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Bomb Canada: The case for war
National Review, Nov 25, 2002 by Jonah Goldberg
This is the text from a Molson beer commercial that first appeared in movie theaters two years ago. It has made "Molson Joe" a figure of Paul Bunyanesque stature in Canadian life. The public reacted to the ad as if it had announced V-J Day: Schoolkids quoted it; parents loved it; Sheila Copps, Canada's heritage minister, even showed it at an international conference on American cultural imperialism. This national bout of St. Vitus's Dance over a mildly amusing beer commercial is a manifestation of Canada's obsession with its own inferiority complex. Canadian bookshelves groan with self-help books for the Canadian soul: Why I Hate Canadians; Nationalism Without Walls: The Unbearable Lightness of Being Canadian; Lament for a Nation; and many dozens of others.
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The Washington Post's former Canada bureau chief, Steven Pearlstein -- an American -- set off a firestorm with an essay noting that Canadian identity is being threatened by America's overwhelming cultural and economic influence. This point has, of course, been made by one Canadian journalist or another pretty much every day for the last century; but, for some reason, when it appeared in an American paper it was considered an outrage. Pearlstein wrote: "Over the years, Canadians might have coalesced around a shared sense of history but for the fact that they have so little of it they consider worth remembering. The country never fought a revolution or a civil war, pioneered no great social or political movement, produced no great world leader, and committed no memorable atrocities -- as one writer put it, Canada has no Lincolns, no Gettysburgs, and no Gettysburg addresses."
Victoria Dickenson, director of Montreal's McCord Museum of Canadian History, mouthed the typical reaction when she sarcastically exclaimed: "Gosh, if we could just massacre some people!" Journalists swarmed famous Canadian historians asking them to preen about Canada's morally superior history -- which, Canadians boast, is an evolution, not a revolution. They noted that America -- what with slavery and war and all that -- had no right to judge Canada.
Given all of the above, it's not surprising that when you talk to ordinary Canadians -- who are, by and large, a wonderfully decent and friendly bunch -- they have a ready vocabulary to explain the U.S.- Canada relationship. They talk about how America is Canada's "big brother" and how, like any younger sibling, Canada is naturally inclined to find fault with its more accomplished elders. But this metaphor leaves out an important part of the dynamic: Kid brothers normally express their objections not to their big brothers, but to their parents. "He failed his report card!" "He's guilty of 400 years of racism and oppression!" And so on.
For much of Canada's history, its parents could be found in the British Empire. Canada was founded largely by loyalists who rejected America's rebelliousness toward King George; it was never the prodigal son to England, but rather the good son who never left home. Even today, Canadians are vastly more deferential to their government than Americans are; by definition, loyalists do what governments say, rebels don't. With independence, the Canadians were left without a parent to suck up to and with a resented brother who was now their only real protector. Indeed, the U.S. has supplanted dear old Dad as the most important player on the world stage; this new circumstance has prompted Canadians to find a surrogate parent in the United Nations. And that's a real problem, for both Canada and the U.S.
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