On A Day Like This . . .

"I do not know much of myself, save this: I seek."----Tyler Knott Gregson

This morning I'm teaching my students about the FLQ Crisis. I did not choose this in the wake of one

(Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

of the only other significant terrorist attacks in our nation's history. I'm actually right there in the curriculum. It's merely coincidence. But sometimes coincidence brings me a pause, like the coincidence that saw me put on a blazer yesterday morning that I've only worn a handful of times, a blazer I bought at the Bay in the Rideau Centre in Ottawa, a blazer I bought just a few hours after laying a Canadian flag in honour of a veteran friend on the very spot where, three years later, Nathan Cirillo would be shot.

It's hard to know how to respond to yesterday and that's one of the darkly significant parts of this. It's hard, but it's become a little familiar. Not that I believe terror is becoming more prevalent, but because as an adult I've seen 9/11, Utoya in Norway, the London bombings, innumerable school and public shootings, the Boston bombing. Not knowing how to respond is a sign that these events have yet to suck away my humanity--I've not grown numb to the sensation.

In not knowing how to respond, I have tried not to judge how others are reacting. From the guy who asked on Twitter what the status of the Sens/Leafs game would be just minutes after the gunman was killed in Parliament, to those (who I'll admit I agree with) who voiced concern on how Harper will exploit this for political gain, to those who reminded us to also honour Patrice Vincent, to those brave voices of reason who asked us, desperately, to control our passions and logically ask what led to this--to avoid the herd mentality.

I won't lie, this sort of thing gets to me. I find myself unable to go about my routine properly. I reach for a drink, listen to over-loud music, get lost in news feeds. I cried once. I hugged my sleeping children a little longer than usual. Last night I had a dream that my wife had died and I woke up shaken.

We must assess and continue to think. Stop thinking, and simply react or follow, then we abandon hope.

What we must consider:

-This is going to be spun as a part of the "global terrorism" story, but the attacks in Quebec and Ottawa are actually stories of mental illness. Zehaf-Bibeau and Roleau-Couture were both desperate, isolated men with histories of mental illness. Their recent conversions to Islam and their "radicalizations" are tied to their illnesses. Their connections to ISIS/ISIL follow from this, but are not the cause. I hope that will be considered in the days that follow.

-When four mounties were killed in Mayerthorpe in 2005, one of my Brazilian students remarked on how amazing it was that a whole nation was pausing to grieve over this. He claimed it wouldn't even make the news in Sao Paulo. It's a sad beauty that Canada is rocked by events that may seem small to other nations. I hope that remains, because the only way it could change is if we experienced greater tragedy or grew immune to its effects.

-ISIS/ISIL has killed more Muslims than non-Muslims. After every event of this kind, the entire Islamic community waits and prays that the perpetrator is not associated with them, because everyone always assumes he is, even before they know. There's going to be backlash against the many for the actions of the few. I hope that we as Canadians can remain tolerant and accepting and most of all supporting of the People of Islam who live in Canada, because they are Canadians.

-Every time there's a shooting of any kind I lament how easy it is to acquire firearms in North America. When we're asking "How could he do this?" let's also ask "How did he get a gun?" Zehaf-Bibeau's passport had been revoked. The man couldn't board an air-plane, but he could get his hands on an automatic rifle. I hope we will empty the hands of citizens in this country.

-We have a bad prime minister. I'm sorry to be partisan at a time like this, but we do, and to hear him speak last night of national unity when he has been hell-bent on driving wedges in that unity, in vilifying any opposition he faces, is to try your own desires for solidarity. Like George W. Bush after 9/11, Harper is a poor leader who will exploit tragedy for his own gains. This was already clear in the jingoist rhetoric he spouted last night. I hope Canadians don't think that having the "fortune" of leading during tragedy a good leader makes.

-The tough questions will be asked. I maintain that these attacks came as a result of mental illness rather than ideology, but ISIS/ISIL did call out Canada specifically recently. This terrorist sect needs to be opposed, but what have Canada and our allies done in the Middle East to provoke such targeting? Our track record of the past thirty years has been to bomb civilian targets where suspected enemies are hidden. The Americans have eradicated whole villages in the hopes of eliminating one "bad guy." What has led us to this? I hope we are still allowing ourselves to think and ask.

-As there always are at times like this, people are crying about what this world is coming to. This is defeatist. The world can be made better, and one event like this is not enough to "steal Canada's innocence." It will change us, true, but we can respond to it, rise to it, and make it a change for the better. I hope that we don't give up hoping that we can do better than this.

