Sunday January 3, 2010
Lament for a vanishing ideal
By Jim Taylor
“My country seems to be slipping away before my very eyes.”
Those words opened a year-end column by Jonathan Kay, a member of the editorial board of the National Post. He didn’t write them, though. They originally came from Gerald Caplan, former NDP campaign director.
Those words took me by surprise. Because they mirrored a sentence I had written to open a column that I later shelved: “The Canada I used to know, the country I was proud of, has decided to expire, not with a bang but a whimper.”
To which notion Jonathon Kay responded, “Good riddance.”
Differing conclusions
Strange, isn’t it, how observers can agree on the data but derive totally different meanings from it?
Kay, Caplan, and I all agree that Canada has changed. Our military has moved from being ill-equipped peace keepers to being a combat force dedicated – in the words of General Rick Hillier – to killing “detestable murderers and scumbags.”
“We’re not the public service of Canada,” Hillier declared. “Our job is to be able to kill people….”
A Canadian flag on a backpack used to earn a friendly welcome anywhere in the world. Today, we’re ridiculed. At the recent Copenhagen conference, Canada received more “fossil” awards – count ‘em, ten! — than any other country.
Where even impoverished African countries offered proposals for reducing greenhouse emissions, Canada indicated that it planned to increase its output. Emissions from Alberta’s tar sands will rise 165 per cent in the coming years.
Once upon a time, Canada didn’t feel a need to integrate our military, our police services, our border operations, with our neighbour to the south.
Now the RCMP and CSIS, our intelligence service, feed information about Canadian citizens to U.S. Homeland Security. Our border officials wear firearms, like their buddies across the line. And Canada has even deputized U.S. law enforcement officers to pursue suspects and make arrests in Canada.
Loss of sovereignty
Sovereignty used to be a big issue in Canada. After all, much of eastern Canada was populated by United Empire Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution.
So we built a transcontinental railway to save the west from a takeover by American settlers. We created the RCMP – originally the North West Mounted Police – for the same reason. We built the military base at Alert, at the far north end of Ellesmere Island, just 800 km from the North Pole, to reinforce our claim to much of the Arctic.
But sovereignty is more than just territory. There’s also a sovereignty of our own ideas. The United Church’s Ray Hord stung when he called Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson “a puppydog on LBJ’s leash.”
Canadian environmental policies are now made in Washington DC. Prime Minister Stephen Harper admitted, “It is absolutely essential that we work in concert with them."
Harper went to Copenhagen only because Barrack Obama decided to go.
At Copenhagen, the Toronto Star editorialized, “Canada ceded its decision-making ability to Washington.”
Abdication of leadership
The present government seems to have decided that an independent role has no value any more.
Jonathan Kay thinks that’s a good thing. “Take a bow, Canadian conservatives,” he wrote. “You got your country back.”
He’s probably right that Canadians as a whole never did totally endorse their government’s leadership in universal medical care, peace keeping, multiculturalism, bilingualism….
He’s also probably right that Canada’s leadership came from a relatively small elite of thinkers and activists.
So what’s wrong with that?
I remember a incident in Grade 9. We students had been instructed not to leave our home room until our teacher sent us to our next class. But that morning, our home room teacher didn’t show up.
Should we stay until she arrived? Or go to our scheduled class anyway? The class split. There was no consensus.
Finally, I stood up. “You guys can stay if you want,” I said. “I’m going to math class.”
I didn’t look to see if anyone was following me. I feared I might be alone. Not until halfway down the hall did I discover that the entire class had trooped along behind me.
Leadership, I learned on that occasion, does not mean running with the herd. Nor does it mean building consensus before taking any action.
It means doing what’s right, at the right time.
Even if no one follows.
That’s an inevitable risk of leadership. You can be wrong. You can be ignored.
But if no one’s out in front, no one can follow.
Canada used to be out in front. We helped break apartheid. We got landmines banned.
We’ve given up that role. Instead of being up front, setting an example, we’ve become the hind end of progress, dragging our butts with our heels dug in and our sphincters puckered.
I’m not going to leave Canada, even if Canada has left me. This is my home, my native land. But it is no longer the country I used to be so proud of.
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Copyright © 2009 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
Please tell your friends about these columns. To send comments, to subscribe or to unsubscribe, or to request permission to reprint, write jimt@quixotic.ca Be sure to include Soft Edges or Sharp Edges in the subject line, so my spam filter doesn’t delete your message.
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Your Turn
Inevitably, when I am away from home (as I was over Christmas) I have e-mail problems. If I’m able to receive e-mail at all – Shaw’s service is fine only as long as you don’t venture outside your particular region — responses arrive on my laptop. Getting those responses back to this desktop computer often results in losing some e-mails into cyber-limbo.
That’s a roundabout way of apologizing to those of you who write about a column, and don’t receive any acknowledgement.
I made reference in last week’s column about religion and politics to the beliefs of atheists. That prompted David Martyn to write, “Your article brought to mind material written by Chris Hedges, Here is one article from his book ‘I Don’t Believe in Atheists.’ http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080407_on_secular_fundamentalism/
Joan Mistretta offered “a few comments.”
1) You are SO right in this comment on my country, the U.S.of A: "Although the U.S. broke dramatically with past practice by electing a black president, I am quite sure that Americans are not yet ready to elect an openly Muslim president. Or an avowed atheist, for that matter." Can’t imagine that happening.
