“All ideas of nationhood are fictions. The fiction cultivated by the #Canadian studying abroad may be more likely than that of the Canadian educated at home to eschew regionalism, depending on a more overarching, all-embracing idea of nationhood.”
This really is a great piece.
Interesting first-person perspective on Carney as a fellow graduate student at Oxford.
But it was the latter half of the piece, that reflects on how Canadians who study in the UK or US are constantly subjected to overly aggressive declarations that deny Canada as a nation, which really hit home for me.
As a Canadian who attended graduate school in the US, I experienced almost verbatim every denial and put down in this piece.
And so many more constant and dumbfoundingly bizarre nonsequitur microaggressions. (One of the American I shared office space with lashed out that Canadians didn’t have any ‘real’ Black people so we had to borrow them from Jamaica to compete as athletes in Track and Field.)
So many of these offensive remarks were self contradictory - e.g.,
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Canada doesn’t exist as a nation or culture but at the same time Canadian students are vocally criticized for being ‘so nationalistic’
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there’s no need to include Canada in a listing of macroeconomic indicators of major economies because it’s ‘just a regional economy in in North America’ but only the US indicators are included. Meanwhile, California is profiled and discussed as a separate economy because it’s ‘so large’.
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or a renowned professor who I worked for as a research assistant observing at some random point when he realized where I had done my undergraduate degree ‘Oh, you went to a real place’ - which given how difficult it was to get into that school and program, should never have been a question.
One of the American I shared office space with lashed out that Canadian didn’t have any ‘real’ Black people so we had to borrow them from Jamaica to compete as athletes in Track and Field.
That’s a crazy assertion. What’s the implication, Canada should have more actively participated in chattel slavery, had it’s own emancipation proclamation and civil war, and then introduced birthright citizenship in order to have ‘real’ Black Canadians?
It also denies that Canada was a terminus for the underground railroad and that Canadians welcomed many escaped slaves before the American Civil War. There are literally thousands of black Canadians who are descendants of those escaped slaves.
I was absolutely dumbfounded at the time.
There was so much revealing racism and more in that statement, but also American Exceptionalism and willingness to do anything to get a gold medal.
It’s also crazy because the reason why Americans win so many medals is because an American decided to make a bunch of swimming events which rich white Americans have an advantage in because many minorities in the US — including blacks — don’t live in communities with access to pools, let alone in their homes.
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With the exception of the blips of John Turner and Kim Campbell, both of whom did graduate work in England, the prime ministers between Pierre Trudeau and Mr. Carney studied exclusively at Canadian universities. They never had to defend the idea of Canada before know-nothing Yanks or haughty Brits. They swam in a university environment immersed in the finite ambitions, comfortable familiarity and ironic self-deprecation that can pervade daily life in Canada.
This piece puts well why I have been very optimistic about Carney. He can dream bigger and actually realize that dream, far better than your average Canadian politician having Stockholm syndrome.
I’m liking him so far. We made the right choice this election.
Thank you, Quebec!
Here’s a lot more on his outlook on governance:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uvw-aC0KLD4
He deeply believes in stakeholder capitalism. That government should intervene relatively consistently in most aspects of society. Its hard to believe the polls could do a 180 like that, given the Carney and Pierre are ideologically opposite.
