Sunday, July 1, 2018

Um, Canada...




















If Japan is a "difficult" nation," as described by Haruomi Hosono onstage at the Barbican last week, then Canada is a "problematic" one. Theft of land and genocide is much more than a notion, you see Surrounded by great, great lakes, rivers, prairie, and ocean, this country's constructed colonial borders control me as I answer my calling as a person of settler and immigrant heritage, yet I still call this land home and acknowledge it deep from within as a part of me. I was born here, as was my mother and father and brother. When I visit another part of the world, even the United States, there is a difference in feel that is ever so real. Why? Are we not children of the universe? Of mother nature? How far removed from the roots of the tree are we? That being said, complexity is certainly complex, as is history, and economy, and these thoughts and concepts and ideologies often float beyond my head like distant clouds, while burdened on the ground by the psychic weight of nationhood, a construct, while utilizing its civic construction and infrastructure daily, the roads, for example, on which city, suburban, and some rural folk travel on to work, rest, and play everyday. Reality. Let's leave technology out of this for now, ok? Protected by a passport and white privilege (don't worry, it won't always be this way...), I pay taxes on what little I make. I have a voice and I am using it here. Is that a mistake? To think? To speak? I am not a politician, academic or employee of the state. Great! I was raised to finish the food on my plate, but when I lay down on the street and look up, this is what I see (some might call is blasphemy)... O Canada, true (um...), north (ah...), strong (oh...), and free (not really)... PEACE

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