[A-List] Canada: A Nation State?

["Sabri Oncu" <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Macdonald wrote:

>> Sabri wrote:
>>
>> Is Canada a "nation-state"?
>
> To me a nation-state is a legal entity, so simply put, yes.

I know that Macdonald is away for a while but since there are other
Canadians on the list, I hope that they will have a few things to say about
my comments below.

I disagree with Macdonald on the above: None of the states as legal entities
is necessarily a "nation-state," although some are better qualified to be
called as such than others. 

As I see it, and I say this partly because I had lived in Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada for roughly seven years, Canada is not a "nation-state." And I am
glad that it is not.
The same goes for the United States of America as well: the US is not a
"nation-state" either.

Let us go back to what Tony wrote a short while ago:

> ...If Quebec 'separates from the rest of Canada'. that will be 
> the end of Canada. Welcome to the 51st state...It would probably 
> mean the eventual destruction of Quebec sovereignty as well.

I agree with Tony. I think, Canadians, English or French speaking, and
Usians are luckier than the Europeans in this regard. What separates
Canadians and Usians is their citizenship more than everything else. This
holds true even for the so-called French Canadians (Quebecqua?), Mohawks,
Blackfoot, what have you: for example, I find it very difficult to see much
difference between an African USian and African Canadian, at least, in
appearance. 

The main reason why I do not think that Canada and the US are not
"nation-states" is that both of them are multi-ethnic societies. So it is
impossible to build a Canadian or USian nationalism based on narrow ethnic
nationalisms of the sort we see in Europe, Asia and the like, including
Turkey, my country. It was almost equally impossible to build a
"nation-state" in the geography that is called Turkey in the early twentieth
century as well, although those who build it somehow managed to do that, but
I do not want to go into the details of this for the benefit of those who
lack the knowledge of the details.. 

As I see it, any sort of classification of human beings is a means to define
"us" and "them," which, in my opinion, holds true even for the Marxist
concepts of working and allied classes and bourgeoisie (I thank my
spell-checker for the correct spelling). In the US and Canada, possibly
because of the impossibility of defining "us" and "them" based on ethnicity,
racism was the better option for the powerful and, in these days, this
racism is directed not only towards the non-Caucasians (Aboriginals of
America, Africanoriginals of America, Asianoriginals of America and
Hispanics) but also to the peoples of the Middle East, as long as they are
not Jewish, although it is very difficult to tell the difference between a
Jewish and Muslim Middle Eastern just by the looks.

This is why I think the Ottoman Empire was more progressive than the Usian
Empire: the Ottomans did not discriminate their "subjects" based on
ethnicity, language, race and even religion. This is not to say that they
did not discriminate their subjects. To the Ottoman Empire what mattered was
obedience, so the way they defined "us" and "them" was very simple: those
who obey and those who do not! I think this is a more honest approach than
the one we see all around us in these days. 

Let me finish by quoting Macdonald:

> ... until such time as all of these relationships are partnerships 
> in the truest sense of the word and the deed.

But we are not there yet!

So how do we define "us" and "them"?

Best,

Sabri