Hello! Welcome to my blog, and welcome to English 372. I’m excited to participate in this online space and examine alongside my peers and professor the changing landscape of Canadian literature, scrutinizing the complexities of storytelling with a particular focus on the relationship between the Canadian nation-state and the First Nations on whose stolen land we now live, work and study.
We have been gifted a varied and illuminating set of course materials through which we will garner a greater understanding of the intricacies of Canadian storytelling. I expect to scrutinize the authorial voices of the texts – how we can examine, for example, the differences in perspective and intent between the scholarly works of Lee Maracle, a member of the Sto:Loh nation, and those of non-Indigenous authors such as Michael Asch, whose examination of Canadian sovereignty and history arrives through an anthropological settler lens (as far as I can tell). It is my duty, as a non-Indigenous scholar of Canadian and First Nations literature, to understand these issues of perspective, authenticity, and the potentially voyeuristic, or “touristic,” gaze of a non-Indigenous person’s examination of First Nations history, storytelling, and culture.
I am interested in examining throughout this course the question of what it means to be Canadian. I found an article by Reader’s Digest Canada presenting five famous Canadians’ answers to this difficult question, with the running theme being that of the supposed compassion and friendliness of our country; and yet I noticed that no Indigenous voices were interviewed here, and it led me to wonder how an Indigenous individual might have answered such a question. Would they have focussed so exclusively on Canada’s supposed fantastic kindness? Perhaps not.
Fig. 1. Maclean’s. “An indigenous rights activist holds a sign reading ‘Canada 150 is a Celebration of Indigenous Genocide’, after the ‘Unsettle Canada Day 150 Picnic’, as the country marks its 150th anniversary with ‘Canada 150’ celebrations, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada July 1, 2017.” Maclean’s, 2 July 2017, https://www.macleans.ca/multimedia/photo/scenes-from-canada-150-a-national-celebration-of-canadas-birthday/image/9/#gallery/canada-day-in-photos/slide-9. Accessed 14 January 2021.
Another example of this image of a supposedly morally superior and generous Canada is the famous “I Am Canadian” advertisement, a work so brazenly patriotic, so unashamed in its love for the Canadian’s supposed belief “in peacekeeping, not policing” and “diversity, not assimilation,” that in many ways it is mere propaganda. Yet as we saw two summers ago in the wake of the Wet’suwet’en’s protesting of pipelines, and as Thomas King tells us in his recent book “The Inconvenient Indian,” we are a nation of policing and assimilation – if only against our First Nations.
In a recent interview with CBC Books, Thomas King spoke of how he believed “we would have gotten past the intolerance of racism by now” (King); his “Canadian-ness” is not the same as Dan Akroyd’s or Donald Sutherland’s, two of the celebrity voices featured in the Reader’s Digest article. So the question remains: what – or who – is Canada?
Works Cited
“5 Famous Canadians Share What It Means to Be Canadian.” Reader’s Digest Canada, 24 June 2019, https://www.readersdigest.ca/travel/canada/being-canadian-meaning/. Accessed 14 January 2021.
Hernandez, Jon. “Reports of RCMP snipers dispatched to Wet’suwet’en blockade ‘concerning,’ says Indigenous Services minister.” CBC, 20 December 2019, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/rcmp-snipers-first-nation-pipeline-protest-guardian-1.5405111. Accessed 14 January 2021.
Maracle, Lee. “Lee Maracle.” Strong Nations, https://www.strongnations.com/gs/show.php? gs=3&gsd=1065. Accessed 14 January 2021.
Molson Canadian. “I Am Canadian.” YouTube, uploaded by Vinko, 22 May 2006, https://www.youtube.com/watch/BRI-A3vakVg. Accessed 14 January 2021.
Patrick, Ryan B. “Thomas King is hopeful that his writing has changed the world – but he’s still not sure.” CBC, 10 November 2020, https://www.cbc.ca/books/thomas-king-is-hopeful-that-his-writing-has-changed-the-world-but-he-s-still-not-sure-1.5795015. Accessed 14 January 2021.
“The story behind the story: Thomas King on The Inconvenient Indian.” National Post, 15 October 2013, https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/the-story-behind-the-story-thomas-king-on-the-inconvenient-indian. Accessed 14 January 2021.
Hi Leo, thank you so much for this insightful and self-aware blog post. I think that you have astutely pointed out the ways in which Canadian history has become almost a work of fiction, as both Canadians and people from other parts of the world romanticize Canada as being a place that is culturally diverse, a place where racism, sexism, and a variety of other -isms have been eradicated. Even the stereotypes perpetuated about being Canadian paints us in an extremely favourable light; for example, we are supposedly super polite. This is a really dangerous narrative to hold onto, as it enables us to excuse our colonial past. As you mention, The Inconvenient Indian shows us that Canada is as guilty of genocide and policing as anywhere else; we simply do a better job of pretending it doesn’t exist. I was also really interested in your mention of the article about what it means to be Canadian that excludes Indigenous voices entirely. I think this really reflects that there is something inherently colonial about being Canadian; to be Canadian, at least in the way that this article seems to refer to it, is to be a settler. The question of what Canada is is one that I am very interested in exploring. I wonder, do you think that we will ever be able to come to some definitive conclusion, or is Canada simply too abstract?
Hi Victoria, thank you for the astute reply! I love your notion of Canada or Canadian history as a “work of fiction”; this is fascinating way of thinking about what you describe as a romanticization of our country; works of media like the Digest article I found and the famous Molson commercial perpetuate this fictionalization of our country as one without bad, without the “-isms.” I don’t believe there will ever be a definitive conclusion as to the question I posed at the end of my post; I am optimistic, however, that the narrative is, however slowly, shifting. We have seen, as an example, the rise of alternative forms of media beginning to counteract the propagandistic nature of mainstream news networks, as with the reporting of the Wet’suwet’en protests — I certainly found it far more illuminating to seek grassroots journalism and viral Twitter videos concerning and depicting the events than to seek out coverings of it on cable news.
As an aside, theoretical analysis of the nation-state and ideology have always fascinated me. If you haven’t already read him check out Paul Gilroy and his analyses of race and nation formation!
Hello Leo,
Thank you for posting your blog, I agree with Victoria, this is indeed a wonderfully self-aware welcome to our course of studies together with some excellent links. What a wonderful treat to read the first dialogue of the course between yourself and Victoria, again – thank you. I am very much looking forward to working and learning together this semester.
Thank you! I look forward to working with you throughout the course and to more of these dialogues.