Plains of Abraham re-enactment cancelled

[Hydrogen]

It has nothing to do with prejudice; this usage is quite common and uncontroversial, especially in parts of the world (e.g. Europe) where no one cultural group dominates and mutual understanding is key to good relations between ethnicities or nation states.

This may be difficult to experience living in North America, but it is possible to compare national and civilizational characteristics and analyze their complex interactions with each other.

Yes, it has to do with prejudice. Earlier you stated that Anglo-Saxons were, as a group, insensitive to others. You stated that as if it were a supposed fact typical to all Anglo-Saxons. You don't know anything about how all individual Anglo-Saxons think or feel. Nor does your prejudice make any reference to the great degree of cultural variation to be found within the Anglosphere.

And don't hide your prejudices in colourful language about analyzing complex interactions when you have failed to provide any such analysis. If anything, your casual labeling suggests a rather simplistic attitude towards cultures.

 

[Anth]

You're taking this entirely the wrong way.

I'm not describing individual people or members of a particular ethnicity; I'm describing characteristics I perceive that emerge from the collective social, cultural and political values expressed and projected through the Anglosphere's various organizations and institutions internationally. And I'm observing that, collectively, the English-speaking world traditionally hasn't been very good at putting itself in other people's shoes on the international scale and accepting that they have their own values, interests and sensitivities.

Thriving cosmopolitan cities such as New York, London and Toronto prove that the Anglosphere is fantastic at accommodating diversity internally within its own frameworks, but it seems to invariably run into more cross-cultural difficulties and misunderstandings than it has to when it comes up against other, especially rival, spheres externally. This is something that I think has started to be recognized and addressed only in recent years with the massive change in strategic tack in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example.

 

[Hipster Duck]

It has nothing to do with prejudice; this usage is quite common and uncontroversial, especially in parts of the world (e.g. Europe) where no one cultural group dominates and mutual understanding is key to good relations between ethnicities or nation states.

This may be difficult to experience living in North America, but it is possible to compare national and civilizational characteristics and analyze their complex interactions with each other.

Statements like this weaken your point considerably. What cultural group among the polyglot cultures of North America dominates? And how is the North American cultural gestalt any less complex in its interactions than that of any other region of 335 million people in the world. Remember that a cultural group is considerably different than a linguistic group. By the linguistic token, you could say that English, having emerged as the common language of business and cross-national culture in the EU, is just as much a dominant force as it is here in North America.

 

[Anth]

Statements like this weaken your point considerably. What cultural group among the polyglot cultures of North America dominates? And how is the North American cultural gestalt any less complex in its interactions than that of any other region of 335 million people in the world. Remember that a cultural group is considerably different than a linguistic group. By the linguistic token, you could say that English, having emerged as the common language of business and cross-national culture in the EU, is just as much a dominant force as it is here in North America.

This is a good point, but I don't mean to deny North American cultural complexity; I'm trying to take a more macro view to understand civilizational interactions and the often surprising friction they can cause.

Quebec is politically part of Canada, but its social and institutional "bones" are still substantially French, continental, and Catholic even if the micro-scale reality on the ground is far more complex. So there are fundamental differences in collective perspective that lead to the inevitable talking past one another and misunderstandings when issues like this crop up.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I think a possible difference between this re-enactment and those of the Civil War is that our American neighbours have more or less put the attitudes and differences that caused that war behind them. They all know they're Americans. In Canada however, even after more than a hundred years after the battles, we have a lost group of Francophones abandoned by their mother country but unwilling to join their new countrymen in a united cultural identity. I can't help but think had Canada's French population have followed their French counterparts in Louisiana in shirking off their mother country and joining the new nation, that we''d not have their descendants complaining today about the re-enactment of a great battle.

To that point, we should note that there is a large re-enactment of the 1758 Battle of Ticonderoga, where the French, led by Montcalm crushed the 10,000 American colonists and 6,000 British regulars http://www.fort-ticonderoga250th.org/. However we do not hear about Americans complaining about celebrations of their defeat. No, they'd think that was ridiculous, since they're celebrating their now joint national history, not the politics of the time.

In Britain I've watched the re-enactment of the 1066 Battle of Hastings, where the Normans from what is today France defeated the English army, which led to hundreds of years of foreign rule over the English people, and forever changed their culture and identity. However, no one watches the re-enactment as a slap in face from northern France. We've gotten over the Norman conquest, and in fact celebrate its history with re-enactments of the battle. Same goes for re-enactments of decisive English loses at the Battle of Watling Street, where the defeat of the English leader Boudica cemented Roman rule over the English. Today we celebrate Roman rule of Britain through massive re-enactments.

By holding on so tight to their past, Quebec is mired in perceived failings, which is demonstrated by their refusal to see the re-enactment as anything but an insult.

 

[Hydrogen]

You're taking this entirely the wrong way.

