Whose country is this anyway?

The strategy of divide and conquer has served malevolent purposes since the dawn of conflict, but for sheer efficiency, post-Freudian Canada has discovered that a little alienation goes a long way. Canada's current population may be of overwhelmingly European derivation, but disheartened, guilt-ridden, downtrodden people become automatic minorities, regardless of numbers. And so it is with Canadians, born, bred, and betrayed. Our numbers can't and, more importantly, won't help us, not while we remain ignorant and guilty and stupid and intimidated and distracted enough.

If this condition persists, we'll never properly understand what's been done to us. By the time we wake up to realize we really are a minority in our own nation, no one will be very interested in examining or staunching our self-inflicted wounds. Anyone who imagines that the new inheritors (growing fat on a steady diet of anti-white rhetoric) will offer a handkerchief, is due for some hard lessons in human nature and the distemper of long-cherished resentments.

Just about the time we were celebrating our centenary, in 1967, a number of things happened: our immigration policy was 'revised', our flag was 'replaced', our anthem was 'reinvented'. So, our first big birthday really marked our infanticide. We were in an optimistic mood and anything seemed possible. Well, anything but what we got - that is. What we got was lots and lots of immigration, multiculturalism, and the utterly relentless denigration of our own traditions. "Come, join us, let us grow weak together!" The Canadian anthem may be inconsequential in the overall scheme of things, but heraldry and symbols have historically driven crusades and unified or destroyed nations. Symbols are ideas made manifest. They are the embodiment of an idea which connects and consolidates a people, or conversely, divides them beyond repair.

Brace yourself and imagine for a moment that a group of wild-eyed psychopaths decide to flaunt convention and defy authority with a spontaneous rousing chorus of our national anthem. Does anyone actually know the lyrics? Not likely. Hard for patriots to rally together when they're reduced to humming the national anthem. In 1968, while Canada was being invested as hell's northern franchise, a Special Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons recommended a few changes to the traditional version of O Canada. Presumably the problem was that just too many of us had actually memorized the damn thing. And so it was quietly revised. Compare the two versions below.

Get the picture? As you can see, today Canadians stand on guard for something quite alien to the original intent. Where the traditional anthem again and again exhorts us: 'And stand on guard, O Canada' -- (be vigilant, guard your borders, guard your culture; it's your duty as a free and sovereign state) -- the reinvented version waves a tire iron over our heads and reminds us that this multicultural construct WILL be defended. (From what, or whom, one wonders?)

The traditional English version was written by the Honourable Robert Stanley Weir in 1908. In Heritage Canada's own words: the special joint committee "discarded an otherwise acceptable bilingual version as being difficult for other ethnic groups in Canada to accept. It suggested keeping the original French version and using the Weir English version with minor changes - that is replacing two of the "Stand on guard" phrases with "From far and wide" and "God keep our land". To their everlasting credit, Weir's descendents objected strenuously to ANY revision. But the committee swept this aside; noting that by now, the family was no longer copyright holder. The Canadian Government acquired overall rights to the music and French and English lyrics in 1970, at a cost of one dollar.

In contrast, the French version (lyrics by Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier) was first performed in 1880. It has never been altered. Just a glance will explain why French Canadians may feel theirs is a culture worth preserving.

English Translation of Routhier's Version

O Canada! Land of our forefathers
Thy brow is wreathed with a glorious garland of flowers.
As in thy arm ready to wield the sword,
So also is it ready to carry the cross.
Thy history is an epic of the most brilliant exploits.
Ch.
Thy valour steeped in faith
Will protect our homes and our rights
Will protect our homes and our rights.

The notion that Canada IS 'glorious and free' is implicit in the original anthem; something be cherished and defended. In the new revised version, glory and freedom are but timid hopes. Let's leave glory and freedom to providence... What can WE do?