Category: Social Media

Multiculturalism: an old-fashioned idea

Way back in the 70s, when Trudeau ruled the Earth and Canadians were purging themselves of all human imperfections, some of the bright boys in Ottawa decided it was time to give up trying to squeeze Canada into a bilingual, bicultural straitjacket and, in the parlance of that time, “tell it like it is.”  The result was multiculturalism which was immediately enshrined in our document de jour, The Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  (Honestly, I think the idea had more to do with watering down Quebec nationalism than recognizing Ed Wong’s Golden Dragon restaurant, but that’s for another time.)  Multiculturalism has been the law of the land ever since.  Recently, however, our European cousins (notably, Angela Merkel and David Cameron) have decided that multiculturalism doesn’t work and there need to be some national standards all citizens should adhere to.  Surprisingly, this has not sparked the CBC (or anybody else) to raise the alarm in Canada over rightwing racists reaching for their copies of Mein Kampf.  This proves, once again, that Canadians are smarter than journalists and politicians combined and don’t really care about multiculturalism. It was a stupid idea in the first place.

Legislating multiculturalism in Canada is like trying to teach a sea otter to swim.  It doesn’t do any good but it really annoys the otter.  Canadians are multicultural by definition.  We can’t help it; it’s in our collective DNA.  Ask any Canadian what it means to be Canadian, and it might take them a while, but eventually they’ll get around to “We’re not Americans.”  This is exactly what Canadians are: we’re not Americans.  It’s the standard by which we judge ourselves, and after that nobody cares.  It’s the only question on the Citizenship Test (if we even have one.)  Ordinary Canadians don’t give a damn who, what or where a person is from.  We figure, if you’re willing to put up with the weather, you’re in.  Canada could take the Pepsi Challenge on Racism with any other country in the world and win.  It wouldn’t even be close.  Canadians care more about hockey than they do race, creed, colour or religion.

Multiculturalism was conceived in the olden days (the 60s-going-on-70s) when modern travel, information and immigration first brought Canada’s Chattering Class in contact with a few cultures other than their own.  Seduced by the American media’s addiction to race relations, and unable to control our enthusiasm and ignorance, we fell all over ourselves trying to prove our benevolence.  In short order, it became accepted wisdom in Canada that the quaint peoples of the world (who didn’t have modern conveniences like cars) were simply not strong enough to withstand the Anglo-American cultural juggernaut.  In other words, KFC was going to overwhelm tandoori chicken — whether 800 million South Asians liked it or not.  A bold statement from a couple of million Canadians but so be it.  This was called tolerance.  In actual fact, it was a blatant display of soft prejudice.  To naturally assume one culture’s inherent strength compared to another’s is nothing short of racism, no matter what you call it.  However, Canadians decided to take their patriarchal responsibilities seriously and protect these unfortunate people.   Multiculturalism was born.  The vertical mosaic was alive, and all was well with the world. 

Today, we understand that the vertical mosaic has actually become an ethnic archipelago.  Ethnic communities flourish in our major cities without ever having any contact with other ethnic communities flourishing just two or three blocks away.  Our inclusive society is more segregated now than it’s ever been — because we are rapidly losing the group identity that makes people wish to be included.  There is no real advantage to being a Canadian anymore — even in Canada — aside from financial gain and territorial location.  One might just as well remain Filipino, Somali — or Martian — for all it matters.

We also discovered that cultures come with a lot more than just odd hats and different spices in their food.  Sometimes, they have nasty little by-products like polygamy, honour killings, Sharia law and female circumcision, to name just a few.  If all cultures are equal (which by the way they are) in a legislated multicultural society, they must all be tolerated in their entirety.   There’s no third choice on this.  State-sponsored multiculturalism does not allow us to rummage through another person’s values and discard what we feel is inappropriate.  Without a set of core moral judgements, right and wrong become a matter of academic debate – and nothing more.

Canadians are a tolerant people (nutbars don’t count.)  Even though we are all different, historically we’ve had to work together to survive the climate and geography of our country.  Diversity is the natural state in which we exist.  However, as we continue to cling to the old-fashioned model of multiculturalism, many Canadians are beginning to wonder what advantage we gain by emphasising our differences — especially at the expense of all the things that should make us the same.

