Deprogramming from Leftism for Anglo Canadians

Part Six The Conundrum of Canada

Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, K. B., [ca. 1883] President and Administrator of Upper Canada, 1811-12. George Theodore Berthon (1806-1892). Oil on canvas

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By

James Pew

In the previous essay, I quoted an X post from Peoples Party Leader of Canada Maxime Bernier, where, among other things, Bernier wrote:

“...Canada does have a historic, distinct identity, that distinguishes it from the rest of the world. Of course, it never was homogeneous. But it was based on the heritage of its three founding peoples — indigenous, French and British —, as well as the development of strong and distinctive regional cultures that integrated the contributions of immigrants.”

I would like to draw attention to Bernier’s statement that Canada’s historic identity “was never homogenous.” And also, to a comment on Part Four of this essay series by Robin Collins who wrote, concerning Canada’s history, “The earliest demographics in this land were obviously indigenous...the first dominant group was French, not English…by 1871, the largest demographic was French at 31%, then Irish at 34%, English at 20%, Scottish at 16%.”

Bernier’s claim is true, Canada’s historic identity was not homogenous. And Collins has provided a statistical breakdown of historical Canadian demographics.

Allow me to comment on a few things concerning the above, before I move on to an absolutely fascinating insight concerning the ethnogenesis of Anglo Canadians (the ethnic core of Canada) made by the great Pierre Berton.

The first thing I notice about the early demography of Canada – French at 31%, then Irish at 34%, English at 20%, Scottish at 16% – is that these are all similar European groups from neighbouring nations who are racially white and Christian, and who became democratic and liberal through the upholding of Enlightenment values and older traditions stemming from Magna Carta. What other group of mixed up people could be better suited to assimilate around a new and unique core of ethno-cultural myths and symbols? In addition, with the exception of the French, they all speak English (The French are a special case since French Canadian ethno-cultural traditions were transplanted from France to one specific region of Canada).

Does the reader notice the above is fully in the realm of describing the unique and brilliant cultural pattern concerning the European macro-white people group? We are not supposed to notice this uncanny pattern which virtually all white majority societies in the Western world have demonstrated. Further, we are not supposed to notice the pattern of the black macro people group either, or make comments about the low levels of development African or Middle Eastern societies have historically demonstrated. I can think of no other reason for this nonsense other than anti-white propaganda and a special type of mind virus that mostly afflicts leftists.

It is a mind virus that traps one in a bizarre circular pattern of thought. Let’s get it all straight right now: The world is not led by the innovative culture of the West because the people of the West have white skin. The people of the West, happen to have white skin, but more importantly did a whole bunch of amazing things that are actually highly significant (unlike skin colour) to the course of history. It is simply true that the people of the West, have white skin, AND also did the most amazing and consequential things resulting in the highest levels of peace and prosperity the world has ever seen. Is it a coincidence that it was overwhelmingly the white people who performed these feats? It is not. It is (mostly) because of the culture – Greco-Roman fused with the Judeo-Christian – which white skinned people uniquely developed (as much as we wish it appeared out of the sky under a banner of diversity). White human beings made the world boundlessly better for everyone at a scale that is not even slightly comparable to the rest of humanity? In a future essay I will discuss some of the ways leftism revises history to diminish Western progress and uniqueness, while simultaneously assigning unmerited prestige to swaths of the non-Western world.

It is not an insignificant factor that the first Canadians co-operated so well. This is due, at least in part, because they were white. Being white meant that they shared a European heritage, even though they may have had different national heritages. It also meant that language barriers were easy to overcome because there existed so many other points of shared Western values. Is it racist to observe that Scottish, Irish and English people in 1871 had more in common with each other than they did with Arabs, Africans, or Asians?

Let’s get over this type of thinking concerning racial features. There is no other way to describe the appearance of Western man historically without saying he was white. As soon as we use the word white even once to describe people, we are admitting it is a valid term and concept. How can anyone think there is zero validity and no use whatsoever to making distinctions between white people and non-white people? When a murderous criminal is on the loose, do you want the media to tell you to look out for an Arab man, or would you rather they leave out racial descriptors so we all feel more inclusive?

