| Let’s begin with some statistics: our economic relationship with our southerly neighbours accounts for 40 per cent of our gross national product and 86 per cent of our exports. In more tangible terms, our two-way exchange of goods, services and incomes on investment is about $1 billion per day. In this mass of flowing products and cash, we have come to watch their movies, buy their cars and travel to their hot spots.
We’re pretty tight with our American neighbours, at least economically – or so it’s being argued. Up here north of the border, our politicians and some commentators are branding Canadians who speak out against American foreign policy, saying they speak out against the fruits of Canada-U.S. trade relations.
During the last federal election, there arose a hackneyed rhetorical device. Socially and economically right-leaning pundits and politicians opted for an unoriginal use of the lexicon to castigate any commentators who apparently lambasted our numero uno trading partner. It’s an easy technique for marginalizing voices that don’t adhere to one’s policies. If a politician said we should aim for Kyoto targets, he was anti-American. If a politician said we should opt out of the militarization of space, he was anti-American. If a politician spoke out against two-tier health care, he was anti-American.
But when perusing census data by major American polling agencies, an opposing reality is exposed. This American agenda is, in fact, anti-American. This doesn’t bode well for democracy.
Allow me a pithy definition here: democracy is a form of government in which power is vested in the people and represented in elected agents. A leader is elected for sake of political ease, I assume. So that’s democracy. People are empowered by various means. An issue is raised; it’s mulled over. And the elected leader acts upon the majority consensus. Simple enough, until we look at reality.
A majority of our southerly neighbours are in favour of signing the Kyoto Protocol, relying on the United Nations to take the lead on international crises, and increasing aid to health care and education, to name just a few issues. However, as illustrated by both doctrine and action, these initiatives are opposed by the current U.S. administration, which suggests a dichotomy between American people and American state-policy.
This leads us back to the rhetorical tools of our small "c" conservative pundits and politicians. By lumping together American people with the state-policies they oppose, these pundits homogenize a mass of opposing voices. Thus a binary is set up with which to marginalize Canadians who speak out against American state-policy as anti-American. Once these opposing groups are invented – those who are pro-U.S. and all its consumerist fruits, and those who are anti-U.S. and its packaged treats – pundits are able to implement their policies supposedly in line with our largest trading partner, but not necessarily with Canadian voters. Thus if we speak out against American polices, we are against their movies we watch, their cars we buy, and our vacation destinations.
So, by definition of the widely engrained rhetorical device, Americans are anti-American. Incidentally, this use of the lexicon is characteristic of totalitarian institutions, which use such doublethink to subvert dissidents. If you speak out against the policies determined by your state, you are anti-state, you commit an act of treason, and could be condemned to jail. Ironically, the current war in the Middle East has been marketed as one of spreading democracy over brutal dictatorial tyrannies. And yet a select few of our pundits and politicians use the same rhetorical techniques as the brutal absolutist rulers running these very countries. If the American electorate speaks out against the destruction of universal health care, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the absence of policies to meet the Kyoto Protocol, they are very much pro-American. It’s our countries’ leaders who are, by definition, anti-American.
Anti-Americanism has created a dichotomy between the makers and receivers of Canadian policy. It’s aligned with Bush’s division of the world into two camps: you’re either with us or against us. The fact is, if democracy was a reality and not merely represented in some loose political affiliations, the majority of Canadians and Americans would be represented by their political leaders: as a recent poll suggests, only 36 per cent of Canadians think the country is governed by the will of the people. In a country under democratic rule, war under false pretences would be condemned and stopped, Kyoto targets would be implemented and met, and there would be an assurance of universally accessible education and health care. Here, we can be pro-American and consume American products precisely by refusing to endorse American state-policy. |
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.