I'm not describing individual people or members of a particular ethnicity; I'm describing characteristics I perceive that emerge from the collective social, cultural and political values expressed and projected through the Anglosphere's various organizations and institutions internationally.

What do you think this anglosphere is made up of? Rhubarb?

The thing you are describing is made up of people, so I'm taking nothing the wrong way. You are just continuing an effort to legitimize your own prejudices.

A collective social structure is made of people.
A culture is created and expressed by people.
Political values are expressed by people.
Various organizations and institutions are the expressions of people.

Get it?

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

if a bunch of adults want to act out their fantasies i say use live ammunition!


p.s, i think these war reenactments trivialize the past event they try to imitate. it's like a bunch of kids playing cowboys and indians. wars are not supposed to be for entertainment, regardless that they are sometimes called "theaters". i'm pretty sure that the people who died in these wars wouldn't want to reenact them.

 

[Tewder]

p.s, i think these war reenactments trivialize the past event they try to imitate. it's like a bunch of kids playing cowboys and indians. wars are not supposed to be for entertainment, regardless that they are sometimes called "theaters". i'm pretty sure that the people who died in these wars wouldn't want to reenact them.

You should try one some time, with an open mind. I always thought they were silly until I happened upon one in process one year driving through Fort Erie. It was twilight on a beautiful summer evening and the canons were blasting, the muskets firing, the smoke and fire and sound of fife and drums... it was all very thrilling and atmospheric with the campments set up and people 'living' the parts. I couldn't wait to tour the fort all of a sudden. It brought history to life for me at a place I would have driven by a million times without giving a moment's thought about its history, the lives lost there, the meaning of it all in a larger context of Canada's war of independence (from the American manifest destiny, not from England which evolved peacefully later).

I also have a friend who participated with her sister in one at Stoney Creek. They are the most unlikely people you could ever imagine doing so but they are huge history buffs and thought it would be silly fun. She's told me the experience was surprisingly exciting and moving. Unfortunately she was shot fairly soon, but relates the vivid memory of watching the lines behind her advancing in pure 18th/19th century style, stepping over her and the other bodies and being shot down in turn.

 

[Tewder]

Quebec is politically part of Canada, but its social and institutional "bones" are still substantially French, continental, and Catholic even if the micro-scale reality on the ground is far more complex. So there are fundamental differences in collective perspective that lead to the inevitable talking past one another and misunderstandings when issues like this crop up.

I think it is a huge mistake to consider Quebec 'continental', and I cannot tell you how many francophone Canadians I've met who actually express antipathy towards the French. In fact I'd say Ontario is more 'British' than Quebec 'French' in terms of historic attachments to mother countries when the Dominion of Canada rallied to the aid of Britain during WWI and WWII whereas francophone canadians wanted nothing to do whatsoever with France in both cases.

To deny the Plains of Abraham is a little like refusing to stage 'Showboat' because one is uncomfortable with the realities of history. That said, we have to remember that it is only a small minority of francophones, dyed in the wool separatists hostile to Canada as a nation anyway, who protest or have these sorts of issues with the realities of Canadian history. There are many francophones who are actually more than happy the British won that day on the Plains of Abraham precisely because they know that Quebec wouldn't be Quebec as we know it today otherwise. The separatists are not happy but really why should we care if they are??

 

[Urban Shocker]

The separatists aren't denying the Plains of Abraham - far from it. Equally, I question whether Wolfe would recognize the Quebec he "won" for Britain if he were to return to it now. The world has moved on. Dressing up in costumes and playing silly games today may convince some people they're cementing themselves to the realities of the distant past, but it also makes them look woefully out of touch with the present.

 

[Hydrogen]

The separatists aren't denying the Plains of Abraham - far from it.

Exactly. If anything, they just can't let the damn event go. They own it.

 

[Tewder]

The separatists aren't denying the Plains of Abraham - far from it. Equally, I question whether Wolfe would recognize the Quebec he "won" for Britain if he were to return to it now. The world has moved on. Dressing up in costumes and playing silly games today may convince some people they're cementing themselves to the realities of the distant past, but it also makes them look woefully out of touch with the present.

... nor would the separatists today recognize what was lost by Montcalm. They are denying the historic context of the Plains of Abraham. Quebec was a possession of France and was dropped like a hot potato, and also willingly allied itself with Britain when the Americans looked north in the 18th and 19th centuries. These are the historic realities that evolved into Canada as a nation. To deny this for some fantasy of 'La Nation' that never really existed is truly a silly and 'out of touch' perspective.

 

[Urban Shocker]

It's obviously a potent enough perspective to make the Feds drop their little costume drama tout de suite.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Quebec was a possession of France and was dropped like a hot potato, and also willingly allied itself with Britain when the Americans looked north in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Quebec sided with Britain against the USA and France in the Napoleonic Wars (war of 1812)

 

[ganjavih]

I've noticed a fair amount of tension between the French from France and Francophone Quebecers since I've moved to Montreal.