Combatting Systemic Erase-ism

How can the past be future-proofed, if Systemic Erase-ism blanks it out for current and future generations? Erase-ism doesn't see history as a series of events that have happened, but as an assault on the sensibilities of some people in the present. It re-shapes history as parable ("fictitious narrative or allegory") in defense of dominant attitudes of the present. Once it becomes a creature of ideological opinion-shaping, History as a subject is no longer a scholarly discipline but a branch of identity politics. 

The problem is not only that new parables are written to suit contemporary tastes (every generation does that), but that actual historical evidence in the form of documents, memorial sites, graves, archaeological remains, architecture, letters and memoirs are being erased and destroyed.

In every generation, knowledge of the past must survive depredations of the present. If we (the present) suppress parts of our past story considered discriminatory or "unsafe" for some (e.g. "privileged, dominant, colonialist, white, elitist, etc. ...), what will we be leaving descendants and future scholars? The future, where scholarship is concerned, will be blank.

How is this erase-ism accomplished? With displays of diversity-equity. This takes forms we have become used to: statue destruction, vandalism of buildings, removal of inconvenient documents from public archives and libraries, name changes of cities, streets, schools and universities.

This process is common when one regime or zeitgeist replaces another. It can change names and streetscapes, but not the actual facts of what happened in the past, because the past cannot unhappen. It can be unknown however, to an ignorant populace. This is engineered ignorance.

Removing statues of early explorers, politicians, inventors and philanthropists in Canada doesn't remove the fact of their having been nation-shapers. Changing the name of Ryerson University (for example) to Toronto Metropolitan University, doesn't change the fact that Egerton Ryerson the person had enormous effect on Canadian literacy, education, journalism and free speech. It can only erase public knowledge of the fact.

In the past, churches and polite taste muzzled certain expressions of speech, but speech was loosened up during the 20th century -- only to be re-muzzled today. Today we suppress not profanity but ideas that others say make them feel marginalized. 

Now, scholars with a different take on history than the ideologically correct one are banned from campuses (exactly the arena where they would be speaking, in an open society). It only needs someone to call their theories "hate" for them to be sent the way of statues: de-platformed. 

Next, editors of mainstream media accept submissions only from "disadvantaged" groups. Festivals, conferences and theatres only receive funding if they demonstrate the right kind of "diversity" (i.e. non-diversity). We live in paradoxical times. 

Thought can be erased before it even finds expression -- through self-censorship.  This is about freedom of speech, debate and analysis among citizens, academics, writers, bureaucrats and officials. Only if we preserve open expression can the past and present be held proof against future erase-ism.

“If we lose our freedom, it will not be because of invasion from without, but erosion from within; not because of autocratic dictators looking to do bad, but parochial bureaucrats seeking to do good.”
                     — Alan Borovoy, Canadian Civil Liberties Association

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA! Are you being wished many happy returns?

Today we celebrate the birth of Canada. Usually a birthday isn't considered a day for hurling insults, it's usually reserved for compliments and good wishes -- but not for Canada on July 1st 2020.

On early morning radio detractors start the day by explaining why they don't celebrate Canada's birthday, and others, who do, apologizing for it. (How Canadian can you get? Maybe that IS the celebration.)

One commentator says Canada is "racist", another that it's "colonialist", which seems to amount to the same thing in current social justice-speak. It's interesting to deconstruct the word "colonial" however: a colony is but a collection of people who live, work and share resources for mutual support in what may be a hostile environment. (Even ants and beavers do it.) The Canadian climate and wilderness was certainly hostile for the first farmers, traders, communicators, town-builders, arts-creators and social service providers who settled here. 

"Social services" meant orphanages, hospices, food charities and such as provided by women from backgrounds where "care and share" philosophies were valued (Quaker, evangelical, communitarian, convent-based or whatever). The "communicators" used written words and felt it was worth setting up schools to teach young people to read and write them. 

Gradually these early settlers joined up their colonies up into a nation (note for those who don't read history: we haven't been a colony for quite some time) in which prosperity and voting rights were eventually made available to everyone, constitutional equality and freedom of conscience were protected, and all without a single bloody national Revolution. Tolerance, accommodation, learning to adjust to irrational or resentful criticisms of other citizens were part of the colonial equipment -- and still are. 

So Happy Birthday Canada, and congratulations for being born! No wonder millions of immigrants from all over the world clamour still to settle within your boundaries.

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In Canada, every day's Apology Day

My Apologies

    I want to say I'm sorry for your loss. I heard you'd lost inclusion and respect, and possibly my ancestors were responsible. I'm sure my ancestors would be very sorry had they known more about inclusion back in the day when they were alive and people didn't fret enough about exclusion and inequity and such.

    I'm sorry you feel dis-entitled and disrespected -- if you do -- my apologies if I've got that wrong and you're actually perfectly fine. Although it must be a burden if you are unfairly excluded from victim-hood. Sorry about that. I didn't mean to be insensitive. My mistake: sorry.

    I apologize if my race has had anything to do with it. My race is something I inherited unconsciously, but I know that's no excuse. I apologize for my ancestors having the genes they did, I'm sure if they'd realized all the trouble their genes would cause they wouldn't so thoughtlessly have passed them on. Some of them even had the bad taste to get their names on monuments and statues, not knowing how offensive monuments would become (or even that their names would be on them), but again, that's no excuse. I'm sure they're posthumously regretful and that they’re perfectly okay with having their statues torn down. Sorry about historic names and places. Sorry about history, it should never happen.

