Canada: Turning self-hatred into a state creed
iamthewitness.com Radio
Barbara Kay, National Post Published: Wednesday, April 09, 2008
This week, the National Post comment pages present Canada's Biggest
Mistake, a series of articles in which our columnists identify the
most disastrous blunders imposed on this country by its policy-makers.
In today's instalment, Barbara Kay writes about the sour, divisive
legacy of multiculturalism.
In a speech delivered during the 2006 Liberal leadership campaign,
Michael Ignatieff cheerfully remarked: "The great achievement of
Canada, and I think we're already there, is that in Canada you're free
to choose your belonging."
Mr. Ignatieff continues to astonish me in so many ways. In this
instance, I ask myself: How can a man live in a foreign country for --
how many was it? Thirty years? -- then cast a gimlet eye over the
political lay of the land, and in just three little words cut to the
very marrow of Canada's greatest mistake: "Choose your belonging!"
Mr. Ignatieff is not like you and me. Mr. Ignatieff is an
intellectual. He believes that the narrow confines of a single
national loyalty would cramp his own beautiful mind and, philosophical
Lord Bountiful that he is, he shares his hermeneutical largesse with
all Canadians.
I must reluctantly concede that he has hit upon a fitting revisionist
motto, though, for nowadays "From sea to shining sea" isn't a patch
for succinctness and veracity on "Choose Your Belonging."
Mr. Ignatieff naughtily pulled his punches in his elaboration,
however, hedging with: "You can be a Quebecer first and Canadian
second, or Canadian first and Quebecer second -- in the order that
suits you."
Do admit, Mr. Ignatieff, you were a tad disingenuous there. For if you
had been more candid and less focused on harvesting votes in Quebec at
the time, that speech would have run on a bit.
For the full multicultural Monty in the rest of Canada, you would have
added such inconvenient "belongings" as (yes, of course, I mean the
Khadr family): "You can be a Pakistani al-Qaeda supporter first and a
Canadian second, a Hindu-hostile Sikh first and a Canadian second, an
aboriginal, a woman, a black or a gay first and a Canadian second--
really, the personal being the political, as moral relativists are so
fond of repeating -- Canada: it's all about you, you, you.
"In the order that suits you." Indeed. No one-size-fits-all patriotism
here at the Postmodern Canada Hotel and Grill. No sir. No madame.
Patriotism? That's -- how do zee French say eet -- oh yes, so much le
simplisme. It's so -- patronizing, so 19th-century, so white-
heterosexual-European, yes?
We're here to serve you, and ensure you have a pleasant, worry-free
stay. Your family is our family. Our family is …not your problem.
Visit our "belonging" boutiques, where even the most discerning
shopper will find a set of values or customs -- or laws! -- to
accommodate his or her old-country habits. Too long? Too short? Free
repairs and alterations!
Don't like our marriage and divorce laws? Use yours! Don't like our
languages? Don't learn them! Don't like our foreign policy? Instead of
joining the Armed Forces where you have no choice where you fight,
join the Reserves, where you get to match up your deployment with your
"belonging"!
Do our money-lending rules offend your religious sensibilities? We're
sorry. Perhaps we'll try the Islamic system, as The Globe's Sheema
Khan suggested this past weekend.
Multiculturalism is Canada's greatest mistake, but if it is any
consolation, it is every Western country's greatest mistake. And now
some of them are paying a terrible price. If I have to elaborate on
the names Pim Fortuyn, Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, then you
just haven't been paying attention.
The official idea behind multiculturalism was that cultural diversity
would make us all better people. It would enrich our drably
homogeneous social fabric, encourage tolerance and combat hatred. The
happy surface of multiculturalism is a street-enlivening diversity of
skin hues, native fabrics, with a panoply of foreign cuisines on every
corner-- shawarma, pad thai, falafel, tandoori goat -- not to mention
the feel-good, meticulously painted-by-number rainbow of visible
minorities one sees working in government agencies, non-profit
organizations and university equity offices.
The underside of multiculturalism is its ideological root in West-
bashing. Sometime around 1960, it was determined by a few French
intellectuals (whose unintelligible gibberish other intellectuals
pretended to understand) that the greatest criminals against humanity
in the history of the world weren't the Nazi and Communist murderers
of 100 million people. Rather, it was European colonialists, who
imposed their cultural values on their captive audience.
Even though Canada was a colony itself, and had never indulged in
imperialism of any kind, Canadians were informed they must share in
the blame because of their religious, racial and cultural association
with former colonialists.
Multiculturalism is idealistic in theory, but its real effect has been
the entrenchment in our intellectual and cultural elites of an
unhealthy obsession with a largely phantom racism amongst heritage
Canadians that no amount of penance or cultural self-effacement can
ever transcend.
In its ideological insistence on the equal value of all cultures other
than ours (ours being the sole inferior one), multiculturalism's main
"accomplishment" has been to instill self-loathing in heritage
Canadians, a sense of responsibility-free entitlement in identity
groups and the suffocation of critical diversity in the public form.
Let Mr. Ignatieff visit Quebec City, and he'll be surrounded by
Canadian citizens who consider themselves Quebecers first and
Canadians second (if at all). Let him visit any urban centre and he'll
find plenty of Canadian citizens who consider themselves something-
else first and Canadians second.
Indeed, thanks to multiculturalism, there's only one little piece of
Canada where Mr. Ignatieff is assured of finding a critical mass of
fellow citizens who, in "choosing their belonging," only chose Canada.
That little piece of Canada is Kandahar, Afghanistan. And that, my
fellow Canadians (or insert-loyalty-plus-hyphen-here-Canadians) is all
you need to know to concede that the imposition of multiculturalism on
a once-proud nation of patriots was Canada's greatest mistake.
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=431478&p=2
Anarchore
>7c9be2...@8g2000hse.googlegroups.com>
>Lines: 129
>
>Turning self-hatred into a state creed
>
>Barbara Kay, National Post Published: Wednesday, April 09, 2008
>
>This week, the National Post comment pages present Canada's Biggest
>Mistake, a series of articles in which our columnists identify the
>most disastrous blunders imposed on this country by its policy-makers.
>In today's instalment, Barbara Kay writes about the sour, divisive
>legacy of multiculturalism.
Neocon who likes McInsane. Kay is a Zionist creep who sees the threat
of Muslims in Canada acting as a counter to their hegemony in the
public discourse.
--
If you're thick enough to believe that Jews are your enemy why the
fuck would I want to have anything to do with you.
Consider me a Jew.
Consider me a fag.
Consider me an immigrant.