For those who have never set foot in North America, it would be tempting to believe that the United States and Canada are twin brothers with almost nothing separating them. Such a presumption would obviously be an error as the differences between the two countries are numerous. To tell the truth, apart from the language and the geographical location, it would be difficult to find anything in common between them.
Generally, Americans consider Canadians to be likeable rednecks, those individuals for whom we don’t have much regard but whose kindness or naivety we praise with that touch of condescension that befits minds that think they are superior to others. Let’s say, to draw a comparison with France, that Americans look at Canadians like us Belgians: friendly fellows good at downing beers and eating mussels with fries, but from whom you shouldn’t ask too much.
As for Canadians, never tell them that they look like Americans, they might take it very badly. The Canadian is everything, except American. It is a question of principle which, from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, unites an entire people, perhaps even the only denominator linking the inhabitants together, as if the hatred of America and its values constituted the common foundation of the Canadian nation.
It must be said that everything opposes the two countries. One cultivates tolerance and a spirit of openness where the other gives free rein to a violence which irrigates the whole of society. In Canada, we don’t buy guns like their neighbors buy frozen pizzas. We don’t eat until we become obese. We don’t practice mass killings. We also do not let its population spend fortunes to be treated in its hospitals. In many ways, Canada resembles a democracy in a Scandinavian country more than this kind of wild and unbridled jungle whereAmerica is complacent.
If Canadian nature is wild, its society is not. It is based on respect for all individuals regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or origin, a tolerance that goes as far as obsession, sometimes even exaggeration. Not that racism is completely absent from the Canadian identity, but it remains an indefensible opinion that no one would dream of bragging about. As proof, Canada remains to this day one of the last countries in the Western world where the extreme right has not yet found favorable ground for the expression of its ideas. This shows how different it is from America.
Canada still largely relies on a strong migration policy. Without the continued flow of immigrants necessary for the smooth running of the country, Canada could no longer function, so that society has no other choice but to offer them the best welcome, an open mind. incompatible with the idea of withdrawing into oneself or asserting an exacerbated nationalism as advocated by Donald Trump and his cronies.
To imagine for a single moment that Canada could merge into American society is as grotesque as wanting to associate hunters and ecological activists in the same political movement. Or to ask a relentless motorist to give up his vehicle and exchange it for a simple bicycle. There exists here a metaphysical incompatibility which is based above all on philosophical conceptions located at the antipodes of each other.
If Trump intends to annex Canada, he will have to use armed force. I don’t see how Canadians would give up on their own what constitutes the very foundation of their identity. Asking them to belong to the American nation would amount to denying their history, their culture, their way of being in the world, the very essence of who they are, beings who are fundamentally tolerant and open to the world.
Trump sees Canada as easy prey. In his crass ignorance, he intends to give America a living space like formerly Adolf Hitler and his expansionist conquests. Except that Canada is not Austria. The day is far away when, in the streets of Ottawa or Montreal, we will come to greet the American president as the Austrian population once welcomed the German chancellor, in a nationalist fever which expressed its assent to joining the great Germanic nation.
Or in other words, Canada is not for sale. Not tomorrow, not ever.
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Source: www.slate.fr
