Has the Canadian Anthem lost all meaning? We're now threatening principals with death

[Machjo]

The Canadian national anthem, we would think, should be a symbol of Canada's patriotism, of our love for our country and, by implication, for our fellow Canadians.

Not so, it would seem:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/sto...25.html?ref=rss

According to this article, many Canadians believe that no longer enforcing a daily singing of the Canadian national anthem is worthy of death! This principle, dealing with a multicultural and multi-Faith school, having been requested by some parents to exempt their children from the daily singing the National Anthem, had transfered the Anthem from the classroom to Assemblies so as to make it easier to exempt the concerned students. As a result, according to his testimony on the CBC's the National this evening, he'd received thousands of e-mails calling him a traitor, and even received many death threats.

This is just incredible. Have those parents never considered what it means to be a Canadian? Are they defending the anthem blindly with no understanding of what it santds for? We're in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban against the same kind of fanatical mentality, and yet these same parents will use that war as a pretext to import that same mentality on our shores and threaten the life of a principle for changing his policy on the national anthem?

Has Canada really swong that far to the nationalistic right as that many Caandians would really wish the death of an elementary school principal just trying to include certain students in the school environnment?

This is really scary news. We don't need the Taliban's mentality on our shores, thank you very much.

 

[Polygong]

Agreed. Many countries do not have the national anthem sung in schools or at sporting events. I can kind of understand why they do it in schools, but at sporting events I find it pretty ridiculous (except at international events like the World Cup or the Olympics).

 

[Liberalman]

New Canadians coming to this country are asking that the national anthem not be played and the city politicians are granting their requests, years ago a friend who lives in Brampton Ontario was asked by a east Indian to remove his Canadian flag that he has flown for years off his house when he told the person no it is a Canada's national flag. when he came home the next day the Flag was ripped down and laying on the ground and he saw a lot of foot prints on the Canadian flag

 

[Machjo]

New Canadians coming to this country are asking that the national anthem not be played and the city politicians are granting their requests, years ago a friend who lives in Brampton Ontario was asked by a east Indian to remove his Canadian flag that he has flown for years off his house when he told the person no it is a Canada's national flag. when he came home the next day the Flag was ripped down and laying on the ground and he saw a lot of foot prints on the Canadian flag

I'm guessing that the case in the article in the OP probably involves Jehovah's Witnesses or some other sect. You don't find alot of Muslims in Canada's rural districts. But of course this is just my guess and I could be wrong.

 

[coldstream]

This is a direct and inevitable result of multiculturism, a failure and fiasco, that subordinates values of patriotism to an idiotic attempt to promote a 'tolerant' society. It's done just the opposite, fracturing Canada into insulated microcultures with no patria to the mother country. Those microcultures deal with each other as aggrieved parties.. forever demanding 'respect'.. specifically through recognition of a uniqe and sovereign identity, above equal standing before the law.. while accepting no obligation to the wider national community.

There are some important things that can be done about that, beyond insisting on the playing of the national anthem in schools. One would be to quit promoting divisions as if they superior to the whole. Another would be to terminate Dual Citizenship of any kind, allowing for no divided loyalties. Citizenship whether native or naturalized must be understood to be first to the nation, and then to ethnic group.

 

[Polygong]

Given that Canada is one of the most, if the the most, socially stable countries in the world, I'm having difficulty figuring out how multiculturalism is a failure.

 

[coldstream]

New Canadians coming to this country are asking that the national anthem not be played and the city politicians are granting their requests, years ago a friend who lives in Brampton Ontario was asked by a east Indian to remove his Canadian flag that he has flown for years off his house when he told the person no it is a Canada's national flag. when he came home the next day the Flag was ripped down and laying on the ground and he saw a lot of foot prints on the Canadian flag

It might be that some cultures might never be able to be assimilated in Canadian Society.. those that are fundamentally antagonistic to its inheritance and tradition. Canada is not in fact yet a Post Christian society, despite concerted attempts to make it so (with abortion, homosexual affirmation, post nationalism).

It is profoundly indebted to Western Civilization with its roots in Christianity for all of its institutions. The antagonism we see to symbols of that tradition.. flag, national anthem, Christian crosses, traditional marriage.. is in fact a direct challenge that does not seek reconcilition, it seeks replacement.

