There is a chapter about the Canadian novelist Hugh MacLennan (1907–1990) – the inventor of the phrase “Two Solitudes” – in Doug Gibson’s Stories About Storytellers. This is an excerpt from Gibson’s diary.
On Saturday, August 11, I performed my show at the annual Couchiching Conference…. The conference theme this year was The Arab Spring, and the implications for Canada. My Stories About Storytellers show was labelled as “And Now For Something Completely Different,” which was very accurate billing. But much of the conference had dealt with the worrying situation facing the minority groups in many nations in the Arab world, and Hugh MacLennan provided an interesting link….
I told the audience that it was Hugh who made the point that Canada was formed from “defeated peoples.” Hugh listed The Loyalists, driven north after losing the American War of Independence, the French Canadians after 1759, the waves of Highland Scots ejected after The Clearances, the Potato Famine Irish. Thereafter there were waves of defeated people from Europe, followed by more recent examples like Vietnamese Boat People, Ugandan Asians, victims of the Yugoslavian troubles, Tamil refugees, and on and on, not to mention our invaded aboriginal people.
I went on to suggest that if you were trying to create a society that was concerned about minorities, not just the triumphant majority, you couldn’t devise a more promising background than Canada’s.
As a punch line, to show how long-lasting this cultural heritage of support for gallant losers really is, I asked what other nation would be so proud of an Olympic bronze medal? Think about it. It was no accident that Christine Sinclair was selected as our flag bearer. That bronze medal was the great event of the Olympics for most Canadians.
Hugh MacLennan would have been very pleased.
Wish to quibble with the very Honourable gentleman (Gibson). He has confused two distinct elements of the Canadian psyche. First, our formation out of a generations of “defeated peoples”. Second, our David vs. Goliath relationship, first with “Mother” England, and now with the U.S. The latter is why we can be satisfied by “Going for Bronze”. Compared to New Orleans or Australia, our “defeated peoples” aren’t doing badly!
I think Mr. Gibson is making an insightful point about the various waves of immigrants into Canada (only I would not say NOT defeated!) – many immigrants (and I think ask any Canadian their family history/story you will see this) from different nations have come to Canada seeking refuge or a new beginning because of troubles in their own countries, and bearing those memories, have worked together to make a good country.
It’s a cute rhetorical point but as with so many such points, more caricature than analysis. And the Canadian government (briefly may it rule) and its sports establishment have been spending much of their energy and our money to ‘own the podium’ and are not aiming at bronze.
That said, P Swift’s formulation is an improvement, though not for the Gibsonian soundbite.