by acknowledge the past
As most of you know, the Winter Olympics have been underway here in the Vancouver region. I haven’t commented much on it for I’m one of the folks that’s been against it mostly because of the extreme costs, commercialism and over-zealous security. However, I have been enjoying some aspects of it, watching a few events from the comfort of home. I always enjoy the opening ceremonies, and this one was quite good, very inclusive of our First Nations hosts.
But there have been criticisms by other ethnic groups in our country who feel they’ve been excluded. I’ve had some similar though less extreme thoughts but have hope for the closing ceremonies. I love the response by Stephen Hume, my favourite columnist in our local newspaper. As always he writes thoughtful and well-researched articles and this has to be one of his best: Acknowledge the past, but don’t try to remake it. Anyone upset about a lack of French in opening ceremony should learn about B.C.’s other settlers.*
It’s long but gives a great and sometimes surprising historical picture of British Columbia’s multicultural roots and some of the conflicts that have arisen from time to time. If this subject interests you, please read and comment.
P.S. I forgot to add another fascinating article by Hume, also concerning the opening ceremonies: Tripod glitch fit nicely with Olympic tradition; Ancient Greeks would have appreciated the symbolism since the tripod has a long association with the Games.*
*Update: links have expired and have been removed (dang Vancouver Sun for their short-lived links to articles)
February 26, 2010 in Canada and BC, Culture, History by Marja-Leena
You’re so right, Marja-Leena, what a great article by Hume! Here in Quebec I’ve been astonished by the vehemence and longevity of these arguments – the language war is not over, it seems, for some people, but meanwhile, kids switch back and forth between two and three and four languages like it’s nothing. I think celebrating both diversity and commonality are important, and am glad you and I live in cities that are full of both.
I love the photo! What is it?
Beth, thanks for chiming in for I thought of you, living in the French-speaking part of Canada.
Dave, it’s the seed pod (about 1″) of the peace lily, a houseplant. The brown and white part is the almost dead flower. I was trimming it off when I had the sudden urge to scan it. The seed pod is interesting, isn’t it?
Canadians have written to The Guardian protesting about the way its reporter has bad-mouthed these Olympics. One of the paper’s columnists has urged Canadians to rest easy: it is, she says, a well-established tradition to bad-mouth the Olympics. Canadians should siphon off their anger and preserve it in a pressure flask until 2012 when everyone can then have a go at London. The only thing is Canadians will have to stand in a queue: the world’s greatest, most inventive, most cynical, most relentless bad-mouthers – the Brits – will declare home advantage and require first pop. In fact they’ve been using Vancouver for practice.
BB, it is all a tradition with every one of the Games, isn’t it? There’s sabre rattling already about Sochi. We even knock our own starting long before they even began but the voices are a little quieter, drowned out by the huge numbers out having a giant party. We’ll grumble again afterwards when the government continues to cut back on services and increase our taxes. What else is new?
Nevertheless, I’m incredibly impressed and touched by the performances of all the athletes of every country that participated, whether they won any medals. Pet peeve: criticisms made of an athlete who ‘only’ won a silver, bronze or 4th or 10th – sometimes the differences were merely hundredths of a second! Just getting to the Olympics is a huge achievement! So us grumblers need to acknowledge that this is what it really is all about.
It would be a different world if we called it ‘Pink Supremacy’ rather than ‘White’, wouldn’t it? I’ve often told people my ancestors painted themselves blue and danced naked around sarsen stones waving holly branches.
The heart and soul of the Olympic ideal is definitely about the young athletes who work so hard. I still think it’s over-commercialized and far too expensive for individual countries to support.
Susan, I often wonder where my ancestors came from. It seems like we all came from Africa but it would be fascinating to know the routes we’ve taken to get where we are now. Anyway, we’re all from the first gene pool. Makes you think, doesn’t it?
And we agree on your last two statements! Thanks for commenting.