I am not obsessed with race. However, others, so many others, are obsessed with erasing completely the significance of race. It’s not good enough to say that race is low significance, we must pretend that is of no significance. I’m not playing that dumb game, everyone else is welcome to knock themselves out on it, however, I don’t support things that don’t make sense, and I won’t signal virtue where there isn’t any. I find it disingenuous and infuriating. To be clear, and needfully repetitive: race is of fairly low significance. But it is not insignificant. No historical fact concerning the shared physical attributes of large macro people groups could ever possibly be considered insignificant, the way leftist university professors want us to believe racial features are.

In spite of the mountains of data that demonstrates people with different skin colours don’t act the same – some commit way more crime and terrorism than others – leftists are a broken record in their appeals for everyone to ignore these alarming facts. How can the relationship to race be so uninteresting? So beneath one’s standards, and unworthy of examination? It makes no sense.

Both Christianity and the Enlightenment were brought to us by “dead white men.” Why are some white people embarrassed by this? Personally, I’m embarrassed by the people who are embarrassed. But I digress. It pains me that I feel the need to spend so much time dealing with something that should be taken as un-controversially as any other fact of nature among countless facts of nature.

The skin colour part is by far the most boring part of Canadian ethnicity. Let’s get to the myths, and the war stories. Let’s get to Pierre Berton.

Pierre Burton and the Ethnogenesis of Anglo Canada

(Note: all of the quoted sections below are from Pierre Berton’s book The Invasion of Canada).

The War of 1812 played out between the summer of 1812 and the fall of 1814. Like most wars, it was a terrible tragedy and a waste. As described in previous essays, it is the stories, myths and symbols of a nation, especially those associated with the nation's beginnings, that make up the ethnic archetype of that nation. However, the way we choose to remember historical events is not always consistent with the experience of the people who lived them. Canadians believe we won the War of 1812, but according to Pierre Berton, “to put it more precisely (we) did not lose” the war.

Of course, there was no Canada in 1812. The war against the invading Americans from the south was fought by British North America. “The war was fought almost entirely in Upper Canada, whose settlers, most of them Americans, did not invite the war, did not care about the issues, and did not want to fight.”

From Pierre Berton:

“As the war progressed, it grew more vicious. There was savagery on both sides by white frontiersmen as well as Indians, who scalped the fallen sometimes when they were still alive. Men were roasted in flaming buildings, chopped to pieces by tomahwaks, sliced open by bayonets, drowned, frozen, or felled by sickness, which took more lives on both sides than all battles combined.”

“...this was a war that almost nobody wanted. The British, who had been embroiled with Napoleon for seven years, certainly did not want it, did not believe it would occur, and in a clumsy, last-minute effort tried to prevent it.”

Neither the settlers on the Canadian or the American sides wanted the war. The Americans were “driven, goaded, dragged, forced, kicked” to enter the conflict by a small group of congressmen Thomas Jefferson called “the War Hawks.”

At this time, three out of five settlers in Upper Canada were newly arrived Americans, “people of uncertain loyalties.” And further, “There is little evidence of any surge of national pride rippling across the grain fields, swamps, and forests of Upper Canada in the early days of the war; quite the opposite.”

How was it possible that the tiny population of Upper Canada, which had “little claim to any national sentiment,” was able to “ward off continued attack by a powerful neighbour with vastly greater resources?”

Berton lays out three reasons: 1) The presence of British Regulars (Well disciplined soldiers with brilliant leaders like Sir Isaac Brock). 2) “American ineptness” (The United States was “not yet a military nation”). 3) The alliance between the British and the Indians (“which led to decisive victories in the campaigns of 1812”).

“The role of the Indians and that of the British regulars was played down in the years following the war. For more than a century it was common cant that the diverse population of Upper Canada – immigrants, settlers, ex-Americans, Loyalists, Britons, Scots, and Irish – closed ranks to defeat the enemy. This belief still lingers, though there is little evidence to support it. Certainly the old loyalists and their sons rushed to the colours, and in the capital of York the British aristocracy glowed with patriotic fervour. But the mass of the people were at best apathetic and at worst disaffected.”

Remarkable! And even more so, a little later in his exposition, Berton writes:

“Yet, in an odd way, the war did help to change upper Canada from a loose aggregation of village states into something approaching a political entity. The war, or rather the myth of the war, gave the rootless new settlers a sense of community. In the end the myth became the reality.”

