Who We Are: A Citizen's Manifesto

Last updated
Who We Are
First edition cover
Author Rudyard Griffiths
Original titleWho We Are: A Citizen's Manifesto
Country Canada
Language English
Genre Non-fiction
Publisher Douglas & McIntyre
Publication date
 2009-03-10
Media type Print (Hardcover)
Pages 214
ISBN 1-55365-124-3
OCLC 277067450

Who We Are: A Citizen's Manifesto is a 2009 book by Rudyard Griffiths. In it, Griffiths argues that Canada has become a “postmodern state”—a nation that downplays its history and makes few demands on its citizens, allowing them to find their allegiances where they may, in their region, their ethnic group or the language they speak. According to Griffiths the notion of a national identity, with shared responsibilities and a common purpose, is considered out of date, even a disadvantage in a world of transnational economies, resurgent regions and global immigration. Griffiths argues that this vision of Canada is an intellectual and practical dead end. Without a strong national identity and robust civic values, the country will be hard pressed to meet the daunting challenges that lie ahead: the social costs of an aging population, the unavoidable effects of global warming and the fallout of a dysfunctional immigration system. Griffiths calls for a rediscovery of the founding principles that made Canada the nation it is today and why a loyalty beyond the local and personal is essential to Canada's survival.

Rudyard Griffiths is a Canadian author, television broadcaster, and philanthropic adviser. He has been a columnist at the National Post and the Toronto Star and a television anchor on CTV News Channel and the Business News Network. He is a senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs where he chairs the Ontario 360 research initiative.

National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one state or to one nation. It is the sense of a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, language and politics. National identity may refer to the subjective feeling one shares with a group of people about a nation, regardless of one's legal citizenship status. National identity is viewed in psychological terms as "an awareness of difference", a "feeling and recognition of 'we' and 'they'".

Effects of global warming

The effects of global warming are the environmental and social changes caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases. There is a scientific consensus that climate change is occurring, and that human activities are the primary driver. Many impacts of climate change have already been observed, including glacier retreat, changes in the timing of seasonal events, and changes in agricultural productivity. Anthropogenic forcing has likely contributed to some of the observed changes, including sea level rise, changes in climate extremes, declines in Arctic sea ice extent and glacier retreat.

Contents

Analysis

The central myth challenged by Who We Are is that Canada's essence is its diversity and lack of a single "national" story. According to this trope, the indeterminacy of the Canadian identity — the lack of a single answer to the question "who are we?" — is Canada's comparative advantage in a world of globalization and diffused power. In Canada, the world's pre-eminent "postnational" state, national identity plays second fiddle to ethnic and regional loyalties, and citizenship is a ticket to entitlements, demanding very little in the way of shared responsibilities. Griffiths insists that this conventional wisdom is not only off the mark, but dangerous. Canada, along with other advanced democracies, is confronting a host of challenges (most notably the effects of climate change, mass migration and an aging population) which requires the summoning of a collective will and purpose.

Yet, at this very moment, Canadians are disengaging from national institutions and formal politics, volunteering in ever-lower numbers and opting for highly personalized forms of community and belonging. Unless we take steps to rebuild civic values and a sense of obligation to Canada's founding principles, Griffiths argues, our reservoir of social solidarity will run dry — along with our capacity to tackle the gathering "storm."

As co-founder of the Dominion Institute, an organization that promotes Canadian history and civic literacy, Griffiths has worked to address the low levels of knowledge Canadians have about their country's past and its political and social institutions. Who We Are continues this mission, encouraging Canadians to think about their history differently. For Griffiths, the first part of 19th century is particularly significant in understanding "who we are."

During the turbulent decade after the failed rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada, French and English reformers collaborated in the creation of civic institutions and values that made democratic self-government a reality. In the process, the author observes, they "forged an enduring consensus as to whom Canadians should be loyal to and why." The focus was no longer the governor-general and the imperial connection, or a particular religious or ethnic group (French/English, Protestant/Catholic), but rather an experiment in bicultural and democratic politics called Canada. This period also witnessed a "flurry of nation building," everything from non-denominational schools and local government to railways and the telegraph. Griffiths clearly admires these grand, national projects, and sees echoes of them in the other great historical moment that defined Canada: the postwar government of Louis St. Laurent.

More recent Canadian history, with its embrace of multiculturalism and decentralized federalism, has forgotten the crucial lessons of these earlier periods about citizenship, loyalty and nation-building. Instead, the belief took hold that newcomers to Canada would settle more effectively, and that regional grievances could be addressed more easily, if the country was seen to be made up of many equal identities, without an overarching creed.

Griffiths's reading of history, by contrast, leads him to conclude that Canada is a political community, based on shared democratic values and institutions rather than on ethnicity, region or language. We are, in short, "a nation of citizens, not a collection of communities." And it is a revitalized citizenship that he contends will save Canada from the empty promises of postnationalism.

Criticism

Some of Who We Are's proposals for kick-starting Canada's civic values are straightforward and draw on the experience of other societies: a new citizenship exam and mandatory language training for newcomers; increased government spending to integrate immigrants; and a national civics exam for graduating high-school students. Others, however, such as mandatory civic service and voting, are more controversial and reflect a particular philosophy about the boundaries of community in a globalized age. Indeed, while Griffiths accuses others of adopting a "20th-century mindset," Who We Are sometimes suffers from the same affliction.

The best example is his critique of the benefits enjoyed by non-resident Canadian citizens, and his recommendation that Canada annul the citizenship of those Canadians who voluntarily acquire the citizenship of another country. Griffiths writes that citizenship should be "earned through physical settlement" and an active contribution to the "economic and social betterment of the community." Dual citizenship is the enemy that corrodes social solidarity.

More evidence is needed for this latter assertion. Not all dual citizens are "hedging their bets" about Canada's future, and many of them are capable of managing their different allegiances. It's also worth remembering that the solutions to the challenges Griffiths identifies are international as well as national — a reality that makes global knowledge and know-how highly valuable commodities.

While Who We Are doesn't present all the answers, it does its readers service by opening up an important debate.

Reviews

In The Globe and Mail , Jennifer Welsh's book review said:

<i>The Globe and Mail</i> Canadian newspaper

The Globe and Mail is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of 2,018,923 in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it falls slightly behind the Toronto Star in overall weekly circulation because the Star publishes a Sunday edition while the Globe does not. The Globe and Mail is regarded by some as Canada's "newspaper of record".

In Policy Options, James Allan Evans' book review said:

In The Walrus, Daniel Baird's book review said:

In the National Post, George Jonas' book review said:

<i>National Post</i> national newspaper based in Toronto, Canada

The National Post is a Canadian English-language newspaper. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network, and is published Tuesdays through Saturdays. It was founded in 1998 by Conrad Black. Once distributed nationally, it later began publishing a daily edition in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia, with only its weekend edition available in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. As of 2006, the Post is no longer distributed in Canada's Atlantic provinces and the territories.

Related Research Articles

Citizenship is the status of a person recognized under the custom or law as being a legal member of a sovereign state or belonging to a nation.

Nationality is a legal relationship between an individual person and a state. Nationality affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the state. What these rights and duties are varies from state to state.

Patriotism devotion to ones country

Patriotism or national pride is the feeling of love, devotion and sense of attachment to a homeland and alliance with other citizens who share the same sentiment. This attachment can be a combination of many different feelings relating to one's own homeland, including ethnic, cultural, political or historical aspects. It encompasses a set of concepts closely related to, but mutually exclusive from those of nationalism.

Ethnic group Socially defined category of people who identify with each other

An ethnic group or an ethnicity, is a category of people who identify with each other based on similarities such as common ancestry, language, history, society, culture or nation. Ethnicity is usually an inherited status based on the society in which one lives. Membership of an ethnic group tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language or dialect, symbolic systems such as religion, mythology and ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art or physical appearance.

Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human beings belong to a single community, based on a shared morality. A person who adheres to the idea of cosmopolitanism in any of its forms is called a Cosmopolitan or Cosmopolite.

Global citizenship is the idea that all people have rights and civic responsibilities that come with being a member of the world, with whole-world philosophy and sensibilities, rather than as a citizen of a particular nation or place. The idea is that one’s identity transcends geography or political borders and that responsibilities or rights are derived from membership in a broader class: "humanity". This does not mean that such a person denounces or waives their nationality or other, more local identities, but such identities are given "second place" to their membership in a global community. Extended, the idea leads to questions about the state of global society in the age of globalization. In general usage, the term may have much the same meaning as "world citizen" or cosmopolitan, but it also has additional, specialized meanings in differing contexts. Various organizations, such as the World Service Authority, have advocated global citizenship

Transnational progressivism is a Neologism coined by Hudson Institute Fellow John Fonte in 2001 to identify a supposed ideology that endorses a concept of postnational global citizenship and promotes the authority of international institutions over the sovereignty of individual nation-states.. Like the similar notion of Cultural Marxism, it is part of a conservative critique that groups together people and organizations who do not use the term themselves and do not generally consider themselves to share a single ideology or necessarily to belong to the same movement.

Civic nationalism, also known as liberal nationalism, is a form of nationalism identified by political philosophers who believe in an inclusive form of nationalism that adheres with traditional liberal values of freedom, tolerance, equality, and individual rights.