    But don't worry, the politicians will apologize for it, they're in training for the Apology Olympics. I'm only a recreational apologist myself. But it's puzzling that an "apologia" originally meant a speech in defence of something, explaining and vindicating when no offence had been intended. But sorry: I know intent has nothing to do with it and that making amends means you must pretend that offence was intended, even if it wasn't ...

    But sorry, I'm losing the thread, I apologize for not sticking to the point which is my guilt and your victim-hood. Sorry for being obtuse, for it's clear that the insulted have a right to feel insulted and no one can take that away from them, for that would be to pile guilt upon guilt and even all the hand-washing of Lady Macbeth would fail to wash the stain away.

     I'm sorry that that lady was so entitled by the way, she being titled. And not only that but heterosexual and Anglo-Saxon, so her descendants would be settlers of a particularly accomplished, educated colonial type, which is elitist. No wonder she couldn't stop washing her hands, perhaps anticipating the unclean doings of her race.

    But sorry Lady Macbeth: maybe it's not all your fault because you had to deal with toxic masculinity in your partner. So you don't need to hate yourself as much as I do. If only I could hate myself enough maybe I could finally stop apologizing. 

    But sorry -- let's get back to you. You have every right to feel aggrieved about ... your grievances. I hope you'll forgive me. I'll follow the political leaders in learning what you're aggrieved about – or would that be cultural appropriation? Sorry: by “learning” I didn't mean I'd become in any way elitist-ly "learned" (mea culpa).

     I don't know why, since we have a national “day” for everything else, Canada doesn't have an Annual Official Apology Day. We have a day for every disease, we have Oceans Day, Bee Day, Orange Shirt Day, Seniors, Child, Multicultural Day, and dozens more. If we had an Apology Day everyone could celebrate it by surging into the streets and blocking traffic (so the traffic knows we're serious) and waving signs saying I'M SORRY. A blanket apology would let all the offended people feel included at once by the apolog-industry.

     But wait -- I am begin to feel something new: I believe it's the onset of apology-fatigue. I even foresee the day when I will retire from this tearful wallow. Sooner rather than later, I think. In fact: why not now?! I feel that my sorrow-stamina has suddenly run down. I'm afraid I may not make it to the next national apolog-orgy after all.

Please accept my regrets,

FJ

"Never retract, never explain, never apologize; get things done and let them howl." -- Nellie McClung

Is it time Canada listened to this one-time Member of Parliament?


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What John A. Macdonald Thinks About the Removal of his Statue

Dear Victoria:
How you have changed since I was your MP, back in 1878 -82 -- you're all grown up now! Yet - not so much. Many wise, well-educated, hard-working folks lived here 140 years ago, in civilized homes full of books and art, some even had pianos brought all the way around the Cape. I'm sure there are some residents like that today -- literate, temperate, cosmopolitan. I recognize a few trees too, which were mere saplings back in my day. Their survival is miraculous, given the vast stretches of pavement one sees now.

That my statue survived as long as it did may also be surprising. Its removal in 2018 is not surprising, given the tenor of the times -- nor, for me, is it a matter of regret.

The bad time was not when my statue (from the Latin "stare": to stand) was stood-down; the bad time was when it was put up. I had to stand immobile, as cold stone, I who had once been flesh and blood. I was even called "fiery" in my time, full of heat and lust for life and for work. Making a nation out of widely scattered regions, gathering together an educated populace from folks of many backgrounds, harmonizing quarrelling political parties and meshing liberal with conservative -- that was not easy. Who knew that of all my sins and weaknesses, it would be the part about educating the populace that would bring hatred on my head in the 21st century? I came from the Scottish tradition that believed education, learning, scholarship and literacy were to be shared among all races. How could I have known it would somehow become wrong not to have left the aboriginals out? I still don't get it.

But as I say, it was not being removed that bothered me, it was being erected as lifeless rock in the first place. As Prime Minister, binding provinces together through a railway (British Columbia would be American Columbia had we not got that railway built) it was my job to "put out fires", not to become rock. After becoming, like everybody does, dead meat and crumbling bone I then had to become stone, and stand alone in the midst of the gawking crowd. Better to be granted the dignified anonymity of death. I like it best when people walking by on the street don't notice me, to tell you the truth.

We public figures never get to retire from the public gaze. As statues we must stand for decades while the curious (and the incurious) stream past us. Facial reactions change as people respond like puppets to the ideologies of each era. One year they're all taking your picture, and the next they only stop to glare. Some even scrawled scurrilous messages on my plaques. Thousands of other Canadian "Johns" and "Macdonalds" get to rest in peaceful privacy, not molested in sculptural form, and I confess to envying them. Being taken down as a statue gave me in a counterintuitive way something of a lift. Being stationary on a plinth in the first place was the come-down, for one who was once so alive.

My real monument is Canada, great nation which I and others molded together. I understand, Victoria, that Canada is well-thought of across the world these days, especially among the millions who live without such niceties as education, parliamentary democracy and the rule of law. Being one of those who secured those blessings is monument enough for me. The standing legal statutes are my memorial. History itself is my memorial, however some folks may want to obfuscate history with ideology.

I've been in the actual "fuscus" (dark) these past many months -- in a dark storage-room owned by the Municipality of Victoria. But it's been a relief to lie down. Now please excuse me while I continue to rest in this moment of obscurity, for it may not last. I've heard that I still have admirers and they want me standing upright again. Others meanwhile are preparing a plaque of insults about me to accompany my resurrection. It all sounds very tribal and childish, so who knows how well-rested I may need to be in future?
Sincerely yours,
John A. Macdonald, PM