We didn’t lose our innocence. We never had it: Salutin

[CHIMO]

The idea that the events in Ottawa have somehow taken our innocence ignores Canada’s history and distorts the conversation about how to respond.


After Wednesday’s events in Ottawa, I want to comment on one version or account (yes, the dread “narrative”) which was dominant in the reporting. It’s the “unprecedented chaos, lost our virginity/innocence, never gonna be the same, demise of Canada as a Peaceable Kingdom” rendering.


The Peaceable Kingdom isn’t even a Canadian phrase. It was used by U.S. Quakers in the 19th century. Literary critic Northrop Frye applied it here in the 1960s and it was popularized by Toronto historian and city councillor William Kilbourn. When I challenged him on its usage, he scoffed, “Don’t you recognize irony, man?” It was sarcastic, or at best an aspiration far from reality.


Canada fought through two world wars, largely as a loyal British adjutant. Our troops were known for violence and fierceness — like our hockey. There were strong racist strains in Canada toward French-Canadians and native peoples; and racist, “none is too many” immigration policies. Some of that was challenged in the 1960s (hence Kilbourn’s “man”) but in the midst of it came a far more severe episode of “homegrown terrorism”: the 1970 FLQ crisis. Ottawa was occupied by troops in tanks. In Quebec hundreds were thrown in jail without charges. Public figures were kidnapped and one was murdered. What virginity?

Any virginity or innocence that Canada has was battled over and acquired in those years, not the normal route to chastity. The figure most associated with the peace-and-love Canadian image was Pierre Trudeau — who imposed martial law and told “bleeding heart liberals,” just watch me. Ten years later he brought in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. You can at least argue it was his response to what he may have felt was his overreach in 1970. He embodied the struggle to wrest a different kind of Canadianness from the earlier model.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/10/23/we_didnt_lose_our_innocence_we_never_had_it_salutin.html

[Spazito]

1. The commentary is right on point...

The hyperbolic revisionist crap being put forward by the media and right wing politicians is nauseating to me. The pathetic attempt to try and convince Canadians acts like this have never happened before is appalling.

As the OP points there have been more than a few times in the past Canada has had similar incidents and to try and pretend otherwise is ridiculous and treats the Canadian public contemptuously.

[riverbendviewgal]

2. Excellent post

Thanks for bringing to my attention. I fully agree with Salutin.

[CanSocDem]

3. Indeed.

This is what the Harper gov't. does:

What I find so irritating about the innocence/virginity narrative, aside from its ignorance, is how it subverts the debate we should be having on where to go now. Stephen Harper wants to reverse the course of the last 50 years and that’s his right. Nothing is irreversible. He restored the “Royal” to the military, scorned the UN, rubbished international initiatives like Kyoto and signed up as an enthusiastic subaltern for imperial ventures led by the U.S. and NATO. But the innocence narrative implies that the alternative to Harper isn’t a realistic set of policies; it’s a natural state like childhood which must be inevitably overcome. Those who peddle the narrative aid that obfuscation.

emphasis added.