(For the record, this post was written and published in August, not September)
So, the latest big development in Canadian politics is the “SPP” controversy. If you don’t know what that is, as most Canadians don’t, it is the proposed economic and diplomatic union of Canada, the United States and Mexico, not unlike the European union.
Anyways, as awareness of this move by the governments of the above nations grows, nationalist tensions increase. Canadian activists are mobilizing like this is “it”, the final move by the USA to Annex Canada.
Please.
Canada is allready annexed. The purpose of the SPP, I think, is simply to allow a legal basis for the powers that be of the United States to interfere in Canada on a more high profile basis. Still, these activists who are running around screaming like Chicken little are basically only show-casing their own naivity.
The fact of the matter is, the United States has effectively been influencing and interefering in Canada’s soveriegnty, as well as our foreign and domestic policy for years. From Canada’s involvement in NATO, to the NAFTA agreement, to the plunder of our natural resources (especially petroleum) for miniscule royalties, the US has had their hands in Canadian policy and wealth for decades.
Even in the last couple of years, there is a trend of attempted prisoner extradition, as Canadian citizens such as Marijuana party leader Marc Emery and Aboriginal AIM activist John Graham have both been slated for extradition to the US.
I guess that is why, in addition to my general disillusionment with nationalism, I’m just not feeling the urgency with the proposed SPP yet . In order to be a nationalist, I guess you have to love your country, and for me that ship has sailed. I see this paradox present in so many of the activist left, and it is quite odd. This proposed SPP is being invoked by the social democratic left, and even supported by mainstream “left” parties like the NDP, as a means to stir up flames of nationalist sentiment, and in essence drum up support for our current Canadian state.
I mean, I’m not at all in favour of the proposed SPP, but that isn’t to say that I am in favour of the current Canadian government in it’s present incarnation. It really is almost diabolical the way that the enemies of the Canadian state have been pulled into the fight to defend it’s continued existence. I was at the local SPP protests in my city, marching alongside anarchists! Anarchists! These are supposed to be people who are against ALL concepts of a state, and yet here they are, up in arms, to defend the soveriegnty of the state that they claim to be fighting against as their main enemy? Did I miss something?(Not to get off topic, but it is always amusing to me when the political bankruptcy and excessive individualism of anarchists manifests itself as support for capitalist initiatives.)
This is the same way I reacted when Steven Harper was ‘elected’. I too was running around, a prophet of doom forcasting the progressive forces being ‘taken away’ by a hypothetical secret police. Now I see that this analysis was naive.
A bourgeosie is a bourgeosie is a bourgeosie. I harbour no fondness for American imperialist ambitions in Canada, but I’m not exactly content with our current Canadian national bourgeosie and the machinations of their men in parliament either. To choose a “lesser of two evils”, would be to renounce the class struggle in favour of inter-imperialist squabbling and petty nationalism, and would ignore the truth that our current “autonomy” is an illusion anyways.
The lines that are being disiminated now are not unlike those of the Menshiviki and the Second international during the first world war in europe; the people of our respected countries are asked to fight for the preservation of our national bourgeosie, to become the dogs of war in the service of a system of government that has only ever ruled over the working class by decree.
It was up to Comrade Lenin and the Bolshevik party to put forward the correct slogan during the first world war, even as Armed German troops were fighting Russians on the front. The Bolshevik party said (and I’m paraphrasing,) “Turn this imperialist war into a civil war”, reflecting the sentiment that the Czar was NOT better than the advancing Germans, and preserving his rule was not a victory for the masses of Russia.
I think that such an analysis is still relevant. The way to oppose the SPP is not by becoming advocates of the Canadian state;it is by seizing the reins of the Canadian state .As with most other problems of a diplomatic, social and material nature, people power is the definitive answer.
Ravens Nest 