To My American Cousins
Actually I do have cousins Stateside, quite a lot of them, but these are not the people to whom I’m writing. I’m writing nation-to-nation, not person-to-person. I don’t represent all Canadians, but probably quite a few.
From day one we have lived under your heel, as has most of the world; Simon Bolivar cautioned the former colonies of Latin America about the eagle to the north. But our heeling has been more gentle, because we English Canadians share so much with you. A similar colonization (we came from the losing side after 1776, but we don’t hold that against anyone). We treated our First Nations with the same brutality you did.
We are almost always on board with your world views, have even seen you as our protector when things got tough in modern times: we were proud of getting a few diplomats out of Iran during the 1980 hostage crisis, and my brother took advantage of Greyhound’s ‘Thank you Canada’ reduced fare. We sat in horror of 9/11, and readily sent our best to Afghanistan (though we couldn’t buy into Iraq, sorry).
I could list how it often feels the same country, we’ve always had until now a very free-flowing border. Our shared identity is more readily described by French Canadians, or by New Canadians and tourists: they say they don’t see any difference between the two of us. They are essentially right. We are just softer, less individual, more community-oriented Americans.
So I ask you, when will all this garbage STOP?! You live in the best house in the global neighbourhood, have the best lawn furniture, drive the best car. Why are you having a biker party?…(as in Hell’s Angels) We have always looked up to you, no matter what our political views. Not only has it been great to drop down to NYC for a weekend, many people around the world see your land as, yes, the city on the hill. Recently I saw a quiz game among English language learners (Bosnians and Poles). The verbal clue was: What is the most free country in the world? …You get my drift on what the right answer was.
So you have made it through another election, this one with violence. Not that it never happened before. Your Boomers in the 60’s tore things up a bit, and did sit-ins, so they could stop being sent away to a wrong war. We marched with them. But the discussion is now unstable as you roll towards the second acquittal in a year. You have abandoned reason, are making a cold break for unreasoning power. You want to ‘democratically’ hold onto selfish paranoid privilege, which will lead to violence again. In Toronto, we had a mayor who also rejected reason and ran the show on personality. He was there with Donald when he opened his Trump hotel in our city. But when our mayor went over the edge (like Donald J. did in a much bigger way) we took away his keys to the city, and he became a figure head.
It’s not democracy when the majority, or an almost-majority, get their way by intransigence instead of thought. Even the ancient Greeks included a reasoning citizenry when they planned out democracy. When the media is asking that we start making fact-based decisions, you know there is something wrong in the democracy. Toronto newspapers were saying the same thing under our illustrious mayor (his name was Rob Ford, who did crack with some of his constituents).
So please, get rid of your biker culture that refuses to think rationally, for the world neighbourhood has gone to hell. We just want to have a predictable (if not always just or safe) society to live in. You’ll have to decide whether it pertains to guns, or health care, or race. We will be waiting, and praying. But please start thinking once again.