I truly hope so.

The Muddled Befuddled Giving of Thanks

     When asked what you're thankful for, the wild list of cliches that flashes across your brain is only slightly less cliched than the question itself.
     Thankful? For what? To whom? Of which? On when?
     Your wine glass getting a little heavy, you scan that mental list and blurt out something to your table more canned than Auntie Peg's secret cranberry sauce.
     It's hard to know who to thank for what. I suppose if you have a good job and a decent bird on your table, and you believe in [G]od, and that he took a hand in the above, good, you're done. Thanks, God, for this here feast before me and the fact that I can rack up debt at my own pace.
     If you're sliding more into the agnostic or atheist camp, I guess maybe you could thank the universe, but then you're saying it's cosmic luck that got you this stuffed Hutterite gobbler and that 75 cent raise at Staples.
     So, play it safe and thank the boss and the cook then?
     Great. This would be the only time you thank your boss for employing you? On a stat? And this would be the only time worth thanking someone for cooking you a meal? You must be a joy at restaurants. And what if you cooked the meal yourself? Call up the good people at Sears for selling a functioning oven to you, or drop a "Thankya" to the Maytag man?
      Maybe you decide to be more general.
      Thanks for my family. You're glad basic genetics work and that you weren't abandoned. Do you thank them all the time? Are you not holding a quiet resentment toward your sister for hosting this fine meal at her house AGAIN because nobody will drive the extra half hour to your place?
     My parents. Thanks to my parents for bringing me up right in a tough world.
     How non-First World of you! Tell me, if your peer has been better--that is, more excessively--provided for than you (wealth, nurturing, boat trips), would that mean you shouldn't be as thankful because your parents didn't go far enough? Does that mean your children should only provide you with Thanks Lite if you can't do as well for them as your parents did for you?
     Freedom. Thankful for my freedom.
     Well, ignoring my last post's look at the duality of freedom, where did you get said freedom? Who you gonna thank, exactly? Elected officials? Lawmakers? Good-hearted cops? Libertarians?
     Veterans. I'm gonna thank the veterans. The ones who fought in the morally-clear wars.
     I'm completely in favour of this. Thank a veteran. That's a good reason to be thankful and a good person to thank. My worry is that you get it out of your system now, and then come November 1st, when Halloween is over and the long march to Christmas is foisted on us by Tim Horton's and Wal-Mart, you will skip that two minute pause on November 11 that the veterans most deserve. It's like you're going to do it now in case you forget later.
 
      I'm all for saying thanks. I like good manners and I like to show appreciation when it's owed. But the giving of thanks requires a sort of symbiosis: thanker and thankee.
      If you're going to insist on parading out your "I'm thankful for" list in speech, toast, Facebook post, better to find the person you thank, look 'em dead straight in the eye and tell 'em what exactly it is you're thanking 'em for. Mean it.
      Seek your god, call your mom, applaud your cook.
      Too many of our few good English phrases (I love you, I'm sorry, I'm proud of you) have been watered down by over-use and under-appreciation. Giving thanks is easy, and requires no risk of effort.
     So mean it, turkey.
     (Thanks very, very much for reading.)

Freedom Over All, Against All Sense

"Y'can take our land . . ."

I was staying on a ranch in the Foothills south of Calgary. The rancher, who I had just met this August weekend, was a jovial and gracious host. In his presence, neither ear nor cup was empty for long. He was opinionated and proud, and never more the latter than when he took me for an afternoon hike in his sprawling back forty.

                I am in love with this region. A Saskatchewan immigrant, I’ve always been awed by the Rockies, but the Foothills have just the right blend of home and away that they tug insistently at me.

                An hour up into the hills and grass, we found a valley with bush on one side and sandstone cliffs on the other. We stopped to drink from a spring, around which he’d build as retaining wall for a pipe.

                “This is the water I use to make my wine,” he said, and handed me the A&W mug he left out here. I drank, and truly I had a short list of comparisons for such purity. Especially given the lingering effects of the wine he used this water to produce, proudly poured out in excess the night before.

                We were far enough away that, turning my back on the construction around the spring, I could see no sign of humanity. No fence, road, telephone pole. This prairie was nearly untouched—ignoring the hundred years of cattle grazing—as pristine a patch as you’ll fine in the West. As it appeared to the buffalo and the hunter, before the white man. Perhaps I was kidding myself, but I wanted to believe it very badly just then.

