It's strange to think that one decision my grandparents made 60 years ago has changed the course of my life. Instead of growing up in Europe, speaking multiple languages on the coast of the North Sea eating droopies and fish, I grew up in landlocked southern Alberta, knowing little of the water, knowing no other language than English, eating homegrown beef. I am a North American. A Canadian. A born and raised daughter of the promised land.
I know my grandparents (shown in the above photo, taken shortly before they immigrated) made a monumental decision to come to Canada in search of a better life for their children and grandchildren. Post war Europe was too raw, too hard, too painful for them to remain and so they found their way across an ocean, across a continent to scratch out a life from the dry prairie.
It's strange to think that in the course of two generations, I find myself thinking about what it means to be a Canadian in a country that I am trying hard to recognize and have faith in. In the course of two generations this country has become something far less like the promised land and much more like a political tyranny.
History repeats itself in disturbing, frightening and painful ways. In ways that make me much less proud to be Canadian and make me worry about the future of this country that my grandparents put so much faith into.
International Aid Failure
Canadian Citizen Privacy Breaches
Incredible Egotism
And even more frightening egotism
More painful international failures
and what may be the most frightening of all,
A complete disregard for the painful lessons learned in the history of our country.
Remember that "No one is told any story but their own" (C.S. Lewis, The Horse & His Boy), so we need to make our own Canadian voices heard and put our own hand to creating a community that future and past generations can be proud of. Maybe you can start here: http://www.59cents.org/
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