on september 26, 2009, canadian prime minister steve-o harpsies announced to the rest of the suits at the g20 conference in pittsburg, and the AFP who were listening at the door, that canada has "no history of colonialism". he continued, "we have all of the things that many people admire about the great powers but none of the things that threaten or bother them" (Calgary Herald, 26 Sept 09).
as you can imagine, this has resulted in a few polite letters to the editors of history, penned by folks who would like to diplomatically draw monsieur harper's attention to the few hundred years or so of complex, overlapping, violent, and - significantly - ongoing, colonial history that really is quite quintessentially 'canadian'. but i say, don't censor the poor man - let him speak!
no, this is not a libertarian defense of freedom of speech, bemoaning the waning of individual liberties in the name of political correctness. i stand by the fumbling national mascot for different reasons.
harper's blatant disregard for history and especially for diplomatic relations between communities and individuals who call for institutional attenuation of the legacies (including the ongoing project) of colonialism, exposes the gap between capitalist liberal-democratic promises of good governance and "justice". his outrageousness is a potential catalyst, of which we could use many, in galvanizing a public - or at least a portion of the public - into thinking seriously about the limits of our current social and political organization. maybe his shocking lack of self-awareness and outright denial of history, will drive people into revolt. perhaps communities and individuals will decide they've had enough and dismantle themselves from the current civic terrain, bringing the nation state crashing down with it!
of course, i am giving little stephen jo-jo too much credit. people have been organizing their own social and political communities for a long time now. indeed, they have long-since given up on their faith in those of monarchical lineage and their respective promises. however, i make this point here because as many of us interweb-addicted info-sharers get our little html panties in a knot about harper, we miss out on pointing out that his words have stirred up more discussion about colonialism in canada than we can say about our do-gooding friends (myself included) at say, softer nationalist institutions like the cbc. critiques of harper's outlandishness have a latent republicanism undergirding them that i want to be suspicious of - what exactly are we whining about? would we like him to have a better speech writer so he can poetically avoid mentioning the little blip of bloody violence that is the foundation of the canadian nation-state?
let's face it, harps, or whoever is wearing the crown for the day, is never going to be able to address the history and ongoing project of colonialism outside of a language of liberal-democratic state-talk. so isnt it better that what he does say garners it a little more attention than whatever status-quo settler speak we've come to expect from the state and its colonial apparatuses?
