O Canada need not be sexists and should not be sexists.
Janet Keeping weighs in with a piece published in the Calgary Beacon
http://www.calgarybeacon.com/2010/03/time-for-canadas-national-anthem-to-reflect-gender-equality/
How about "True Patriot Love that all our hearts command"
Disagree completely - if you really want to be politically correct, you would want "our home and NATIVE land" to "our home we stole from the aboriginal population with the help of small pox infected blankets, starvation." All our sons command is trivial.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. You seem to be big on citizen engagement and participatory democracy...and the public resistance to changing the anthem has been (at least in my observation) fairly strongly uniform.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, the validity of public opinion is your guiding mantra...until they don't know what's good for them.
Hypocrite.
There is a need to update O Canada, take out the sexism, acknowledge we are ON Native lands and acknowledge that we must take on personal responsibility for "keeping our land glorious and free" as stewards of the environment for future generations and not relying on God to do it for us...as in the current wording.
ReplyDeleteAs for Anon at 8:28: Citizen engagement and participatory democracy is all about hearing other voices and perspectives, not merely a means for validating majority public opinion.
Also it is a presumptive leap to assume public resistance to change the anthem at this time. Change is always met with initial resistance but it still happens. We have not had the conversation yet about how reflective our anthem is of our more progressive and contemporary values - and if it ought to be. After that happens we can make wise judgements about where "public opinion" is and if the current wording reflects our current national narrative.
All of you are so gullible.
ReplyDeleteThis is nothing but a distraction topic issued by the gov't to monopolize fixed media space that would otherwise be directed at substantive issues in the gov't.
Can't you see this?
Of course it is an obfuscation by Harper but one worth attending to because it is an easy thing to fix. Is it earth shattering NO! But it is symbolic about has we see ourselves and also how we behave in alignment with our principles - Charter principles especially.
ReplyDeleteThe Globe & Mail reports that Canada now ranks 25th on the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Index. That is all a bit too distressing considering that in 2007 we were 18th and in 2006 we ranked 14th. Several groups have been quite vocal in accusing the Harper government pushing back gender equality but in this Throne Speech he showed us how he thought he could make it right.
ReplyDeleteThe truly troubling thing is that many Canadians bought into what Harper characterizes as progress.
Perhaps: "True patriot love, in all of us command"
ReplyDeletenative has many meanings beside aboriginal or First Nations. e.g. from OED
"Left or remaining in a natural or original state or condition; free from or untouched by art; unadorned, simple, plain." hence "our home" could refer to human areas, "native land" refers to untouched areas.
or
"Of a country, region, etc.: that is the place of a person's birth and early life" hence anyone who was born here or grew up here can consider it their native land