Sunday March 20, 2022
For St. Patrick’s Day earlier this week, I wore a green T-shirt and an Aran Islands sweater. And orange underwear. Covering all my bases, so to speak.
Ireland, as I’m sure you’re aware, has been troubled by conflict between the orange and the green. The Protestant and the Catholics. The north and the south. Monarchy and republic.
Today, Ireland is relatively peaceful. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 largely eliminated the violence of “The Troubles” – 30 years of bombings and shootings.
Unfortunately, bombings and shootings continue in other places. Most notably these days in Ukraine.
And the suspicion, the ill-feeling, that plagued Northern Ireland for generations now shifts to other groups.
Treated with suspicion
The CBC’s National newscast reported a few nights ago that over 600,000 people who have Russian connections, or Russian names, or who sell Russian products, are finding themselves treated with the same suspicion that Muslims experienced after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.
At its most benign, this shows up in a reluctance to talk about the invasion of Ukraine at all. Or as an almost obsessive compulsion to know whether this “Russian” supports or rejects Vladimir Putin.
At its worst, suspicion turns into threats, attacks, and exclusion.
The Russian Community Centre in Vancouver was vandalized. Some angry individuals sloshed gallons of blue and yellow paint over its entry area. The Centre is not political, its director stressed. It has operated since 1956, hosting concerts and showcasing arts.
Speaking of concerts, the Vancouver Recital Society spent years trying to lure Russian pianist Alexandre Malofeev to B.C. Then they cancelled his performance planned for August, for fear it might be disrupted by anti-Russian protests or demonstrations, or that it might put his family at risk.
Three more of Malofeev’s concerts were cancelled in Montreal.
Malofeev’s Facebook page posted his comment: “Every Russian will feel guilty for decades because of the terrible and bloody decision that none of us could influence and predict.”
Since Vladimir Putin sent tanks, troops, and missiles across the Russia/Ukraine border three weeks ago, Canadian sympathies have focussed on Ukraine as the innocent victim. Russia has been vilified as the aggressor, the bully, the evil empire.
But not every Russian supports Putin. Not even in Russia itself.
Not to be proud of
Canada is more tolerant than many countries. Even so, we do not have a laudable history when it comes to dealing with potential “enemy aliens” – the term used for people who might, just might, sympathize with a hostile power.
In World War I, we rounded up Italians and isolated them in internment camps in northern or remote locations. You can still find traces of one of those camps in Yoho National Park. The Morrisey internment camp for German miners, near Fernie B.C., remains intact after 100 years.
In the same war, we interned more than 8500 Ukrainian men in 24 camps across the country, and required another 80,000 Ukrainians to carry identify papers and report regularly to local authorities.
A survivor of those camps, Mary Manko Haskett, said: “What was done to us was wrong. Because no one bothered to remember or learn about the wrong that was done to us, it was done to others, again and yet again.
The city of Berlin, Ontario, changed its name to Kitchener. Local business leaders feared that customers wouldn’t buy goods marked “Made in Berlin.”.
Recently I read an unpublished manuscript describing an eight-year-old girl’s trauma when her German-speaking family was ostracized in peaceful Penticton during World War II.
We interned other Germans in Vernon. We censored personal letters to families back home. As if they had state secrets to betray.
Without evidence
And, of course, in a disgraceful episode of Canada’s history, we deported 22,000 people – men, women, and children -- of Japanese ancestry from the B.C. coast. We confiscated their houses, land, and fishing boats, without compensation. Because we feared they might feel greater loyalty to their ancestral homeland than to their adoptive nation.
Yet the Canadian Encyclopedia states that not even one Japanese Canadian was ever charged. Not one!
There seems to be a tumour in the human psyche that needs to create an enemy to blame.
Tragically, instead of considering seriously how people with connections to distant conflicts might, or might not, assist a perceived enemy, we tend to tar them all with a broad brush.
It’s unjust, and unfair.
I prefer to keep on good terms with both sides. As far as possible. But then, I’m Irish. What’s your excuse?
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Copyright © 2022 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
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Your turn
Not much mail about last week’s column.
Cliff Boldt noted that Vladivostock, the Russian city on the Pacific, is also named for a Vlad-imir. And that “it once was part of China. And it currently has a significant Chinese population. Wonder if or when the Chinese in a Russian city might ask for liberation?”
“Interesting comparisons,” commented Mirza Yawan Baig. “Thanks.”
Nenke Jongkind wrote, “I had noted the coincidence of the two men;s names. I did not know about the saint.”
Nenke went on to tell of her own experience of shunning (the previous week’s column): “I experienced shunning by Plymouth Brethren in Southern Alberta. As we drove into town to see where my first husband had lived before he and I met, a group of three young men physically turned their backs to us. They once had been his friends, he said. We drove to the leading elder’s home and asked if we could attend evening worship. He was not welcome. I could attend if I removed my lipstick and borrowed a hat from his wife. I said, thank you but no.
“I had the feeling that attending a movie was perhaps [still] not allowed within that community, (I was not allowed to go to movies in my community also but some others did.) but shunning was to me way too over the top of a response.”
Steve Roney: “There are statues of St. Vladimir in many Russia cities, not to mention other cities where Ukrainians or Russians have been. There is a prominent one here in Toronto. Why should there be only one statue of the national saint?
“Russia already has ports on the Black Sea. Ports on the Black Sea are also of little strategic value, because any traffic must thread the needle of the Bosphorus, and then either Gibraltar or Suez, to reach the open sea. NATO could cut off all commerce in an instant.
“Several of your correspondents lean heavily on the idea that Putin is mad. Nobody seems to realize how deeply prejudicial this is towards the truly mentally ill. His only “madness” is hubris, which we are fond these days of calling narcissism. Narcissists never show up in psychiatrists’ offices. They run governments and corporations instead.”
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PROMOTION STUFF…
To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. (This is to circumvent filters that think some of these links are spam.)
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” is an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca. He set up my webpage, and he doesn’t charge enough.
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also runs beautiful pictures. Her Thanksgiving presentation on the old hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth, Is, well, beautiful -- https://www.traditionaliconoclast.com/2019/10/13/for/
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)
ALVA WOOD ARCHIVE
The late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures now have an archive (don’t ask how this happened) on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. Feel free to browse all 550 columns