The action by which this political entity formed runs adjacent to and in an overlapping manner with the process I have referred to in previous essays called ethnogenesis (the process by which a group of people develop an ethnic identity). Founding myths are an important part of the emergence of new ethnic groups. The above sampling of Pierre Berton’s insights regarding the War of 1812, was selected for the purpose of briefly leading the reader through the dynamics of one of Canada’s important founding myths (or more accurately, pre-founding myths), and showing both the hybrid nature of Canadian ethnicity, and that the way this event came to be remembered was not really how it actually happened. But it doesn’t matter. The myth is close enough. The important detail that the Canadians won (or didn’t lose) is true. The myth serves a larger purpose, it helps unify Canadians around our ethno-national identity.

Once more from Pierre Berton:

“As the years went by and memories dimmed, as old scars healed and old grudges evaporated, as aging veterans reminisced and new leaders hyperbolized, the settlers began to believe that they had repelled the invader almost single handedly. For the first time, Upper Canadians shared a common tradition.”

That initial common tradition is an integral component of the ethnogenesis of Anglo Canadians. It was “the first time” something like this occurred!

It should be clear now why Anglo ethno-traditions have a British nucleus. The myth that all the disparate groups later came to believe, is that the War of 1812 was won because of a shared effort including the settler population. Not so. A small army of British regulars and their Indian allies won the day. The heroic martyr of the legend, Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, was a British officer. The military and political victory, which later became mythologized as a Canadian victory, was for all intents and purposes, a British victory. The contribution of the British to the founding of Canada, and to the ethnogenesis of its people, cannot be disentangled.

Conclusion

I have been using the neologism Anlgo Canadian to describe the ethnicity of English speaking Canadians. But I could just as easily say ethnic Canadian. That is good enough. Ethnic Canadian, to me, means the exact same thing as Anglo Canadian. But what about French Canadians? I would describe them as Franco Canadian, which is also ethnically Canadian (but regionally specific). Canadian ethnicity is complicated. The French are not less Canadian than the English. The French are far less in numbers, and primarily located in one area. However, as we have seen, the British, not the French, were integral to our victory in the War of 1812, and it would not be the last time the British would lead Canada through her early development.

Then there is the indigenous, who played an integral role in fighting with the British to repel the invading Americans. It bears repeating that the “British regulars alone could not have stemmed the tide. To shore up the thinly held garrisons the Indians were essential.” However, even though in the aftermath of the war “the rootless new settlers” developed somewhat of a “sense of community,” the war did not have the same effect in bringing the Indians closer to the settlers. As Berton wrote, “one of the several ironies of this foolish and unnecessary war is that the (Indian) warriors who helped save Canada gained nothing except a few American scalps.”

In the following Berton describes what dealing with the Indians was like:

“They were often a nuisance. Mercurial and unreliable, indifferent to the so-called civilized rules of warfare, difficult, even impossible to control, they came and went as they pleased, consuming vast quantities of provisions. But as guerillas they were superb. Their very presence was enough to terrify the Americans into submission.”

The cultural differences between the Indians and the settlers were enormous back in 1812, and in many ways they still are today. Many indigenous leaders and activists have in modern times been involved with a negative mode of historical revisionism and anti-Canadian ideology. Many refer to Canada as “turtle island.” That does not seem Canadian to me at all. On the contrary it feels pugnacious and anti-Canadian. Far too many indigenous people have never fully integrated, and have chosen a “separate nations” approach. They often reject and disrespect Anglo Canadian ethno-traditions. I often get the feeling that indigenous Canadians feel that they are ethnic, and so therefore have important ethno-cultural traditions worthy of preserving, but Anglo Canadians do not. As well, many indigenous people confidently claim that “turtle island” is their land. Settlers who “stole it,” must forever pay rental arrears. Due in part to the 1970s era of ideological multiculturalism which continues to this day, integration with the indigenous has not been generally successful, a staggering portion of them reject the concept of Canada and hold deeply resentful, even hostile, feelings toward Anglo Canadians.

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Thanks for reading. For more from this author, read Introducing the Western Polemic

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