Hence we a see surge of these acts of rebellion to the civilizing order of our society, up to and including 'honour killings' of girls who enculturate themselves to the Western Tradition. It needs to be dealt with for what it is, a threat to the cohesion of our society.

 

[coldstream]

Given that Canada is one of the most, if the the most, socially stable countries in the world, I'm having difficulty figuring out how multiculturalism is a failure.

Canada is in deep trouble. It's society increasing fractured and polarized along cultural and economic lines. Without the cohesion of equitably shared economic prosperity which is abandonning us now (thanks to 'Globalism' and economic liberalism), those other divides will undermine that social stability.

 

[ironsides]

The Canadian national anthem, we would think, should be a symbol of Canada's patriotism, of our love for our country and, by implication, for our fellow Canadians.

Not so, it would seem:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/sto...25.html?ref=rss

According to this article, many Canadians believe that no longer enforcing a daily singing of the Canadian national anthem is worthy of death! This principle, dealing with a multicultural and multi-Faith school, having been requested by some parents to exempt their children from the daily singing the National Anthem, had transfered the Anthem from the classroom to Assemblies so as to make it easier to exempt the concerned students. As a result, according to his testimony on the CBC's the National this evening, he'd received thousands of e-mails calling him a traitor, and even received many death threats.

This is just incredible. Have those parents never considered what it means to be a Canadian? Are they defending the anthem blindly with no understanding of what it santds for? We're in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban against the same kind of fanatical mentality, and yet these same parents will use that war as a pretext to import that same mentality on our shores and threaten the life of a principle for changing his policy on the national anthem?

Has Canada really swong that far to the nationalistic right as that many Caandians would really wish the death of an elementary school principal just trying to include certain students in the school environnment?

This is really scary news. We don't need the Taliban's mentality on our shores, thank you very much.

Allow that to happen and there goes Canada.

 

[ironsides]

Given that Canada is one of the most, if the the most, socially stable countries in the world, I'm having difficulty figuring out how multiculturalism is a failure.

Look at the State of California to see failure. California has about the same population (little more 36,756,666) than Canada. They are about as multicultural as you can get.

 

[Machjo]

This is a direct and inevitable result of multiculturism, a failure and fiasco, that subordinates values of patriotism to an idiotic attempt to promote a 'tolerant' society. It's done just the opposite, fracturing Canada into insulated microcultures with no patria to the mother country. Those microcultures deal with each other as aggrieved parties.. forever demanding 'respect'.. specifically through recognition of a uniqe and sovereign identity, above equal standing before the law.. while accepting no obligation to the wider national community.

There are some important things that can be done about that, beyond insisting on the playing of the national anthem in schools. One would be to quit promoting divisions as if they superior to the whole. Another would be to terminate Dual Citizenship of any kind, allowing for no divided loyalties. Citizenship whether native or naturalized must be understood to be first to the nation, and then to ethnic group.

I hope you don't think this is just some innovation of the Trudeau era. Sure he entrenched it officially for political reasons, but multiculturalism i Canada is a reality older than Canada itself. Many of Canada's First Nations continue to defy the Canadian government in insisting on not acknowledging that they are Canadian. Conflicts between English Canadians and French Canadians started at the Babble fo teh Plains of Abraham. Religious exclusiveness was especially strong in Canada precisely because Canada was viewed as an escape from the dominant sects of Europe, with such sects as the Society of Friends, the Amish, the Menonites, the Hutterites, and later the Dukhobors, etc. coming to Canadian shores, some of which, especially the Quakers and Dukhobors, border on Christian anarchism, many if not all of whom are conscientious objectors, opposed to 'divided lyalties' beteeen God and country, etc.

I'm just clarifying that multi-cultrualism on the North American continent is older than Canada itself, so looking at it that way, to put an end to this would involve making a sharp break with history too.

 

[Machjo]

It might be that some cultures might never be able to be assimilated in Canadian Society.. those that are fundamentally antagonistic to its inheritance and tradition. Canada is not in fact yet a Post Christian society, despite concerted attempts to make it so (with abortion, homosexual affirmation, post nationalism).

