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Contributor: Roberge
Date: 2003-02-04 19:54:18
Well, if it can comfort you, all Canadians don't feel anti-American.
I consider myself an American. I feel more passionate about the American elections than the Canadian ones.
I completely agree with you except for one thing, when you say "Our country has a distinctly different history and culture from the US." I think we are not that much different and that all that stuff about "being different" serves only patriotism and the interests of the Canadian establishment; I think it's a mental construction that doesn't reflects the reality.
I think, however, that being an American also means not to conduct ourselves like citizens of a banana republic. That's where I diverge from former Minister of Foreign Affairs John Manley. He sometimes made me looked as if I belonged to the adverse side (Anti-American) because he looked so much as if he were saying "yes, yes, yes" to the Americans -- it's not for nothing that he has been chosen Canadian of the year by a famous American magazine last year. Among themselves, Americans, let's take for instance, reps or governors of U.S. states never behave like heads of banana states.
I feel more and more like an integrationist. I think that as a woman I don’t have any interest to promote patriotism because patriotism is usually, if not always, promoted on the back of women, for instance by using them to push demographics up. Countries are then in a competition among themselves to have the largest population or not to fall behind. And with the problem of global demographics, I think, it’s also bad for the environment.
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