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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: lookingforold on Sunday 16 November 08 17:37 GMT (UK)
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British news paper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. 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 it's 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 its 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 39 missions 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 non-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.
Lest we forget.
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Great article, thanks for posting it.
Karen
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Before I went on a long trip to Canada, everyone told me "There's very little of interest in Canada; why go there for two months? Canadians are boring, dull people, you wont like them ..."
WRONG ! WRONG !! I think Canadians are amongst the most friendly, kindly, hospitable people, taken as a nation, that I have ever met ! As a country, Canada seems unassuming and willing to take a back seat ... yet Canada does so much, as this article states, for the rest of the world ... and no-one notices !
CANADIANS ... you need to blow your own trumpet a lot more ... you are a fantastic country, full of fantastic people ...
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Thank you so much for posting this terrific article.
dollylee
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Unfortunately, probably few people will bother to read the article in the Telegraph.
Being uninformed does not just apply to the Americans... and it always goes against the grain to call them Americans since we Canadians along with many other countries occupy the North and South American continents too. Recently I took a trip to Australia and read their papers about their involvement in Afganistan. They have lost 2 or 3 soldiers which is a significant loss, but not one word about the Canadian involvement and that we have lost nearly 100 and are in the most dangerous part of that country.
John
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Thanks so much for posting this wonderful article.
Too often we in Canada feel that we are the forgotten ones.
Yet, when the call goes out, we are there. My family, like so many, have members who served in the Boer War, WWI, and II. Those who did come home were, as they say, 'never the same as they were before the war'.
I was quite surprised recently to see NBC tv in the U.S. do a feature about our 'Highway of Heroes' - a wonderful display of respect we in Canada pay to our people who served and died in Afghanistan.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081110.WBwblogolitics20081110192041/WBStory/WBwblogolitics/
Thanks again for posting this.
Regards,
Kathleen
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CANADIANS ... you need to blow your own trumpet a lot more ... you are a fantastic country, full of fantastic people ...
It's not the Canadian way Lydart ;D
Oh sure, our banks are not in trouble, we are the largest supplier of oil and natural gas to the USA, land mass we are the 2nd largest next to Russia, but, we will just carry on doing what we do just like our anthem "True North Strong and Free"
Karen ;)
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Oh puhleeez KarenM !! ::)
( You forgot the hockey ......... !! ) :P
That article was a reprint from 2002 ... but it's still very true today !! :)
http://www.canmilair.com/tribute.htm
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ROFL, ok hockey is an exemption, we are superior in that sport and I'll be the first to rub it in ;) Remember when the great one was leaving Edmonton Oilers to go to the USA cause he married an American :o Such a scandal
K
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Thank you Kathleen for putting up the link to The Highway of Heroes very moving indeed. Unfortunately, here in England, nothing like that happens except in some area's that are near either the forces bases or the air base that the lads (and women) return home too.
We recently had a program on national televison (Saturday 15th November ) entitled "The Fallen" which told the story of the 300 (now 302 since the program was made) British service personnel who had been killed whilst on active service in Afghanistan and Iraq. Was this program shown at peak viewing times? the answer to this was no. It was shown after 9pm on a Saturday night. Was the program shown to a nationwide audiance? No, not really as it was "tucked" away on BBC2 instead of being shown on BBC1 where audiance figures are higher. Was the program worth showing? A resounding yes as it was not only well made but it was one that not only made you think about the tragic waste of life of these service personnel but also the cost to the families and loved ones that are left behind.
It is true that for many in this country they only hear of the death's of British service men and women or of the loss of American troops through the national media and not many know that 18 other countries have lost personnel in these two conflicts. How many I wonder know that Latvia, Estonia and South Korea have suffered loses as well as Finland, Norway and Denmark? But some of us are always mindful (and grateful) of what these countries, as well as Canada and Australia, have contributed.
OR
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There has been considerable coverage, especially on CBC about the Highway of Heroes. What I found especially surprising about the NBC coverage what that it was done, simply because in the U.S. as you probably know, there is little or no public word of the returning injured or dead from those conflicts.
Kathleen
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While in Ontario visiting family in October we drove along the highway of Heroes. I must say it was very moving realizing that this was the last highway trip for our brave men and women.
Anne
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Thank you Kathleen for the link to the video. It is nice to see our Americans to the south have recognized something of how we show our respect. The article posted here is a very moving one and I have a similar article I received about 5 years ago also written by a British journalist which was passed my way at work. I work with the Canadian military and have been unfortunate to know some of the fallen. Moreover, I know those whose lives are forever changed for having been party to the battles of old and new. These men and women whether visible to strangers or not, are very different people and not always for the better, after returning from places like Iraq.
As for the quiet Canadians, 'yes' we tend to be a modest people who do not take for granted what we have in Canada. It reminds me of Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" (except for the last line).
-Shanty