Re: [A-List] The national question

[Macdonald Stainsby <mstainsby@xxxxxx>]

IAt 10:53 PM 9/25/2003, you wrote:

> What colonies does Canada has other than Quebec and the various Native
> Bands that constitute a peculiar problem in this hemisphere demanding
> immediate redress?
>
> Melvin P.

The first question: What is Canada?

The answer to your direct question can be found in the Carribbean, where
the bank of Nova Scotia decimated entire populations in a massive currency
buy. This waqs bad enough that Canadians travelling through the area were
advised to wear the Stars and Stripes.

A better question would be how is Canada not a subsidiary of imperialism.
Canadians live a double lie: They think they are innocent peace makers, a
pile of shit, and they like to be all "clean" of the damage of imperialism.

There is no "Canada". There is a Quebec, five hundred First
Nations/Indians, perhaps even a Newfoundland... but nothing that
constitutes a Canada. However, there are no major maquiladoras, no sweat
shops and no places where American capital (as if a Canadian bourgeoisie,
should one be strong enough to swing in the wind, was something worth
striving for!) gets unfettered access to cheap unprotected labour. None of
these things, the hallmarks of a victim of imperialism, exist.

Everything "Canadian" is stolen. Indian goods are bought and sold to
tourist from Germany. French is spoken of as a "Canadian" language. Britain
and the fucking Queen are the head of state. Vancouver is famous for Sushi.

North America cannot advance in any real way independantly of the other half.
Narrow nationalist appeals have decimated class politics in Canada. There
was once a major movement in labour here to break up all internationalist
unions that crossed the 49th parallel. Why? Because "Canadian interests"
were "in danger" of being "swallowed up." (A typical slogan from this
"Marxist" tendency: "Are you in a Yankee union?"
WHO CARES?????

Recently in Vancouver Stopwar.ca (the antiwar coalition here) wouldn't call
a demonstration on the same day as ANSWER, not in response to some problem
with any of ANSWER's politics (I doubt if these were even known), but
because (quote Trade Union Bureaucrat from coalition): "No way in Hell am I
taking this group into a place where Americans lead us in anything!"

What reactionary, divisive and useless crap. These are the same people,
incidentally, that have a real problem with addressing Indigenous
sovereignty on the very land they hold their demonstrations on.

The national question in Canada means negating it.
Bob gives us a red herring with: "It seems self-defeating to ignore these
differences on the grounds that recognising them is 'bourgeois nationalism'"

Recognising is one thing, as is evident by my bringing the subject up and
trying to expose the racist nature of it: It is indeed a real phenomenon
and must be struggled against, just as a desire to own property, make a
profit.. all of these are real phenomenons. Coddling and using it as an
"in" is another thing all together. This, the "distrust" that "Canadians"
feel towards "Americans" is divisive, and the implicit "we" is clear: white
settler Canadians. This definition of Canadian automatically excludes all
the indigenous peoples of this land, and making a politics based on a white
consciousness and the "good" things about it will get us nowhere quickly.

Seattle N30, 1999. Thousands of those workers were from the CLC, making the
impact of the Battle of Seattle international, a short cut to relevance and
a major strength. Quebec City April21 2001: hundreds if not thousands of
Americans were there doing the same in reverse.

We need each other. Fear of losing "identity" for a country that would have
been better for all of humanity had it never been born is so far from
anything the slightest bit anti capitalist or progressive. Defending a
settler colony makes you complicit in those very crimes. No amount of prose
by Margaret Atwood can eliminate this.


--
Macdonald Stainsby.
--
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In the contradiction lies the hope. -Brecht.