Transnational citizenship redefines traditional notions of citizenship and replaces an individual's singular national loyalties with the ability to belong to multiple nation states, as made visible in the political, cultural, social and economic realms. Unlike national citizenship, where individuals interact in such capacities with one sovereign state, transnational citizenship transcends pre-established territorial boundaries in order to create a modern meaning of "belonging" in an increasingly globalized society. Additionally, while preconceived notions of citizenship are often divided between national, social and individual forms of identity, all three categories serve to contribute to the meaning of transnational citizenship. State citizenship can be defined as an individual establishing their sense of belonging by espousing to the liberal-democratic values of the state in the public sphere. When applied to transnational citizenship, an individual would have the opportunity to be civically engaged in multiple societies. A Dominican politician who lives in Santo Domingo yet canvasses in a highly dense Dominican American population in Boston, Massachusetts for external votes is an example of a transnational citizens functioning politically between two states.

Constitutional patriotism

Constitutional patriotism is the idea that people should form a political attachment to the norms and values of a pluralistic liberal democratic constitution rather than a national culture or cosmopolitan society. It is associated with post-nationalist identity, because it is seen as a similar concept to nationalism, but as an attachment based on values of the constitution rather than a national culture. In essence, it is an attempt to re-conceptualise group identity with a focus on the interpretation of citizenship as a loyalty that goes beyond individuals' ethnocultural identification. Theorists believe this to be more defensible than other forms of shared commitment in a diverse modern state with multiple languages and group identities. It is particularly relevant in post-national democratic states in which multiple cultural and ethnic groups coexist. It was influential in the development of the European Union and a key to Europeanism as a basis for multiple countries belonging to a supranational union.

Postnationalism or non-nationalism is the process or trend by which nation states and national identities lose their importance relative to cross nation and self organized or supranational and global entities. Although postnationalism is not strictly considered the antonym of nationalism, the two terms and their associated assumptions are antithetic as postnationalism is an internationalistic process.

Many scholars argue that there is more than one type of nationalism. Nationalism may manifest itself as part of official state ideology or as a popular non-state movement and may be expressed along civic, ethnic, cultural, religious or ideological lines. These self-definitions of the nation are used to classify types of nationalism. However, such categories are not mutually exclusive and many nationalist movements combine some or all of these elements to varying degrees. Nationalist movements can also be classified by other criteria, such as scale and location.

A policy of multiculturalism was officially adopted by the Government of Canada under Pierre Trudeau during the 1970s and 1980s. The Canadian federal government has been described as the instigator of multiculturalism as an ideology because of its public emphasis on the social importance of immigration. The 1960s Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism is often referred to as the origin of modern political awareness of multiculturalism.

There has historically been, and continues to be, several rival nationalisms in Canada. Canadians have differing cultural and political identifications which often overlap. Loyalty towards Canada is tempered by strong regional and ethnic identities, and an affinity toward a common North American culture shared with the United States.

Denationalized Citizenship is one of many new citizenship processes which redefine traditional notions of citizenship as intrinsically linked with the nation-state and occurs within a subnational scale. A denationalized citizen does not consider the nation-state as being necessary for political participation and identity.

In most discussions, the global citizens movement is a socio-political process rather than a political organization or party structure. The term is often used synonymously with the anti-globalization movement or the global justice movement.

Global citizenship education (GCE) is a form of civic learning that involves students' active participation in projects that address global issues of a social, political, economic, or environmental nature. The two main elements of GCE are 'global consciousness'; the moral or ethical aspect of global issues, and 'global competencies', or skills meant to enable learners to participate in changing and developing the world. The promotion of GCE was a response by governments and NGOs to the emergence of supranational institution, regional economic blocs, and the development of information and communications technologies. These have allresulted in the emergence of a more globally oriented and collaborative approach to education. GCE addresses themes such as peace and human rights, intercultural understanding, citizenship education, respect for diversity and tolerance, and inclusiveness.Schools in action, global citizens for sustainable development: a guide for students

Canadian values are the commonly shared ethical and human values of Canadians. The major political parties have claimed explicitly that they uphold these values, but use generalities to specify them. Justin Trudeau after taking office as Prime Minister in 2015 tried to define what it means to be Canadian, saying that Canada lacks a core identity but does have shared values:

References

  1. ↑ Jennifer Walsh (March 2009). "First 'postnational' state? Baloney!". The Globe and Mail . Retrieved 2009-06-27.
  2. ↑ James Allan Evans (2009-07-01). "Book Review: Snapshot of Canadian national development" (PDF). Policy Options. Retrieved 2009-08-04.
  3. ↑ Daniel Barid (2009-06-01). "Book Review: Who We Are". The Walrus . Retrieved 2009-08-04.
  4. ↑ George Jonas (2009-04-01). "Seven books you might read twice". National Post . Retrieved 2009-09-09.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.