Most Canadians would like to think they are more civil than their American neighbors. Except nothing betrays their thinking quite like the “aboriginal sin” that has been haunting them lately.
I am referring to belated reckoning for the inferior and often dehumanizing way they treated indigenous people throughout their history.
This finally forced Canadians to get off their high horse when looking down on (white) Americans for the unconscionable way they treated indigenous people and Blacks throughout their history. I have commented on this shameful symmetry in a series of blog commentaries, including most recently in “Canada’s ‘Aboriginal Sin’ Haunting It from the Grave…,” June 25, 2021.
That’s why I am not surprised that Canadians are now aping Americans by staging an anti-government protest that reeks of a cross between an insurrection and a neo-Nazi rally. Here in part is how The New York Times reported on it on January 31, 2022:
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada on Monday lashed out at protests against pandemic restrictions over the weekend in Ottawa, chastising demonstrators for desecrating war memorials, wielding Nazi symbols and stealing food from the homeless.
The protest was a culmination of a group of Canadian truckers and their supporters who drove from Western Canada to Ottawa to challenge government vaccine mandates. …
Residents in downtown Ottawa said online and on radio talk shows that the round-the-clock horn-honking by truck drivers, the fumes of idling vehicles and the aggressive behavior of some had made them prisoners in their own homes. Some protesters carried Canadian flags upside down; at least one flag had swastikas drawn on it.
Some people, who may not have been involved with the convoy itself, had called for an attack on Parliament similar to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.
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Of course, like their counterparts who stormed the US Capitol, these protesters -cum- rioters are just a bunch of utterly clueless, selfish, dangerous morons. Apropos of which, much has been made about Elon Musk tweeting his support for these truckers. But nobody dares to say that’s only because, if they all die, Musk won’t feel so guilty replacing them with his self-driving electric trucks …
Meanwhile, chances are their livelihoods depend on trucking products shipped from China. They should try living there for a day to get a sense of what freedom of choice is really all about.
But where was this “freedom convoy” when Canadians were taking mandatory vaccinations for diphtheria, tetanus, polio, measles, etc.? In fact, someone should have its ring leaders (try to) explain why mandates to take those did not threaten their freedom the way they seem to think a mandate to take a vaccine for Covid does …
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aboriginal sin… Covid vaccines… Jan 6 insurrection…