Canada: A Place to Belong

And then I encourage you to push, once and for all, for real and meaningful change.  Because, until we do, we will never be a real country.

What is a country?  What constitutes a nation?

We - as humans - tend to blur the lines between ethnicity and nationality.  An Italian is an Italian, the Chinese are Chinese, etc.  The further removed we are, the more generic we get - Africans as a people for instance.  Meanwhile, the more localized we get, the reverse happens - Northern Italians are distinct from Southern ones.  People from Piemonte is distinct from Lombardia.

And, throughout history, there has been a sense of "local" people and "non-local" people.  A non-Italian living in Italy is a non-Italian, for instance.  The stranger-in-a-strange land perspective persists through generations.

Except in truth, all these labels are prescribed, subjective, and dismissive of the complexity within any community and the commonality that bonds all of us together.

Within the "us v them" mentality, though, there's a kind of simplistic logic that resonates - people from a place are people, entitled to the benefits of the place, and people who aren't from that place are not.  Easy, right?  Takes an existing, comfortable model and kinda keeps things from changing.  

That's stability, right?  Not this complex, messy, risky change stuff.

The big challenge is that while we look at the world through a lens of stability, and simplicity, and a tribalistic social model, it's not what the world looks like.  As human societies (plural) increasingly merge into this more complex, somewhat integrated global community, however, the traditional fault lines are shifting.  The frames that we have become comfortable with are morphing in real terms, whether we are consciously adapting to them or not.

Which leads to a conundrum, a societal burning platform - at what point does the model we are comfortable with become so clearly not what's actually happen that we're forced to abandon those preconceived notions and redefine what it means to be... whatever we are?

For reasons of history, geography and circumstance, I feel like Canada is different.  

Canada is a country that was forged through treaties, transactional agreements with Britain, with First Nations, between French and English.  100%, we have done a bad job at this, and 100% that our history is replete with human rights atrocities, abuses of power, systematic discrimination, etc.  These facts are part of who we are.  At the same time, there is an ethos, a "national" mythology that people buy into in different degrees, but is recognized.

Canada isn't a nation; it's a social experiment.

Can people of completely different origins, beliefs, legal frameworks and cultural biases live together and function as a community?  Can the wounds inflicted of the past inform a better future rather than define blood feuds for eternity?

Can we collectively be more than the sum of our parts?  What would that look like?  

And what's the readily discussed and socially relevant "hook" that rests at the centre and draws us together?

It's mental health.  It's the impact of context.  It's how we view the world - and understanding the world others live in, that exists in parallel to ours, can even be in the exact same physical space, but is different.

We're circling this elephant; there's talk of change as being a buzzword, and meaningful transformation a pipe-dream, an opium for the masses.  

Except it's really happening.  A social consciousness is emerging that humanizes, and takes ownership, and ever so slowly even creates agency.

I see a Canada emerging - not without friction - that is the embodiment, the exemplar, the fertile ground on which a new form of identity is taking root.  Not as a nation, but as a community.  Not a homogeneous tribe, but a conscious society.

We aren't there yet.  Not by a long shot.

But we are getting there.  

Ultimately, it's not about the destination - the destination is us.  It's about leaving no one behind.

This bit is essential. No longer is it okay to dismiss the rights and safety of sex workers as minor casualties in a larger war for visible public order. 

Was thinking about this.  No to protests, niqabs, sex work, black youth walking around like they belong, etc. No to funding for organizations that challenge the right's political narrative.  Gotta be careful about who you let in to the country, too.

But freedom of speech? Of course!  Gotta keep the left and their top-down, one-world-gov at bay, right?

Thank You Pegahue

Not gonna lie, this was an honour.

You don't celebrate people for the response you might get back, but because they deserve to be celebrated.  Having said that, when someone you respect who has has done some pretty amazing, legacy-leaving things is impacted by something you do for them, it's an awesome feeling.

1. tonyasurman ‏@tonyasurman  5h5 hours ago

   Mind blown by & extreme gratitude for incomparable @OpenCCE who wrote "the Pegahue and the Dragon " for me. LOVE

   

   1 retweet3 likes

    

    

    
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Ted Cruz is an Idiot

"Radical Islam is at war with us.  For over seven years we have had a president who refuses to acknolwedge this reality," Cruz wrote in a Facebook post.  "And the truth is, we can never hope to defeat this evil so long as we refuse to even name it.  That ends on January 20, 2017, when I am sworn in as president."

Radical Islam is not at war with "us", whether "us" is supposed to mean America, the West, the Free World, or democracy.  

