Ah, Canada Day!  A day for me to feel I am Canadian.  Not that I don’t feel Canadian the rest of the year.  It’s just that tomorrow, I will take time to feel it consciously in all my bones and in all my being, like walking outside into the first spring sun.

Recent surveys show that we get more patriotic as we get older.   Maybe we just get to appreciate what we have more and to understand better what life would be like if we did not have it.   When I was younger, I was all for revolution of some kind.  Out with the old!  Let history sweep aside the remnants of capitalism and its corrupt moral values!

Except, as I studied revolution more, it became clear that the urge to clear everything out was not really connected to any plan that would result in a society that was better.  In almost every case, revolution brought chaos and destruction not only of what was bad but also of what was good.  Everything went in the fire sale.  And sooner or later some order would have to be established and that order would  require the use of force.  And the new order would be if anything, more coercive than the order it replaced.

The American revolution was one of the least horrific in this sense but there was still massive upheaval, the departure of thousands who were seen as traitors or who in themselves felt they had to be loyal to the Crown.  And the War of Independence led Americans inevitably onto a path of expansion and conquest of the West and South, whose reverberations we still feel today.

South Africa has been marked by a relatively smooth transition as revolutions go but the true test is coming.  The ANC no longer has the popular support it once had.   People have discovered that governments, regardless of the colour of the people who run them, are not able to move things quickly.  Impatience grows.   Will there now be another revolution to sweep away the corruption of the current regime?  Or will there be a democratic political process that allows new ideas and new political parties to emerge and play their role?

The horrendous difficulty of “managing change” when people are in dire suffering and have no hope can be seen in the Gaza Strip.  It is hard to imagine how the current outcome of “Hamastan” could have been avoided.  We in the West are eager to fix things, to change them overnight.  Yet we have no patience and we have no capacity to stick to something for more than a moment, especially if it calls for sacrifice. 

We seem unable to apply any consistent principles in our relations to terrorist movements.  Furthermore, even if we wished to, we would be undermined by countries like Syria and Iran who would ship money and thus “win the hearts of the people”.

We find ourselves trying to bribe thugs and murderers so that they will be kind.   It can’t work.   We will have to fight them in the end.   They are not into self-interest but  into a rigid religious ideology that is racist and extreme.  Under those circumstances people do not behave in ways that are pragmatic and do not respond to whatever we have to offer.  They have a goal from which they will not be deterred.

I thank the Lord I am in Canada where we do not yet face this type of movement.  But we must be careful.  Yesterday was the National Action Day for Aboriginals.  In general, Canadian aboriginal peoples have not pursued violent means, but can we guarantee this will not happen in the future.  How will we respond?

These are questions that hover over us like a gathering cloud.

Yet part of me feels optimistic.  We have found a way to survive and thrive in the past, to accommodate differences and craft compromises that have kept us together.  That is, “we” as Canadians, the collectivity of which I am a part.

Canada Day is also the day when I knew I was in love, the day my son discovered he was really talented in playing the drums, the day when I performed folk dances for thousands, the day when I sat with my wife on an island in the Ottawa River and with her head on my shoulder, we watched the nightime fireworks on Parliament Hill as the air cooled around us.

It is a day that is filled with positive personal memories.   And it is a day when I can feel that pride in my citizenship, that I can know that here I belong.  Canada took me in when I was not wanted elsewhere.  I have always been grateful for that and do not want my sense of belonging diminished or destroyed.

As I get older, I better understand what it is I have to lose.   Like others, I am more patriotic.  Oh Canada!  I stand on guard for thee.