Why I don’t like Baby Boomers

After The Bucket List there were some comments that I was being a little hard on the Baby Boomers.  So to clarify, here, then, is a brief history of why I dislike the Baby Boom Generation.

In the autumn of 1945, millions of horny men and women around the world left the armed forces and returned home after a long absence.  They had just fought the most terrible war in history, and even though they’d hadn’t all been through hell, every single one of them had been close enough to smell it.  When they got home, they had one purpose in mind (Get your mind out of the gutter!): to forget the horrible things they had seen and done and reconstruct the world so their families would never have to witness the madness they had just been through.  They succeeded beyond their wildest expectations, I’m here to tell you, but in the process, they created an enduring evil that still plagues us today – the Baby Boomers.

The children of the Greatest Generation were spoiled brats who grew into moody, inconsiderate adolescents.  Now, they are about to become grouchy, grasping old people.  The joys of adulthood escaped them entirely.  They were raised on equal doses of suburbia, affluence and Dr. Benjamin Spock.  They were indulged by everyone, who pampered them with everything the post war economic miracle could offer.  HoverMoms guarded them against all evil, and absentee Dads worked ever harder to provide them the luxuries they’d never had growing up.  Every pout required ice cream.  Every scraped knee demanded an inquiry into playground equipment.  Every wish was somebody’s command.   One bratty kid is a problem; 50 million is a disaster.  But they were the darlings of the world, a living symbol that, despite man’s hideous ability to obliterate all life on Earth, there was still promise and potential for a better future.

However, by the mid 50s, fractures were already starting to show.  In 1955, Rudolf Flesch published Why Johnny Can’t Read.  For anyone who bothered to look, Flesch’s book was not just an indictment of teaching methods but of the entire education system itself — and beyond.  Flesch sounded the alarm that overindulgence was producing an entire generation who didn’t have any basic skills.  He was also concerned that, as students moved through the system to more complex ideas, this ignorance would only snowball.  Flesch was right and he was largely ignored.

In the early 60s, the cracks became clearly visible.  Millions of young adults moved away from their suburban cocoons into the real world.  The shock was palpable.  For the first time, they saw deep social, political and economic problems and were astounded to discover that not everyone had shared their middle class privilege.  Without any basic understanding, they saw this as a systemic flaw which needed to be corrected.  Unable to grasp the simplest connections in a complex society or to formulate reasonable solutions they merely demanded wholesale change.  However, not everybody shared their middle class values or their middle class solutions.  There was no quick fix.  Unable to understand why they were no longer the centre of the universe but very much aware that the powers that be were not going to snap to and pay attention, the Baby Boomers, as they were beginning to be called, got angry.  The result was a five year temper tantrum that flared across university campuses all over the world.  Forsaking Kennedy for Castro, young people decided that steady work for incremental change was too hard.  They preferred the romantic life of the revolutionary (albeit free of serious consequences.)  If the system wouldn’t change immediately to suit them, they would kick and scream until it did.  Like most tantrums, this one tired itself out, but not before millions of lives had been disrupted.

The convulsions of the 60s tore great sections of our society apart.  The problem was, the anger of the Baby Boomers never went beyond childish rage.  Institutions were knocked down.  Social systems were destroyed.  However, without any long term dedication for reform nothing was built on the rubble.  It became Revolution for the Hell of It.  A sophomore party that got out of hand.  By the end of the decade, the Boomers were already losing interest and by the time things got serious, one May afternoon at Kent State, they’d all but disappeared.  They were gone, off to backpack Europe or the Himalayas in a frantic search for their “Me First” souls.

A couple of years later, they re-emerged when Disco swept the neighbourhood.  Their social conscience forgotten, it was time to dance and do coke and play with therapy.  The mess they left was somebody else’s problem.  Yippies became yuppies, and the Boomers never even looked back.  They had 40 more years of destruction ahead of them.

