The title of this post is about Mr. Gibran Khalil Gibran’s Garden of the Prophet, specifically his wise words about the sadness of countries divided by tribes instead of being unified.
Keeping this in mind, look at the new woke logic of some Canadian intellectuals, like Mr. Allen Alexandre (“a veteran federal Liberal political organizer who has served many Trudeau cabinet ministers in a senior capacity”). In an article published in the Toronto Star, we can read his article (https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2021/02/16/trudeau-george-floyd-and-the-emergence-of-black-canadian-identity.html), entitled “Trudeau, George Floyd, and the emergence of Black Canadian identity”. Here are some extracts:
“…But squeezed into the French/English language divide, these disparate groups’ integration defaulted along the fault lines of Canada’s two solitudes. And absent a clear common cause or issue to bring them together, their interactions ended up largely mirroring the dynamics of Canadian dualism in the decades that followed.
Until September 2019…”
“… At the social level, a number of influential Black-founded and Black-mandated organizations have burst onto the national stage. They are led by a legion of young, pragmatic, and media savvy torchbearers who are not hampered by the cultural, linguistic, and technological constraints that limited their parents’ capacity to co-operate. Combined with movements, such as Black Lives Matter, these organizations represent a disruptive force that is accelerating the cohesion of 1.2 million Black Canadians at an unforgiving pace.
“… In the end, history likely will regard Justin Trudeau as the most consequential prime minister for Black Canadians. But ultimately, it will be his ability to absorb and embody the nascent Black Canadian collective consciousness that will determine whether, like his father, he secures for his party the loyalty of yet another generation of Black Canadians”.
Look at how the author is insinuating that a skin colour (or so called-black Canadian identity, to use his own words) is more noble and more meaningful than being Canadian or being Québecker.
In other parts of his article, he seems to be telling us how much younger generations know better than their parents’ and grand-parents’ who immigrated to our beautiful country and contributed to building it. For him, the patriotic project around their adoptive county is the meaningless “two solitudes” of Canada. How sad and how out of touch his vision is from an immigrant point of view. Is he telling us that a Haitian has more in common with a Nigerian than a Haitian has in common with another francophone?
Like Bambi and her parents, those parents he is referring to left disrupted or literally destroyed birth countries dreaming of this welcoming Canada, with its imperfections and stories/histories. They love their adoptive country more than he can imagine. Bambi bets that most of them do not want to adhere to radical movements, like wokeism. They want to respect everyone and be respected by everyone. Not because they are from a so called “racialized” (= victimized) group, but because they are actually like everyone else. Of course, like everyone else, they are whom they are uniquely, that is whole individuals who are creative, resilient, and hard-working members of society.
The multiculturalism of Mr Trudeau dad he is referring is of course interesting, but only up to a certain point… precisely, when more than ever, we need to remain united in order not to lose our soul or common points of reference as a nation or a country still in infancy. Not as a “post-national” hotel or tent where tribes live (contrary to what Mr. Trudeau Junior said about Canada being a post-national country). This multiculturalism has no choice but to be reasonable and flexible. Else, it will keep lending itself to radical movements like the wokeism the author is describing. To cite one politician he did not mention in his article, namely Mr. Maxime Bernier, it is perhaps about time to “promote what unites us”.
Ask any immigrant, whether from an African country, from Haiti, or from war-torn Lebanon, he or she will tell you about how much they thrive to work hard, earn a living whilst raising their children in a unified country, that treats them with dignity without using them in empty yet potentially dangerous ideologies. If Mr. Trudeau can sincerely offer or still offer them this vision of Canada to them, they will vote for him. If not, like Bambi did the last time, they will look elsewhere, even after having been a historical liberal voter and remaining a Classical Liberal believing in free thinking, free speech, and free love of one’s country (even when the head of this party does not seem to still believe in all this….).
To conclude this post, this author may be wrong. It is the children or new generation he is talking about who may surprise him by refusing this neo-radicalim empty of substance (a type of neo-marxism) and eventually destructive. The majority of people, younger and more senior (even if it is silent) is not into radicalism, whether the latter comes from the left or the right (nowadays it is the left that seems to have gone crazy)… and even if such radical movements seem to be sanctioned by our state (or our institutions and brains taken over by them).
