Canada in Turmoil
Santoni, Ronald E.
Canada in Turmoil O Canada: An American's Notes on Canadian Culture, by Edmund Wilson. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 245 pp. $4.95. Canada: The Uneasy Neighbor, by Gerald Clark. David McKay. 431 pp....
...Moreover, although Wilson is careful not to identify "Separatists" and "terrorists," Clark's additional distinction between the "Separatists" and the advocates of "Associate Statehood" is a needed addition to the "Quebec" discussion...
...But Clark's characterization of Canadian culture adds little to Wilson's relevant study, on which it depends heavily...
...The words of Lord Durham, uttered more than a hundred years ago, continue to sound painfully relevant: "I found two nations warring in the bosom of a single state...
...Is present Canadian unrest to be explained entirely in terms of Quebec's growing sense of independence and aggressive self-assertion...
...IRVING MALIN teaches at the City University of New York...
...Canadian culture," but also a noteworthy attempt to offer a political analysis...
...Moreover, the two writers concur in their oft-repeated belief that Canada's present turmoil and arduous self-analysis are rooted in a grueling and pervasive struggle for identity...
...EDWIN NEWMAN is a news commentator for the National Broadcasting Company...
...And a conclusion of the 1965 report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Bicultural-ism is terse and alarming: "We have found overwhelming evidence of a serious danger to the continued existence of Canada...
...Wilson and Clark are joined in their conviction ' that Canada's present dilemma involves not only a struggle between French-speaking and English-speaking Canada but also an economic, cultural, and moral struggle between Canada as a whole and the United States...
...The latter includes a devastating debunking of John Diefenbaker's "New Vision of the North...
...is the question which permeates the various manifestations of Canada's present anxiety...
...What is happening in Quebec...
...Not only does he witness a conspicuous boom in construction and business, a scarcely believable liberalization in religious attitude, a developing respect for the intelligentsia, but he also senses considerable uneasiness, tension, frustration, national conflict—indeed, a feeling that a respected and prominent country is coming face-to-face with its "moment of truth...
...Quebec is on the move but at the same time its loudest voices have become belligerent and hostile...
...What are the issues at stake in Quebec's revolution...
...Her books include "The Politics of Inequality: South Africa Since 1948" and "Independence for Africa...
...GWENDOLEN M. CARTER is director of the Program of African Studies at Northwestern University...
...Although I believe that a fundamental tension exists between Clark's view that fear of the United States is the unifying and over-riding Canadian concern, and his depiction of a clearly positive attitude of certain provinces (e.g., Atlantic Provinces) towards the United States, I recommend Clark's book as a thorough, useful, and perspicacious guide to contemporary happenings in an awkwardly maturing but potentially great neighboring nation...
...Wilson and Clark record the same answer—"to be masters in our own house," and to be freed from the dictatorship of the English minority...
...Reviewed by Ronald E. Santoni A nyone who, like myself, was brought up in northern Quebec and has recently had opportunities to return there for family visits and study is doubtless amazed by the changes he encounters...
...To the question, "What does French Quebec want...
...the former allows us to view various strains of Canadian "separatism" and to explore some of the implications of the Quebec Separatist movement for the rest of Canada...
...His article, "The Peace Corps Aliens," appeared in the May, 1965 issue...
...Cook is a former United Nations correspondent for The New York Herald Tribune...
...It not only offers detailed first-hand coverage of Canadian developments east to west, but also presents an exciting chapter on Canada's isolated northland...
...6.50...
...RONALD E. SANTONI is an associate professor of philosophy at Denison University...
...One of the distinctive contributions of Clark's book is the challenge it formulates for both English Canada and the United States...
...Both Edmund Wilson's O Canada and Gerald Clark's Canada: The Uneasy Neighbor attempt to come to grips with these and many other penetrating questions concerning recent Canadian developments...
...It reminds English Canada that the issue of "tranquility or strife" will ultimately depend on her responses...
...And Clark's suggestion that the key to Canada's problem may reside in the fact that Canada is developing nationhood when nationalism itself is losing fashion appears to me, in the light of today's Africa, questionable...
...Wilson and Clark also agree that anti-United States sentiment is related in part to "American" ignorance and "misguided nonchalance" about Canada, and that an important aspect of Quebec's malaise originates in her view that the United States is party to and benefactor of a "colonialized" French Canada...
...O Canada, presented in Wilson's typically delightful and engaging style, certainly gives us occasion to reconsider our neglect of recent Canadian literature and writers...
...It should already be clear that Edmund Wilson's book represents not only a literary expert's reflections on THE REVIEWERS PHILIP S. COOK is a free lance writer and part-time consultant to the Peace Corps...
...Clark's book, however, is certainly a work on all of Canada...
...ALFRED WERNER, art critic and historian, is a contributing editor of Arts magazine...
...And in an even more inclusive way, Wilson views Canadian unrest as an expression of an instinct to defend one's identity against the dehumanizing and despotic encroachments of a faceless, centralized officialdom...
...Although I believe that O Canada is well worth reading and reflects remarkable sensitivities on the part of its non-Canadian author, it strikes me as having two basic shortcomings: it seems, by scope and analysis, to restrict Canada to Ontario and Quebec, and it gives the feeling at times (to paraphrase Wilson's own comment on novelist Hugh MacLennan) of illustrating situations which have not really been lived by the author...
...What does it mean to be a Canadian...
...He wrote "Jews and America," "New American Gothic," and "William Faulkner: An Interpretation...
...It begs Americans "to accept the principle that Canadians are not Americans" and Washington to recognize and respect the stature of responsible Canadian leadership...
...In addition, the book contributes a distinctive insight to our attempt to understand the extraordinary happenings in Canada...
...Behind French Canada's resistance to the English, and Canada's general resistance to absorption by the United States, Wilson sees the kind of struggle against centralized power which is the lifeblood of rebellion all over the world...
Vol. 30 • March 1966 • No. 3
