Canada's Place on the World Stage

My great aunt sent me an email today, it is labeled as an article taken from a Sunday Telegraph from today's UK Wires.

Before posting the article, I will say that it is an interesting read but I must admit, just in posting it, I cannot help but feel I am wallowing a little in self righteousness. I personally feel that Canada has made a much larger contribution on the world stage than the history books gives us credit for. That said, I do not think that is neccesarily the fault of America or "Hollywood". It is simply the price Canadians pay upkeeping our "good guy" image. We are so interested in being the freindly neighbour to the entire world that we downplay our own actions and heroism in an effort to appear as though we are simply lending a hand, nothing more. And when our efforts are largely ignored after the fact, we suddenly turn into grade school children repeating words of wisdom from our parents: "We did not do it to receive a thank you". Or "An act of kindness is a reward in itself".

I personally enjoy, as I believe other Canadians do, the status of Canada right now. I do not mind being the Ned Flanders in a world of much more entertaining characters like Homers and Burns. I like the fact that our country continues to live in relative obscurity despite the fact that we have participated in so many wars and are now in Afghanistan, and that our immigration system is wildly different from that of any other country, or that we have made unique strides in touchy areas such as gay marriage and maijuana legalization.

Canadiands right now are like those lucky celebrities who manage to stay out of the tabloids while the Lindsay Lohans and Paris Hiltons have their every move and words scrutinized. We may not get credit for the awesome roles we've played, or the charities we've dedicated ourselves too, but at least we do not have up the skirt shots of our Brittanies being passed around the net at record speed.

Here is the message sent to me from my aunt:

British news paper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. 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, resume to blithely neglect her yet a! gain.&nb sp; 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, its 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 w! hich 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 now has no 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 its 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.


********************* Please pass this on to any of your friends or relatives who served in the Canadian Forces or anyone who is proud to be Canadian; it is a wonderful tribute to those who choose to serve their country and the world in our quiet Canadian way.