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Good read for Canadians (and others)

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Well-known member
A British news paper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. It is
funny how it took someone in England to put it into words... Sunday
Telegraph Article From today's UK wires: Salute to a brave and modest
nation - 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 will 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 life and limb to rescue 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 much 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 's entire 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,
it's 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 re-run. The Canadian navy began
the
war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half
of the
Atlantic against U-boat attack. 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 a
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 filmmakers 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, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek,
Art
Linkletter and Dan Aykroyd have in the 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 it's sons and daughters as the rest of the world is
completely
unaware of them. The Canadians proudly 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 soldiers in
the past half century have been the greatest peacekeepers on
Earth -
in 39missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping
duties, from
Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia.


Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular
on-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia , in
which out-of-control
paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment
was then
disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of
self-abasement for
which, naturally, the Canadians received no international
credit.
So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and
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. This past year more grieving
Canadian
families knew that cost all too tragically well.

Please pass this on to any of your friends or relatives who
served
in the Canadian Forces or anyone who is proud to be Canadian; it
is a
wonderful tribute to those who choose to serve their country and
the
world in our quiet Canadian way.
 

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