The New Imperial Cheek
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David MacKenzie 03-31-2017
It is perhaps a modern irony that the same people who speak so loudly
about inclusion,
used to speak so earnestly about the need for
“boundaries”. It is perhaps a further irony
that the same people who used to speak
earnestly about the need for “boundaries”,
now speak so disparagingly about the need
for borders— all while, simultaneously,
expressing a sincere desire for “safe
spaces”. !
The ironies only increase with time. !
Over thirty years ago, in British Columbia,
I watched an adult youth-leader express his
belief in inclusion for gays and lesbians in
pastoral ministry. This same leader would eventually become the
Moderator of the United Church of Canada. During his tenure, this same
man would use his position as Moderator to advise the Law Society of
Upper Canada that they should not allow Trinity Western University
law graduates to be recognized in Ontario. He, who once argued on
behalf of inclusion, was no longer satisfied in reaching the pinnacle of
spiritual inclusion within his own denomination, but would actively seek
to publicly resist and exclude evangelical Christians (who have nothing
to do with his own denomination) from public employment in law. !
No doubt, this overreach is necessary so “that all may be one”.* Predictably, this same man’s husband— a Vancouver city councillor—
recently spearheaded the failed attempt to exclude evangelist Franklin
Graham from his own organization’s conference in Vancouver. One
accusation seemed particularly overblown: the absurd idea that
Franklin’s visit was a threat to “public safety”. Perhaps someone
should remind coastal politicians that Christians filled with the “new
wine” are far more stable than disappointed Canuck fans filled with the
old. !
This is but one aspect of the new imperialism consolidating its position
in Canadian society. Advocates of inclusion apparently only like borders
when they keep Christians out— out of business or out of the country.
Moreover, this new imperialism only seldom articulates any interest in
history; hence, it seems doomed to repeat it. !
The new imperialists gather like Pharisees, lamenting the colonialism of
previous generations of Canadians when addressing native residential
schools: “Had we lived in the days of out ancestors, we would not have
joined them in shedding the blood of our native brothers and sisters.”
Yet, these attempts at “truth and reconciliation” ring rather hollow when
the very same political personalities think nothing of sending $650
million overseas to aid in the abortion trade in Africa. The question of
whether many African women even want such a Canadian subsidy is
hardly obvious but, when compared to that “evil” Trump down south
who withdraws overseas abortion funding, Canada knows best, right? !
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* Ironically, the United Church of Canada motto. !
The new imperialists, puffed up as they are with modern sanctimonious
cheek, are actually subject to traditional political proximity blindness—
the same kind of which our ancestors fell afoul. Clearly, the old
colonialism didn’t disappear; it just changed form.
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In his tell-tale Globe and Mail article March 18th, author Michael
Motala advocated on behalf of a Canadian trade policy predicated upon
LGBT priorities. In light of BREXIT, he claimed, Britain will look to
revive its commonwealth trading relationships, “reminiscent of the preGATT era of imperial preferences.” “Canada”, he wrote, “must act to
ensure LGBT protections are at the very centre of any new
Commonwealth trading regime. Clearly, Michael wants to put some
new political self-interest back into those old imperial preferences. !
In the past, of course, British gunboats were occasionally deployed to
enforce issues of national self-interest— for good or bad. At the
instigation of Christian evangelicals in the 19th Century, for instance,
Britain spent an estimated 2% of her national income, every year for
six decades, to suppress the slave trade on the Atlantic Ocean and in her
Empire. The old Imperialism wasn’t always wrong— the new not
always right. Despite today’s penchant to frame the old imperialism in genocidal
terms, the new imperialism would have Canadians spend hundreds of
millions of dollars on the killing of unborn children— a practice that,
whether promoted by the hedonistic West or the Statist east, is now (at
over 1 billion souls terminated) more archetypically genocidal than all
the wars that have ever been fought for Empire, combined. Monuments
will one day be raised to remember the tragedy and the embarrassment
of our own “enlightened” policies. !
One wonders if, in 1967, when Trudeau the Elder declared there’s no
place for the State in the bedrooms of the nation, he could have
predicted the implications of his own omnibus fifty years later— that the
supposedly “private” bedroom would actually become a neo-colonial
truncheon in Canada’s trade and foreign policy. How has the hedonism
of the sexual revolution since become such a foreign policy priority? It
has become absurdly “religious” in its zeal. !
For reasons of economic self-interest, the old colonialism would have
had us sail to foreign shores and plant flags with crosses on them. Today,
the new colonialism would have us leverage our economic interests with
rainbow flags instead. Quite obviously, people don't cease to be
moralists just because they cease to be traditionally moral. In like
fashion, societies don’t stop being colonialist just because they cease
being colonies.
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Not that contrasts describe everything; historical parallels continue to
exist. Today, we still feel Western culture superior for our particular
emphases. This aspect of our smug imperialism, at least, hasn’t changed
in the slightest.
Image: The Death of General Wolfe, Benjamin West, 1770.