Happy Canada Day To Those Who Celebrate!
I'm on the fence
Happy Canada Day!
I don’t really celebrate it the way I did when I was a kid. We were all gung-ho for the flag and the fireworks when I was little, buying glowsticks from vendors and hanging by the river as the sun went down.
We always went out to dinner after the fireworks ended. It was a whole ‘thing.’
As an adult, however, I don’t really go out of my way to celebrate my country. I haven’t done so ever since the whole Residential School thing hit the news in a big way.
I didn’t know about it. A genocide within my lifetime — the last school closed when I was 2, and the horror and trauma hasn’t fully stopped — and I didn’t even know about it. My government did a great job of covering up the atrocities.
It rather soured my desire to celebrate the country that was doing shit like that.
That said, since Trump’s whole ‘51st State’ bullshittery began, a lot of us are feeling a good deal more patriotic these days and I am no exception.
My country isn’t perfect, we have skeletons in our closet and buried in the front lawn. But we’re taking steps in the right direction. Or at least we have been lately, even if we haven’t gone nearly far enough.
I don’t think I’m ready to celebrate yet, not until we make a real showing of genuine progress towards making things right, but I will at least acknowledge the day.
I’m not going to go out and see the fireworks. I won’t be buying any glowsticks or putting a flag on my lawn or singing the national anthem. I’ll leave that to the people enjoying our rare and hopefully temporary little burst of nationalistic fervor.
But I will at least wish people a happy Canada Day, wishing them fine weather for celebration and I will hope for a brighter future.
I will encourage my fellow Canadians to keep up the fight, boycotting American goods and buying local when you can. Keep up the resistance and make it abundantly clear that we are our own nation, with our own values and traditions and rights.
Trump will never own us. Elbows up, Canadians!
Solidarity wins.
I feel much the same. As an immigrant to this country I have always felt a deep and profound gratitude for the safety and opportunity it provided my family. However after learning about the treatment of the indigenous people my sense of nationalism is more sober, and my celebration on this day is more muted. That said, having once escaped a life under facism - my will to preserve the freedom we enjoy is resolute. I stand on guard...