Drunk driving is not at war with the US, though thousands of people die from it every year.  Suicide is not at war with the United States, though tens of thousands die from it every year.

How can it be that when a person with a gun shoots their neighbour's dog, or their neighbour, it's not a statement of gun culture being at war with Americans, but when terrorists say "Allah" before they die, it's clearly a religion thing?

I know, I know - apples and oranges, I'm a lefty socialist, whatever.  Clearly I don't get this stuff - be tough on those who don't think like you do, be lenient on those who do.  'Cause that's what makes the West superior.  Got it.

Here's what idiots like Cruz, whether they're playing politics or actually believe this crap fail to understand - it's all about people, context and conditioning.

It's impossible to control the first, though you can certainly motivate people to surface and focus on the best aspects of themselves.  The second is entirely controllable, though the best control isn't strict enforcement of rigid rules, but rather the provision of solid infrastructure and an open, inclusive, creative culture that promotes diversity as a good thing, because of what it can create.

Think a garden.

The last is what "radical Islam" focuses on - taking individuals and molding them into a specific kind of soldier.  It's not dissimilar from what Trump is doing with his supporters - only the extremity varies.

You will never, ever make America great again by building walls around the country and conditioning those within to fear those without.  If that was even possible in this day and age, you would end up creating your own version of North Korea.

Here's the evil I would like to name, Mr. Cruz - poor leadership.

It's poisoning your party and your country.

How about a war on that?

Trump and Brussels

Trump, who infamously called for a temporary ban on Muslims in December following terror attacks, and previously called Brussels a "hellhole," again called for increased border security.

One more: 

"You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They'd be carried out on a stretcher."

Donald Trump has called his people to violence.  He has encouraged it, going so far as to say there would be none of the usual consequences one gets for illegal acts of violence upon fellow human beings.  In fact, there might even be some appeal in being smacked by the court of law, but approved of by the man at the top.

See the irony in this?

Trump is America's Saddam Hussein.  The results are predictable; you just have to be willing to look far enough ahead to see them.

Hunger

Bloodshed grows on this earth, famine

Is everywhere, and life is getting harder.

Let's wake up, all together, and take action before it's too late.

Bloodshed grows and hunger is upon us

It's late, in the night, the stars Sparke

I wake up suuddenly because I cannot sleep

So much I am suffering for humanity

   - Hunger, Baaba Maal

Two stories.  The only two stories there are, really.

In the United States, Donald Trump is successfully using the politics of division to build a tribe.  Like all tribes, his excludes others and incites his people to violence in defence of what they either feel is theirs or they have decided to claim.

Look to the former Yugoslavia, or Rwanda, or Syria to see what happens when brothers are divided and told they are mortal enemies.  

Trump is not the first, nor will he be the last.  He is a symptom, a manifestation of the most base, limbic aspects of our species' psyche.  The tribe is uniform, it is closed, it is static - and it is doomed, always, to fall.

That's story one.  Here's the other one.

“This is so unusual; the newest people to the country and the oldest peoples never get to talk to each other,” she said. “Here, it’s happening organically.”

What is the opposite of tribe?  It's community.  Throughout history, people have travelled in search of community, of some common thing that connects them with others.  In the end, though, the thing in the middle is never anything more than a centre of gravity, a stone in the soup that brings people together.  Community isn't what they join, it's what they build together.

This is something I feel is hard-wired into so many First Nation traditions, and yet it's only now, after centuries of trying to wipe out or oppress this wisdom that we're realizing the only way to move forward is to think laterally and embrace the best of what we once wrote off as valueless.

There is so much hunger out there - hunger for something we feel we don't have.  When we mistake this hunger for anger, we are vulnerable to the dempagogues and would-be tyrants of the world, like Trump.  Men like these don't know how to build - they only know how to destroy.

The hunger is real.  It's a yearning for something more, something greater that feeds our souls.

We've been through this cycle before; doubtless, we'll go through it again.  

The trajectory is set, though; if you can look beyond the shadows of fear and individual or tribal understanding, you can see that beyond the light at the end of the tunnel - the cave entrance - lies a garden.

It's a space where we all belong, where collaboration and co-creation allows us to innovate and build nourishment that sustains rather than being trapped in a "eat what you kill" mentality.

Hunger keeps us competitive, helps us get ahead - but only so far.  To go the distance - to get to where we're going - we have to get there together.

Only then can we be free of this hunger that starves are souls.  Only then can we nourish each other and be more than the sum of our parts - a community, a concious society, a manifestation.