Posted by Ian McKechnie on September 26, 2009, 8:25 am, in reply to "Re: The "Country" and The Flag"
98.124.25.31
I don't think the sometimes anti-multiculturalism/immigration attitudes have anything to do personally with one's culture or one's home country.
Rather, I think it is backlash against successive governments that have used multiculturalism as a justification for removing by stealth the Crown because they (the governments) are under the false impression that it (the Crown/Queen/Governors) is exclusively a historic artefact, attracting only WASP senior citizens. They want to keep the latter happy and gain votes, but at the same time recognise officila multiculturalism. The latter is a good thing, the former is, of course, not.
Republicans need to consider that the Queen's family descends from a multicultural litany of French/German/English/Chinese dynasties, while Canada has been fortunate to have a number of black viceroys, native viceroys, women, those with disabilities, etc. as Her Majesty's personal representatives.
My original posting had more to do with what I see as a creeping attitude of jingoism among Canadians, and especially republican Canadians. For me, a "Canadian" is merely someone who is recognised by law to be a citizen of a large piece of North American geography. Being "Canadian" doesn't mean you have to fit a stereotype of a toque-wearing, doughnut eating, Newfoundland fisherman or Prarie farmer.
To use an example, I am "of" the Scottish culture: I am a second-generation Canadian citizen who loves bagpipe music, shepherd's pie, shortbread, and Burns poetry. The Queen is "of" the English culture, but serves as Head of State in a multicultural country. The appointment of multicultural viceroys serves to reinforce this fact. In short, I don't consider myself to be culturally "Canadian" simply because Canadians are not a "distinct" culture.
There is no such thing, I think, as a distinct Canadian culture. It was from this attitude that we got Quebec seperatism, the Maple Leaf Flag, and O Canada!. I think republicans are trying to say:
"Because the Queen was born in Britain, because she has an English accent, and because constitutional monarchy is not "our own creation" it is not suitable to have her as the head of state." I say, sorry folks: the English language, our justice system, our federalism, and our dominant religions are not "ours" either.
Unless they are prepared to crown the Canadarm as Monarch and begin holding parliament in Tim Horton's, Canadian republicans should come to terms with the fact that everything that makes up our national psyche is not wholly "ours."
The joke will be on Canada if we ever become a republic on the sole basis that someone has an English accent and works out of a home base, so to speak, in the UK.
Republicans put way to much faith in the virtues of election. What would happen if they elected as Governor General a white, elderly, Anglican male who lived in a Toronto mansion? Would they carp about his not representing Canadian diversity?
Responses: