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Jottings from a Cruise Ship

Notes on privilege, luck and how nations pull apart.

Rafe Mair 27 Mar 2006TheTyee.ca

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This is, I warn you, a rambler done on board the MV Constellation, said to be the finest cruise ship in the world. As I take in the evening from our neat, little veranda, I ask myself, what the hell am I doing here? Literally billions in the world unable to feed themselves and I'm sitting beside the love of my life bitching because it's a formal night and I have to wear a tux.

At dinner, I get into a discussion about affirmative action and am forced to admit that no one got more out of affirmative action than I. Born into a well off family, partially educated in a private school, permitted to get away with failing second year arts due to a preference for golf, bridge and women - not necessarily in that order - then out into a workplace in which my father knew everyone who was worth knowing.

That I abandoned my "class" and the "establishment" (other than membership in the Vancouver Club) and that I earned my living fighting it, doesn't derogate from the fact that my very future was due to the affirmative action and helpful network my birth gave me.

While I'm not about to take a vow of poverty complete with sackcloth and ashes, I must ask who the hell am I, or any other fortunate people, to criticize universities and other entities who make placements or jobs available to those industrious people focused on bettering themselves but who were not born as lucky as I was?

All roads end at Starbucks

As I worked out on my daily dose of the hated treadmill, I marveled at how healthy I am, considering the fact that my Amex card, in all probability, has a better expiry date than I do. This made me remember that I was doubly lucky because I always was, and still am, able to work, flat out, doing what I like the best - broadcasting and writing.

In fact, for almost my entire lifetime, I have always looked forward to Monday. Not many can say that. A couple of months ago, I was told that I should retire, or at least take it a bit easier, and join a group which regularly meets for coffee at a local Starbucks, to solve the problems of the world. I found myself almost screaming no, no! That's for old men! Next thing, I'll be playing checkers in the mall!

I can't pass that Starbucks now without quickening my pace lest an arm reach out and yank me aboard!

Ireland and Quebec

I finished an interesting book today called Four Nations by Frank Welsh. It's the political history of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Not a bad book, but too short to do the job properly. Somehow, I was struck by the fact that if Pitt the Younger did not have an older brother, Pitt the elder, alive when his father, the great Earl of Chatham, died he would have been in the House of Lords and thus very unlikely to have been prime minister during the critical early years of Napoleon. Likewise, if the Duke of Marlborough had not married Consuela Vanderbilt, who was forced into the match, and who presented him with a son, Winston Churchill would have become the duke and for all practical purposes denied the leadership which saved the world from Hitler and the Nazis. How often it is that upon such trivialities our salvation rests.

As I read about how Southern Ireland slowly gained its independence from the UK, I thought of Quebec. It's true that, the FLQ excepted, there has been little violence in Quebec, whereas it was endemic to Irish politics. But the part that interested me most was the negotiation process after World War I where England's commitment was to grant more and more home rule to Ireland which would still be ruled by the British king. Here's where it gets eerie. As matters progress, England begrudgingly yields power to Dublin which, after a short period, demands more. This continues to where Ireland is essentially independent, except it stays in the empire and owes it's allegiance to George V.

Sort of like "sovereignty-association".

These negotiations, led for the Irish by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, and settled on the basis that Ireland would remain in the empire and nominally under the king, were rejected by Sinn Fein and Eamon De Valera who wanted a complete break or nothing. Collins and Griffith knew that with independence, even with the king as nominally head of state, the road to complete independence was now past the point of no return. They knew that soon the issue of the king wouldn't matter any more and Ireland would become a republic, just as fruit, sooner or later, falls from the tree.

And so it proved.

I argue that Premier Jean Charest is the patient Michael Collins of Quebec and the Bloc and Parti Quebecois represent the De Valera impatience. Think on this, for it's a little unsettling to look at what's happening in Quebec:

A national assembly rather than a legislature.

Their own flag which, when flown by the Quebec government, takes precedence over the Canadian flag, and which is flown exclusively over Quebec offices overseas.

Status as a "nation" in international organizations.

A continuous appeal for not only more money, but more powers leading to what Joe Clark so accurately calls "asymmetrical federalism", the new phrase for the sovereignty association Rene Levesque wanted.

Doesn't the present policy guarantee that sooner or later we'll see that about all Quebec and Canada have in common is the sovereign? And that after a little while, that will, like the ripe fruit, drop to the ground?

Caribbean melancholy

On another note, it's so sad to visit so many beautiful islands in the Caribbean where the tourist industry has moved with all the usual tacky trimmings. These islands, once occupied by Indians, became home of white planters, with black slaves from Africa, to produce the bananas and sugar. When these islands were set free, the sugar and banana industries came into the hands of large international companies who moved them into a couple of larger islands where the companies not only control the business but also the politics.

Those left behind on the smaller islands have seen their traditional way of life terminated by the rapacious clutches of big business whose policies led to the destruction of their uniqueness. The result, out of self defense, is that citizens have turned to tourism so that what were once lovely and largely unspoiled islands now seem and look like any other tropical resorts in the world.

There is a deep-seated tristesse clearly visible in the citizens of many Caribbean islands who have sold their birthright, out of desperation, to the huge developers so that Wendy and Rafe - and others - will come to them to buy some trinkets.

It is a melancholy scene to behold.

Harper's fishy choice

Finally, a sad note for environmentalists, particularly those concerned about farming Atlantic salmon on our coast. Defeated former MP John Duncan, who was tossed out because he is slavishly pro fish farming, has been appointed special adviser to the Tory government on west coast fisheries issues.

John Duncan, for God's sake!

The green ooze of the fish farmers continues to insinuate itself into cozy deals with governments while science condemns both their product and their degradation of the environment. Prime Minister Harper has, by this appointment alone, justified our family's support of the Green Party.

Rafe Mair writes a Monday column for The Tyee. His website is www.rafeonline.com.  [Tyee]

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