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Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 10:08 AM
Subject: Fw: Remembrance Day: Nov 11th British Newspaper Article about Canada
On Thursday, November 13, 2014 11:29 AM, Fred Di Sera <fiore1(a)sympatico.ca> wrote:
More reasons to be a PROUD CANADIAN.
Fred
How very fortunate we are to live here
______________________
British newspaper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. It is funny how it took
someone in England to put it into words......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, Mike Weir 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 neighbor has given it in Afghanistan ?Rather like
Cyrano de Bergerac , Canada repeatedly does honorable things for honorable 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 honor comes at a high cost.
This past year (2013) more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too tragically
well.
Lest we forget. Lest we forget.
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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