But there are other perspectives of the dominant generation.  Here’s one translated from Dutch — Over mijn generatie

The Bucket List

In a couple of months, the first of the Baby Boomer generation is going to turn 65.  While I welcome their demise, this is going to be a disaster of Biblical proportion.  The Grim Reaper has just kicked sand in the face of the biggest bully of all time, and the Boomers are not going to go quietly.  If we could have harnessed the energy produced by the collective egos of the Baby Boom, our dependence on fossil fuels would have been over – instantaneously.  Now, as they face extinction, the final flares of conceit are going to be awesome.  Prepare yourself, world.  For the next 10 years — at least — life as we know it is going to be put on hold while we hear endless variations of The Bucket List.  It’s already started.

Of course, like absolutely everything they ever got their mitts on, the Boomers are going to turn this into an all-consuming adventure.  They’re going to throw around words like “growth” and “healing” and “personal experience,” but, in the end, it’s going to be all about who’s got the most stuff.  There’ll to be books, websites, luggage, coffee cups, furniture, how-tos, greeting cards, television shows — Oh, God, just kill me now!  And forget about travel in the next decade because you’re going to be up to your elbows in old people — and not cool old people either.  It’s going to be those tidy buggers who have taken so much Vitamin I they glow in the dark.  Every chapter of Lonely Planet is going to be filled with creaky old farts and fartesses doing stupid stuff to demonstrate to the world they haven’t lost it – yet.  Skydiving, hang gliding, motorcycle riding and all the other bone-breaking challenges will be full up for the next couple of years.  The broken hips alone are going to confuse future archaeologists for centuries.  And don’t even bother about Kilimanjaro: you’ll be trampled in the stampede.  I haven’t even mentioned poetry, novel writing, painting or modern dance.  One complete generation is going to be scrambling around, trying to cram a lifetime of “meaningful experiences” into the quality years between the retirement dinner and the rest home.  Good luck, ‘cause it ain’t gonna fit!  But the worst thing about it, is, long before the gondolas in Venice fill up, they’re all going to want to talk about it.  Justify it. Analyze it.  Discuss it, and explain their reasons why.  Here’s the reason why: you clowns never just DID anything in your entire life, so now you need a Bucket List to motivate your ass?

Look, I’m sorry you missed a chance at Mary Elizabeth in grade 11.  I’m sorry you didn’t go home with Juan Carlos when you were backpacking through Spain in ‘71.  I’m sorry you spent more time renovating your house than living in it.  I`m sorry you never drove a Lamborghini and I`m sorry you missed the Pyramids.  (If Mubarak doesn’t hit the road soon, I’m going to miss them, too!)  Here`s the truth of it. Though.  Nobody sets out to have a meaningful life; it just happens that way.  Crossing off your experiences like items on a grocery list is not going to coax it along.  And here`s another revelation: it’s not a contest.  Just because you think up some esoteric activity you plan to do before you take the dirt nap, that doesn’t make you  more sensitive, imaginative or  smarter than the next guy.  So don’t strut around like you’ve just captured the flag on the moral high ground.  Finally, and most importantly, nobody but you cares why you want to throw a pebble into the Black Sea, and if you bring it up again, somebody is going to slap you.

Personally I think everybody should have a Bucket List.  I have one.  I wrote it when I was 12 – the first time.  The problem I have with Bucket Lists is that Baby Boomers have always had this uncanny ability to spread their regrets over everything they touch.  They taint everything with disappointment.  Then, they have an unholy need to prance their problems publicly.  They think it is somehow virtuous.  This latest incarnation, the Bucket List, started off as something whimsical, even magical (if you will) but it’s rapidly turning into a hit parade of songs not sung, roads not taken and opportunities missed.  It’s been hijacked by the followers of the gospel according to Lennon “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”   The plain fact is Lennon was wrong.  Every life is a continuum of “101 Things I Want To Do Before I Die.” Most people figure that out early.  If you don’t have a Bucket List throughout you’re life, you’re a dolt.  But if you’re depending on it to make the final arc to immortality for you, you’ve done something horribly wrong.