Salute to a Brave
and Modest Nation
by 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 bill 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 her life and limb to recue 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
most 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'sentire 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 'rerun'. The Canadian navy began the war
with a half-dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the
Atlantic Ocean against U-boat attacks. 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 the 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 film makers 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,
DavidCronenberg, AlexTrebek, Art Linkletter, Mike Weir and Dan
Aykroyd...have in 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, for whom Canada has proved quite unable
to find any takers.
Moreover,
Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements
of
its sons and daughers as the rest of the world is completely unaware
of them.
The
Canadians 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
forces in the past half century have been the greatest peacekepers on
Earth. ~ in 39 missions on UN mandates...and 6 on non-UN mandates...6
on non-UN peacekeeping dutes...from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai
to Bosnia.
Yet,
the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular non-Canadian
imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia, in which out-of-control
paratrooopers murdered two Somalia infiltrators.
Their
regiment was then disbanded in disgrace:
a
unique Canadian act of self-abasement for which
naturally,
the Canadians received no international credit.
So,
who today, in the United States knows about the 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.
Over several years, more Canadian families knew that cost all too
tragically well.
Lest
We Forget:
For
anyone who is proud to be Canadian,
this
is a wonderful tribute for those who choose to serve their country
and
the world...in their own quiet Canadian way...
100%
Canadian!
Merle
Baird-Kerr...written November 17, 2016
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