2) On this sentence: "addiction to alcohol or recreational drugs, pedophilia, fraud.." Ouch! You really pushed buttons when you put pedophilia in there. I recognize that addiction and fraud could be more directly relevant to behavior in elected office, but the truth is that I couldn’t give a pedophile the benefit of ANY doubt.
3) I was surprised by you saying this: ‘If a candidate claims to have no religious affiliation, I would want to know what that person believes in — if anything. Does he have no principles? Does she simply do whatever’s most expedient?’ Jim, you don’t REALLY think that religious affiliation is an indication of a person’s ethical principles, do you?
James Harbeck sent along a review of James Cameron’s blockbuster movie Avatar, and samples from four of Martin Luther’s sermons. I’m not sure whether his missive was prompted by the column on religion and politics, or the previous column on optimism at Christmas.
The review of Avatar, by Ross Douthat of the New York Times, argued that Avatar was “Cameron’s long apologia for pantheism . . . Hollywood’s religion of choice…” If you’re interested, you should be able to find it at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21douthat1.html?emc=eta1
Finally, the religion and politics column led to an exchange of e-mails far too long to reproduce here with Steve Roney that was, I hope, enlightening for both of us. So I’ll quote only his introductory comments:
“Another very interesting column, Jim. That’s one reason I enjoy reading them: I almost always disagree with you, but they raise important issues, and make me clarify my thinking.
“On this one, again, I disagree. The newspaper had no business asking a candidate about his or her religious faith. It is not relevant, and it is not proper. If a candidate chooses to run on his faith, as Jimmy Carter did, setting a modern trend in US politics, then it is a legitimate issue. Otherwise, it is a private matter, and encouraging people to vote on this basis is simply encouraging religious prejudice.
“Of course, their faith will influence what they do in public life, and ought to. But we know enough if we know their public platform and their public record. We should not presume to know what they ‘really’ think, because they are a Baptist or a Mormon or a Catholic. If this is not quite prejudice in itself, it at least gives free rein to any prejudices we might have.
“This includes, to my mind, voting for a candidate because he nominally shares our religion. If this is not bigotry, it is at least naive.
“The prejudices in the US are also not quite what you say they are. Yes, there is probably a continuing prejudice against Catholics: although they are the single largest religious denomination in the USA, there has still not been a second Catholic president. But, next to Catholics, guess what religious group is most under-represented among US presidents? Baptists. (http://www.adherents.com/adh_presidents.html) The largest Protestant denomination; yet it seems other Americans still do not find them socially acceptable. Americans prefer their presidents to have a religiosity that is emotionally lukewarm and light on dogma. Episcopalian, Methodist, Unitarian, Presbyterian.
“This prejudice actually seems to be growing, not fading. When George Romney ran for the Presidency in 1968, his Mormonism was barely mentioned. When his son Mitt ran last year, it was a central issue used openly against his candidacy.”
Well, that should set the cat among the pigeons…
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About My Books
Over the years, I think I have written (or ghostwritten) about 17 books. Several of them (mercifully) are no longer available from any source. But here’s a listing of those that are still available. The ones marked “WLB”, you can order from Wood Lake Books, either on-line at http://www.woodlakebooks.com, or call Wood Lake Books directly at 1-800-663-2775 in Canada, 1-800-654-5129 (Pilgrim Press) in the U.S. The ones marked “JT only” are now available only directly from me — as collector’s items, I price them all at $25 Cdn.
- Everyday God: Insights from the Ordinary
- Worlds in One
- Chance
- Seeing the Mystery: Exploring Christian Faith through the Eyes of Artists,
- Surviving Death
- Everyday Psalms
- Everyday Parables
- Letters to Stephen
- A New Understanding of Virtue and Vice
- Precious Days and Practical Love: Caring for an Aging Parent
- for Beginners
- Spirituality of Pets
(1981 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
(1985, JT only)
(1989, JT only)
(1990, with William S. Taylor, JT only)
(1993, JT only)
(1994 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
(1995 and 2005, WLB, $19.95)
(1996, WLB, $17.95)
(1997, WLB, $19.95)
(1999, WLB, $19.95)
(2001, WLB, $11.95)
(2006, WLB, $39)
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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You can access several years of archived columns at http://edges.Canadahomepage.net.
I write a second column each Wednesday, called Soft Edges, which deals somewhat more gently with issues of life and faith. (It’s also included in Ralph Milton’s e-newsletter Rumors.) To sign up for Soft Edges, write to me directly, at the addresses above, or send a note to softedges-subscribe@quixotic.ca
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PROMOTION STUFF…
If you know someone else who might like to receive this column regularly via e-mail, send a request to jimt@quixotic.ca. Or, if you wish, forward them a copy of this column. But please put your name on it, so they don’t think I’m sending out spam.
For a lighter look at life, faith, and the lectionary, I recommend my friend Ralph Milton’s weekly e-newsletter Rumors. You can subscribe to it by sending a note to ralphmilton@woodlake.com.
For other web links worth pursuing, try
- Charlene Fairchild’s United Online site,
- David Keating’s “SeemslikeGod” page
- The Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity home page
- Dan Strizek’s Gathering Place for Creation Spirituality
- Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not terribly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
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