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Contributor: banquosghost
Date: 2003-02-09 00:06:40
Could it also be that we suffer from something akin to the "Stockholm Syndrome" and can no longer distinguish the difference between captors and liberators?
Our history with this emerging imperial entity tends to distort our ability to see our relationship clearly. On the one hand we are partners and on the other hand we are competitors and on yet another hand we are threatened and on still another hand we are superior. Not all are true at all times or in all things and yet all are sometimes true in some contexts.
Some have noted that there are Americans who feel hurt and betrayed when experiencing the kind of knee-jerk anti-Americanism that can sometimes be manifested by some Canadians. I know some Americans who are disturbed by what they perceive as knee-jerk jingoistic Pro-Americanism in some Canadians.
We have this curious problem. It's rather unique in the world's history. We are the next door neighbour of the mightiest nation the world has ever known and for all intents and purposes we are indistinguishable from them and yet we are not them.
We can make it clear to the rest of the world that what is more important to *us* is our similarity to the USA or we can make it clear that what is more important is our difference. Or for that matter all the similarities and all the differences all at the same time. But we should unquestionably be making sure that whatever the articulation is it is *ours*. If we merely parrot the USA *or* merely contradict the USA we are finished as a
player at the table. Whatever we do has to be perceived as neither a subservient parroting nor a simpleminded contradiction
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