At the risk of turning this travelogue into a political op-ed piece, this entry was inspired by the recent ridiculousness coming out of our nation's capital. Stephen Harper’s recent attack ads on Michael Ignatieff’s 34 year absence from Canada has got me thinking about the effect of being away from one’s country and whether or not it really is a good or a bad thing for anybody - from aspiring prime minister to a guy doing his masters. What do we lose by moving away?
It’s a strange thing indeed, call it the traveler’s paradox – the notion that we learn more about what it means to be a member of a nation by being away or removed from it. Some might say if you truly want to get to know a country you need to travel from tip to tail, or coast to coast in order to soak up all that defines its many people and regions. However, I would also say, on top of the coast to coast stuff, one need also to get in a boat on one of those coasts and sail off to faraway lands in order to then land and look back. The perspective that comes from standing somewhere new, is at once bracing and brilliant because of the life it forces you to consider right under your feet – a reality that your mind simply could not fathom before it actually sees it, stands on it. It is a place altogether different from one’s own and it is full of lessons for the willing and observant traveler. But does that perspective come with a cost?
Though we have not been away from Canada for very long, there is something in my own shifting perspective that makes me wonder if there isn’t something at the very core of Harper’s small-minded complaint that might actually be true. While away we have immersed ourselves in a new culture and have tried very hard to understand it, accept it, and grow within it. In doing so, Canada and its ongoing relevancy has taken a firm backseat to the world that opens up to us every day just outside our front door. And while we are, of course, interested in friends and family and whether or not the Habs were going to make the playoffs, there is a certain sense of disconnection one feels from home-based concerns because there is simply very little one can do to affect their outcome. (I used to think simply by watching the game, I could help the Habs win….) It really makes me question how an academic like Ignatieff could hold Canada in his head and heart for so long.
Of course, the reverse of Ignatieff’s self-imposed academic exile can also be seen in the homebody attitudes of people like Stephen Harper. His belief in the trilogy of faith, family, and fatherland must be attractive to those who have not had the chance or taken the opportunity to peer across a border. In his world foreign countries are strange faraway lands where we only need go to fight wars, negotiate trades or to bring home hockey trophies. Personally, I think the CPC is so paranoid about finding that it is relatively alone in the world of political ideology that it doesn't dare go anywhere that might conflict with its antiquated view. Thus, Harper pulls up our borders, stifles the media, scrunches up his shoulders to block out the socialist din, and stays at home because home is good enough. It is an unsustainable model in the new global community and a leadership style that I predict will be shown the door very soon in Canada.
Which brings me back to Ignatieff. There is no doubt that he is intelligent and has that je ne sais quoi that Stephane Dion lacked. He is also an accomplished world traveler with bags and bags of experience looking out into the world and learning what other good people are capable of. As Linton so aptly put it, “What does it matter where he has lived his life as long as he has integrity and governs well?” Which immediately makes much sense. And yet, there is a little niggling red flag in the back of my mind for which I have the Harper attack ads to thank. If you are indeed about true partriot love, why haven’t you spent your time in Brampton, Moose Jaw, or Goose Bay? Or am I just another pawn in the constant "spin" of the electorate?
I do think it's a shame more Canadians can’t find what they are looking for within our borders, but to say that is to deny the many that do. And maybe that’s where I’m missing the point altogether. Canada is indeed a great country, made great by the fact that we are so willingly a collective of other nations and attitudes. And because of that greatness, that sense of strength and pride we gleen from our heritage, we are empowered to venture out into the world to explore, to study, to live and to grow - safe in the knowledge that we have a perspective that’s been expertly honed at home - teaching us to be open and accepting of all we may find. Maybe, just knowing enough about one's own country is, in fact, enough.
And yet still, this year tells me there is a distinct benefit to "looking back" from somewhere else. By seeing different parts of the world one gains a better appreciation for how other people live as well as insight into how we might do things better or differently. While there are many things that work in Australia that would never work in Canada, just learning that there are options to living life is incredibly empowering and makes one want to try to be more creative and open to change upon return home. In a very short time, Mr. Ignatieff will find out if Canadians share my opinion.
I recently read with interest the speech The Globe’s Stephanie Nolen gave to recent graduates of the journalism program at King’s College. She said that her life abroad had taught her, among other things, that to be Canadian was indeed a privilege and that by exposing herself to some of the most harrowing and harsh places on earth, she had gained a profound appreciation for the country in which she was born. Though I don’t think Harvard or Cambridge have offered Mr. Ignatieff the same kind of perspective as the one about which Nolen writes, I do hope that he is home to stay and to make a real difference – a difference I know he could only have known how to make, by being away.
No comments:
Post a Comment