in the world in the political forum. You spew no national afiliation and all the doom and gloom of the conspiracists that the elites are guiding this world. Yet you seek to silence those that are proud of their individual/national contributions? What's your solution?
well I do agree it was sort of nationalist. though I dissagree that it is not political, in world politcs especially, as of late the so called free canada , my home and country. has been losing its freddoms and losing our liberal minded laws and figure heads, though what canada has been built on for all these years that image is bieng paraded as the new face of war as they attempt to validate its actions in afganistan and around the world. afgansitan is not a peacekeeping mission though because its canada fighting now under conservative leadership it is "assumed" that we are doing just that keeping peace which we are not! watch out for propoganda, canada is not the same as it once was, since my return from the united states, I have seen american campaignes or at least the same propaganda used against the american people and the american youth now I see it bieng used against canadian youth and canadiuan people. though the people still believe they are free and the same as they were, slowly we are bieng infected with this new dialouge. we do not have freedom of the press in canada we never have! though inder this new rule its is truly bieng used as a campaign against the mindset of all canadians....and the world. I am not saying my country is an enemy though I am saying with disapointment I see more and more similarioties to a puppet show. even our high dollar, higher then american currency, though being ultimatley controlled by the american dollar we are dropping in world value as far and as fast as the states dollar, though spending a fortune in the states... holiday spending betcha itll be lower then it ever was shortly after the new year. when american dollar goes up and we are left lower then or at par to mexico....bit dramatic but that the game the media is playing DRAMA!
