July Celebrations in North America

This week there will be a lot of nationalistic and patriotic celebrations all over  North America as both the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada take time out to pay tribute to the beginning of their nationhood and how is it that they came to be who they are. Celebrations will begin in Canada which will be celebrating 146 years of confederation on July 1 known as Canada Day (or Dominion day), while three days later the United States will be celebrating 237 years of independence in memory of the declaration made on July 4 1776.

Regardless of the fact that they are both celebrations of nationhood, the origin of the two major giants of North America couldn't possibly be more different, one was born as part of an evolutionary process, the other as a result of a violent revolution,  one came about as a result of loyalty to the Crown, the other was born out of treason and rebellion,  one came into being due to the genuine  desire for self government while the other born out of the desire of the political elite to seize power for themselves. One was about respect for tradition and the other was out of a desire to do away with tradition and establish something that had never been seen before.

Being a devout royalist, I hold no great adoration for George Washington and his ilk, what they did was treason, plain and simple and had they lost the war history would not have portrayed them as heroes but rather it would  have exposed them for the villains that they truly were, power hungry politicians and land owners lusting for supremacy, but instead America history continues to unjustly portray George III as a cruel tyrant and every schoolchild in the US  grows up in this false notion of what really happened, George III was by no means a despot, he was a constitutional monarch acting on the advice of his ministers, doing what he genuinely thought was best for the colonies. I find it disgustingly hypocritical that a man actively supported the enslavement of another race and  owned  huge slave plantations is being portrayed as a champion of freedom and liberty while someone was known to detest slavery so much that he banned all slave made products from the royal palace is being portrayed as a an enemy of freedom. But then again the so called "freedom" fought for by the American revolutionaries was never true freedom in the first place since freedom was limited to wealthy white property owners while having no real impact on anybody else, no wonder  most of the black slaves and the Native Americans choose to fight on the king’s side rather than  for the republic.

                  

The Canadian story is quite different , as it was born not out of rebellion but rather out of loyalty to the Crown, the people of British North America  had no intention of being joined to the United States yet there seem to be every chance that an invasion might take place especially with the US emerging out of their inter-state war stronger than ever and having determined to get rid of all monarchical forms of government on the continent, they had already forced the Emperor of Mexico to abdicate and there was no telling what they might try to do to Canada, after all they tried to invade twice before (Revolutionary War and War of 1812) but failed, what if next time they succeeded? So Sir John MacDonald and the other fathers of Confederation did the wisest thing they could and united  all the colonies into a single realm, the Dominion of Canada, founded up the values of solidarity, patriotism and loyalty to the Crown.

             

The Birth of a nation is always a special occasion and as far as national celebrations go Independence Day and Dominion Day are certainly among the biggest, of course due to the Americanization of our culture and the popularity of Hollywood more people outside of the US would know about July 4 than non-Canadians would know of July 1, of course it does not help that the name Dominion Day was later changed to Canada Day as a means to de-emphasizing the royal connection to the efforts of confederation, nationalistic nostalgia will no doubt  hit fever pitch in the  North, quite frankly I see only one occasion worth celebrating,  revolutionaries overthrowing their rightful monarch and setting up a republic in its place is not something to be lauded but rather to  be denounced, thankfully here in Jamaica our own independence story is a very much similar to what happened in Canada much more civil and dignified than as a result of a violent and seditious revolution.