Have you ever wondered what happens to a population or an individual when they see themselves as the victims of a lost war?
In Canada, I grew up believing that England had treated the French colonists of Quebec extraordinarily fairly following the battle on the Plains of Abraham given that time in history. Francophone Quebecers kept their language, religious institutions, civil laws and education system with only the criminal code changed to a more liberal English legal system. That’s what I learned in school in Ontario.
Indeed the distinctiveness of recognizing Canada’s francophone society extended even to St. Albert. For instance, we were allowed to keep the Quebec-based river lot system of land apportionment whereas properties in the rest of western Canada were apportioned into quarter sections under the Homestead Act of 1872. Preserving the river lot system was a major economic and cultural factor for property owners in our agriculturally-based town.
And yet, centuries after Wolfe and Montcalm, a history curriculum is being introduced into Quebec schools which takes the position that francophone Quebecois were unfairly subjugated and oppressed by the English up until the middle of the 20th century.
Clearly, the negative impact of loss of autonomy over our community life, perceived or real, can last for generations. Prime Minister Trudeau will have to look at this issue more closely – perhaps as soon as he gets the Senate sorted out.
And then we come to Donald Trump and his championing of representing the victims of a destructive political war in Washington. Like Peter Finch in Network, he’s as mad as hell and he isn’t going take it anymore. America is in as much a crisis of confidence today as it was when it lost the Vietnam War after France had vacated that colony ignominiously.
Washington at that time was still reeling from McCarthyism, the Cuban crisis, desegregation of schools and the assassination of the Kennedys. In his own way, Mr. Trump is as much a revolutionary as Martin Luther King, Louis Riel or Rene Levesque. And isn’t it interesting how the Washington press and professional political establishment have coalesced to demonize him.
And now a word about North Korea and ‘Dear Leaders’ Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-Il. These political mini pit-bulls emerged after centuries of Korea being subjugated by China, Mongolia and Japan – dating back to 1122 BC when Kija, a Chinese colonizer invaded Korea and established his capital at Pyongyang.
In modern times, Japan annexed Korea in 1910 and ruled it by force until the end of the Second World War. Korea was then occupied by the USSR and the USA when they divided the country militarily at the 38th parallel to fight the Japanese – after the bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. Russia ceded control of North Korea to China in about 1950. The American military are still in South Korea. North Korea views the USA as an occupying colonial power and now wants independence from China. Any notion that the North Korean government will submit to loss of their independence by giving in to United Nations sanctions ignores the lessons of history.
What would President Trump do? Believe it or not, he would probably understand North Korea better than any other national level politician alive today.
Alan Murdock is a local pediatrician.
