Random Columbus Day thoughts from north of the border
DAN JORGENSEN (jorgensen@vaxr.sscl.uwo.ca)
Fri, 4 Oct 1991 10:36:14 EDT
I find much of the Columbus Day protest discussion interesting and
informative [some also tedious], and am also profoundly grateful that it
is now separated from the other nativenet stuff.... It occurs to me that
it all seems quintessentially _American_ -- both on the pro and con sides,
and looks all a bit bizarre from a Canadian perspective. What is especially
American about it is the sense that a US holiday somehow involves or impli-
cates the whole hemisphere [we're used to this in lots of other contexts, so
for folks up here this will have a familiar ring to it].... Likewise -- among
the opposition to the observances -- there seems to be an unspoken assumption
that the struggles against one of the symbols of American Shintoism [= a sort
of hodge-podge put together to fabricate a state religion] are the struggles
of all indigenous people in the hemisphere [oh well, why stop there -- why not
the world?]....
Makes it hard to view all of this with the appropriate amount of seriousness
or sanctity [but hey -- I'm just a Canuck, so what do I know, eh?].