Re entering something after a lengthy discussion on what Americans don't seem to know about the Canadian War and Historical efforts
A British newspaper salutes Canada. This is a good read.
It is funny how
it took someone in England to put it into words.
Sunday Telegraph Article: 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 its 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, its
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 ...
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 on-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.
It is funny how
it took someone in England to put it into words.
Sunday Telegraph Article: 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 its 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, its
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 ...
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 on-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.
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