It is profoundly indebted to Western Civilization with its roots in Christianity for all of its institutions. The antagonism we see to symbols of that tradition.. flag, national anthem, Christian crosses, traditional marriage.. is in fact a direct challenge that does not seek reconcilition, it seeks replacement.

Hence we a see surge of these acts of rebellion to the civilizing order of our society, up to and including 'honour killings' of girls who enculturate themselves to the Western Tradition. It needs to be dealt with for what it is, a threat to the cohesion of our society.

It's interesting that you should have brought up the Christian Faith. Though the article and the TV programme never specified the religion or sect of the parents that requested the exemption for their child, I get the impression that they were probably Christian. Many Christian sects do in fact hold beliefs leaning towards Christian Anarchism (Quaker, Dukhobor, Amish, Mennonite, Hutterite, etc., as mentioned above), and we could add the Jehovah's Witnesses too who refuse to 'worship' the country, the flag, and the nation. Granted, the JWs are less traditionalist and are a comparatively newer sect than the others. But throughout our history, owing to its unique circumstances, the Chrsitian Faith and the country have usually been at odds, with the strict Christian sects often practicing conscientious objection or at least passively refusing to volunteer for the military, focussing more on studying and practicing their Faith than honouring national symbols (though I believe, though I could be wrong, that they're not quite as strict as the JWs, whereby they'll at least accept standing and remaingin respectfully silent during the singing of the Anthem,whereas JWs are more likely to request to be removed completely from the scene).

We find similar in the British North America Act, well aware, even if not explicitely so, of the reality of a multi-Faith Canada when it granted the right of minority Catholic and Protestant children to attend their own denominational schools. This is well before Trudeau's time, and was essentially a necessity to quell divisions between profoundly religious Protestants and Catholics of the time.

So essentially, to say that we should no longer accommodate all these different sects goes right against what has been the norm, even entrenched in the BNA Act and other policies, since the very fouding of the nation and even before. It is in fact asking for a sharp break with history.

 

[Machjo]

Canada is in deep trouble. It's society increasing fractured and polarized along cultural and economic lines. Without the cohesion of equitably shared economic prosperity which is abandonning us now (thanks to 'Globalism' and economic liberalism), those other divides will undermine that social stability.

Canada has always been fractured. In fact, it has sometimes been more fractured in some ways. For instance, if it were not for all the horrors of the residential school system and the attempted cultrual genocide that went on there, Canada's First Nations would be even less assimilated today than they were then. Though granted, the nature of the genocide had also lead to new fissues replacing the old, demands for compensation and reconciliation having now come to the fore owing the the means used to try to assimilate them.

I'm just saying though, that we shouldn't fall into the trap of glorifying a mythical past that never existed.

In fact, if anything, Canada's new immigrants, acknowledging that they are immigrants to a new land, are more likely to accept integration than the First Nations, French Canadians, Quakers, etc. who've been here for generations and who are more likely therefore to challenge any suggestion that they integrate. They're precicely the ones more likely to put up a fight.

 

[Machjo]

Allow that to happen and there goes Canada.

I'm sorry I don't fully understand. Allow what to happen? Did you mean terrorizing people into singing Oh Canada or no longer fore people to sing it?

Personally, I think the school should encourage the singing of the Anthem while always living up to its spirit (after all, what's the point of singing about a glorious and free land while trembling in fear?). In other words, if a person really refuses to sing it, then let's not push it and let him excuse himself from it.

 

[gerryh]

nien nen nien.... ve must all conform.

 

[AnnaG]

Canada isn't about assimilation, it's about integration. A mix rather than a alloy.

 

[Machjo]

nien nen nien.... ve must all conform.

Were you among those tho'd sent the life-threatening e-mail messages to that principal?

 

[Machjo]

Canada isn't about assimilation, it's about integration. A mix rather than a alloy.

Agreed. Many fail to see the difference. That having been said, I do expect you to talk like me, type like me, think like me, dress like me, eat like me, drink like me, sleep with me... I meant sleep like me, etc.

 

[gerryh]

Were you among those tho'd sent the life-threatening e-mail messages to that principal?

A little dense I see.

 

[AnnaG]

Wasn't Gerry. It was Les & me. We wanted to see whether the guy would quit picking his nose when he read the email. We had a bet going.