                He told me of the forthcoming deal that he and seventy-one other ranchers were brokering with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, a deal intended to keep this prairie as prairie. That is, free from development. He was in favour of the idea to an extent, but said, “That is unless Mulcair or Trudeau gets in. Or depending how I’m told to use my own land.”  

                I didn’t comment. First, as someone who traditionally votes for the left-wing federal parties, I’ve learned to pick my battles in ultra-conservative S.A., where people tend to look at political parties like sports teams: always stick to your guns and root for the one you always have. And second, because I was a little shocked at how his personal freedom from the intervention of a government—pending, even—or its offices mattered more to him than the preservation at all costs of the nearest thing we have to the untouched out here.

                Freedom over all, against all sense.

               

                The $40 million deal that the NCC signed with the seventy-two ranchers of the Waldron Grazing Co-op (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-ranchers-to-conserve-huge-tract-of-native-grassland-1.2781482) won’t hang in the news for long. It’s not the sort of news that generally interests most Albertans. That 12 000 hectares was purchased for preservation rather than production, to maintain rather than make money. Lack of development doesn’t make big news out here. Those of us who celebrate a piece of undeveloped, unsullied, undrilled (mostly. Let’s not go nuts, it’s Southern Alberta) prairie want to get up and dance. It reads like a great victory against the scar of urban sprawl that has taken the prairies and made it into a wasteland of industry and suburbia. But you can’t avoid the detractors, no matter how insane their arguments. There’s the matter of freedom to consider.

                The rancher I visited is one, a second on the radio yesterday morning also has reservations. If there are two, there are likely more. They signed on, but with questions. They can graze their cattle, but they can’t parcel their land off to be the next suburb of bloated acreages.

                “By saying there will be no development, they’re limiting our freedom.”

                Freedom, ah yes. We’ve got an over-entitled sense of freedom in this province, and an over-active cynicism in the role authority should play in our lives. There’s a vocal Libertarian minority at work out here, railing against any sort of infringement upon our cowboy autonomy. Must be all the American TV. It smacks of the anti-gun control rallies of the 90s. Freedom.

                How can the government dare to horn in on my self-determination?

                Because freedom can be a very bad thing.

                But you should feel blessed, freedom-advocates. Depending on your municipality, if you live in Alberta, you’re likely governed by three levels of government who all claim to stand for your personal liberty in the face of nasty socialist concepts like equality, free health care, and public broadcasting. That is, unless you want to be free to oppose unchecked development, or get an abortion, or have a sexual orientation. Freedom, as defined.

                This little corner of prairie is being preserved by an office that the Harper Government has hardly supported, tried to run off the rails, tried to muzzle, and the ranchers who have made this great step in the right direction are some of them more concerned about their personal land rights (ie, How much they can make off the land at a later date, at triple the price they got from the NCC) than what they’ve done for the good of us all.

                I have a news flash for the Libertarians and self-righteous Braveheart-screamers: your freedom should be limited because it’s not coming for free. Your liberty is costing us dear, and I for one want to see it reigned right in.

                It’s the freedom of unchecked capitalism that that has led this province to allow oil and gas to putrefy our land and water, sicken our people and animals, for the sake of nothing but dollars and excuses and a little bit of nose-thumbing at the hippies. Freedom has convinced us that living in a rich now is worth ignoring environmental repercussions, post-growth crashes, worth torpedoing Heritage Funds in favour of that now.

                It’s freedom to own weaponry for weaponry’s sake that’s led us to believe that we have a right to own instruments that serve no other purpose—not one—but to kill. As many as we want, and in great variety.

                It’s freedom that has created a disparity between entitled wealth and crippling poverty in this country, seeing the rich buy themselves into doctor’s clinics while the poor work full-time and can’t afford prescriptions.

                It’s freedom to think that race, gender, and financial inequality are the fault of the victim, that somehow mental illness and addiction and not being born into a blue chip Mount Royal family are solved by pulling up one’s bootstraps.

                Freedom is the problem. Too much freedom—or, perhaps, the belief that freedom is owed not earned—has seen this land preservation purchase go under-celebrated. Instead of it being a victory for tomorrow (“tomorrow” is a dirty word in Alberta, like “environmental” and “sustainable"), it’s been drug into the mud of personal liberty.

                Tax me, bind me, disarm me, film me. Do it equally across the board. Use the tax money for infrastructure and social services, keep me to the same laws as you do Imperial Oil execs, take away weaponry I never have and never will need, give me evidence to support me if I’m right, to damn me if I’m wrong.

                Because freedom hasn’t been good for us.