What ever happened to the myth of the mellow Canadian?

I don't let myself write blog posts because I am behind with some monolithic, oppressive and pending-like-a-pendulum writing. I self-impose sanctions sometimes, imagining one day I can discipline myself and become a productive tennis ball machine pumping out only meaningful words, worthy observations and downright brilliance. But most of my self-education goes awry and the rest goes haywire. Things I forbid myself from doing return before even they are repressed. The Heir of Ossington, who no longer lives on Ossington explains that it's 'the eroticism of transgression', sort of George Bataille for people with a hangover. 'The self imposed limits are too delicious not to trespass', he says or something like that because one can never quote HoO exactly the way he talks.

What tickles my fancy now is Yahoo News, the sort of news headlines that chain J Lo's low cut jeans to torn clothing containing corpses in the rubble of an earthquake. Yahoo Canada provokes me and I resist but oh the seduction of banality! The allure of ignorance and intolerance! The porn of backward thinking! Here is the latest money shot:

The city of Gatineau, following in the footsteps of Heouxville (appellation 2007), explains Yahoo (but Yahoo it's OK not to be able to read road signs in French, Hérouxville, Heoxcity, whatever) issues guidelines for immigrants. Quoting a Globe and Mail article, Yahoo gives us a glimpse of the 16 item document:

"Children are our most precious good (ahem, asset?), avoid excessive punishments, corporal and sexual abuse, confinement, neglect, forced labour, humiliation, and willful malnutrition." In section entitled 'hygiene, cleanliness and quality of life' immigrants should 'refrain from strong odors emanating from cooking.' and that 'violence is not justified in the name of "ancestral rights," "safeguarding honour," or "culture or religion."

It feels so cozy snuggling into the grizzly armpits of nationalist, xenophobic paternalism. O patria, Oh Canada, you of the multicultural mosaic, you of the United Colors of Benettonesque public brochures, you you you... If I may seem an immigranta non grata, if I am biting the very hand that feeds me (a couple of bucks an hour) that is because I am not properly tamed yet. When I landed in Canada, my country of reasonable accommodation had not invented these measures yet. It was the aftermath of September 11 and everyone looked south of the border and over to those '-istan' countries and realized that indeed Canadian brand of goodwill, unlocked doors à la Michael Moore, smiling faces of Olympic glories, the harmony, the ethnic cuisine diversity, the supply and demand of the labour market... was perhaps not working anymore. Ten years later more than 500 fellow Canadians comment on the forum of this very article, saying 'us' vs 'them' and 'you come to OUR country, it is OUR rules' and 'some of them act like they came out of caves' and hundreds of others give thumbs up.... I don't know if I should run to the liberals or the conservatives for a group hug. But then again the odor of the garlic I peeled for dinner may scare them off like they were vampires from a glorious national epic or biopic.   
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/gatineau-guide-immigrants-warns-against-honour-killings-140623701.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

postponed, procrastinated, belated

Not knowing where to start is how I start because I cannot start otherwise. I turned and tossed the idea of patch-working my life, that of others, collecting stories, sound and images here and there into a blog. The idea was so well executed that I did nothing to actually begin anything concrete. In its nebulous form the 'feeling' of the blog was just so cool. Really cool. And what if the words did not do it justice? What if my idea sucked? Terror. Then I said to myself, 'if you have sore throat, eat ice cream' and precisely after a year or two of attempting to create this blog, here I type away with no basic plan, no structure, no purpose really. Welcome.
Read more

Agnès

I'd abandoned this blog, as one does, because it is mine to abandon. I'd abandoned many a thing: half eaten oatmeal, lovers, cats, ideas for films, luggage here and there, promises and boxes of delicate  negligibles  in other people's basements. For someone who gathers and keeps (if only in her heart) people, beasts, pebbles, her grandfather's watch and illusions, the abandoning is a necessary function. I retract. I retrieve. I transit. I cradle the thought that if I could... I would have had I... Abandon comes with a side of undone capable of surviving minor tragedies. Agnès Varda est morte. Long live Agnès Varda. I'd met her on the stairs of a venue I can't quite remember (the MaRs building or Isabelle Bader Theatre?), during Toronto Film Festival in 2004 when she was traveling with Cinévardaphoto , a three part reflection on photography. It must have been a press screening because there was a handful of us when she suggested we go outside. Accompanied by tw...
Read more

an awful nurse

"You'd make an awful nurse!" I have been told twice. Not that I harbor some sweet affection, deep understanding or an overflowing nurturing capacity that's yet to be unearthed. I am grumpy and impatient. Some like it hot-headed. In December 2009, when Robin was frail, transparent and wheezing in the bed he would soon die, I was spraying fake saliva into his mouth and missing the point, I was fixing his pillows to the most uncomfortable position his bones could ever bear. Of Robin, nothing was left but bones. Robin had a T-shirt with Alfred Hitchcock's head in a glass bell jar or an astronaut's helmet that sat perfectly atop his jolly good and mighty belly, giving Hitchcock a 3D quality somehow. That was when Robin used to cook lamb shanks, we'd drink quite a few bottles of wine each, there'd be some singing or somber discussion on the state of academia, he would at some point cheer up, recite dialogues from movies I'd never heard of. As Robin melte...
Read more