I got a little wound up over another post "Bismarck" so I felt a need to add some more about what it means to be CANADIAN. I had this sent to me awhile ago and I always kept it as a reminder as what it means to be CANADIAN! SO in the spirit of CANADA DAY I'm sharing it with all of you. I hope it gives you something to think about.
>>> /*/British news paper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. It is
>>> funny how it took someone in England to put it into words... /*/
>>> /*/ /**/Sunday Telegraph Article From today's UK wires:
>>> Salute to a brave and modest nation - Kevin Myers, 'The Sunday
>>> Telegraph' LONDON:/*/ /
>>>
>>> */
>>> /**/Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan ,
>>> probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that
>>> Canadian troops are deployed in the region.
>>> /*/
>>> /*/And as always, Canada will bury its dead, just as the rest of the
>>> world, as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets
>>> nearly everything Canada ever does.. It seems that Canada's historic
>>> mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of
>>> complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and
>>> truly ignored.
>>> /**/
>>> /**/Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the
>>> hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks
>>> out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and
>>> suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing
>>> resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once
>>> helped Glamorously cavort across the floor, blithely neglecting her yet
>>> again.
>>> /*/
>>> /*/That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American
>>> continent with the United States, and for being a selfless friend of
>>> Britain in two global conflicts.
>>>
>>> For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different
>>> directions: It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address
>>> in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never fully
>>> got the gratitude it deserved.
>>>
>>> Yet it's purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two
>>> world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy./**/ /**/Almost 10%
>>> of Canada 's entire population of seven million people served in the
>>> armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The
>>> great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops,
>>> perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle.
>>>
>>> Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, it's
>>> unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular Memory
>>> as somehow or other the work of the 'British.'/**/
>>> /*/
>>> /*/The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the
>>> war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the
>>> Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships
>>> participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian
>>> soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone.
>>> /*/
>>> /*/Canada finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth
>>> largest air force in the world. The world thanked Canada with the same
>>> sublime indifference as it had the previous time.
>>>
>>> Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it
>>> was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in which
>>> the United States had clearly not participated - a touching
>>> scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it
>>> has any notion of a separate Canadian identity.
>>> /*/
>>> /*/So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in
>>> Hollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian.
>>> Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox,
>>> William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art
>>> Linkletter and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become
>>> American, and Christopher Plummer, British.
>>>
>>> It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to
>>> be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably
>>> Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite
>>> unable to find any takers.
>>> /**/
>>> /**/Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the
>>> achievements of its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is
>>> completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves -
>>> and are unheard by anyone else - that 1% of the world's population has
>>> provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces.
>>> /*/
>>> /*/Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatest
>>> peacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on
>>> non-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to
>>> Bosnia.
>>> /*/
>>> /*/Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular
>>> non-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia, in which
>>> out-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their
>>> regiment was then disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of
>>> self-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received no
>>> international credit.
>>> /**/
>>> /**/So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless
>>> friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan?
>>>
>>> Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac, Canada repeatedly does honourable things
>>> for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains
>>> something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which
>>> Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost. This
>>> past year more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too
>>> tragically well.
>>> /*/
>>> /*/Lest we forget
This other letter was sent to me that had a powerful impact on me. It's a little dated so ignore the Christmas reference but what the author has to say is still relevant as we Celebrate Canada day. This was something I alluded to in the Bismarck post. Again something to think about.
Letter to the Editor (excellent letter)
So many letter writers have explained how this land is made up of immigrants. Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out to people why today's Canadian is not willing to accept the new kind of immigrant any longer.
Back in 1900 when there was a rush from all areas of Europe to come to Canada, people had to get off a ship and stand in a long line in Halifax and be documented. Some would even get down on their hands and knees and kiss the ground. They made a pledge to uphold the laws and support their new country in good and bad times. They made learning English a primary rule in their new Canadian households and some even changed their names to blend in with their new home. They had waved good bye to their birth place to give their children a new life and did everything in their power to help their children assimilate into one culture.
Nothing was handed to them. No free lunches, no welfare, no labour laws to protect them. All they had were the skills, craftsmanship and desire they had brought with them to trade for a future of prosperity.
Most of their children came of age when World War II broke out. Canadians fought along side men whose parents had come straight over from Germany, Italy, France, Japan, Czechoslovakia, Russia, Sweden, Poland and so many other places. None of these first generation Canadians ever gave any thought about what country their parents had come from. They were Canadians fighting Hitler, Mussolini and the Emperor of Japan. They were defending the Freedom as one people. When we liberated France, no-one in those villages was looking for the Ukrainian-Canadian or the German-Canadian or the Irish-Canadian. The people of France saw only Canadians.
And we carried one flag that represented our country. Not one of those immigrant sons would have thought about picking up another country's flag and waving it to represent who they were. It would have been a disgrace to their parents who had sacrificed so much to be here. These immigrants truly knew what it meant to be a Canadian. They stirred the melting pot into one red and white bowl.
And here we are in 2009 with a new kind of immigrant who wants the same rights and privileges. Only they want to achieve it by playing with a different set of rules, one that includes a Canadian passport and a guarantee of being faithful to their mother country. I'm sorry, that's not what being a Canadian is all about. Canadians have been very open-hearted and open-minded regarding immigrants, whether they were fleeing poverty, dictatorship, persecution, or whatever else makes us think of those aforementioned immigrants who truly did ADOPT our country, and our flag and our morals and our customs. And left their wars, hatred, and divisions behind. I believe that the immigrants who landed in Canada in the early 1900s deserve better than that for the toil, hard work and sacrifice those legally searching for a better life. I think they would be appalled that they are being used as an example by those waving foreign country flags, fighting foreign battles on our soil, making Canadians change to suit their religions and cultures, and wanting to change our countries fabric by claiming discrimination when we do not give in to their demands.
Its about time we get real and stand up for our forefathers rights, we are CANADIAN Lest we forget it!!! I am a Native of this Country & proud of it!
NO MORE POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
NO MORE not saying CHRISTMAS in stores and our schools!
MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!
I Want my Canada of birth BACK !!!
I Hope I can go to sleep now.
SycoSean This is food for thought.
What it means to be CANADIAN!
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