A sense of belonging

Adrienne Clarkson and her consort John Ralston Saul, are among the most effective patrons of the arts in Canada. While she was the governor general, this power couple enriched the library at Rideau Hall with Canadian books, graced the walls with Canadian paintings, stocked the cellar with excellent Canadian wines. Moreover Adrienne Clarkson has other concerns besides the arts.  She is an immigrant; with her family, she immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong as a small child. The social, cultural and emotional impact of immigration to Canada is a major interest on which she has written with greater eloquence than anything she has ever said about Canadian literature. In her 2014 Massey Lectures, Belonging; the Paradox of Citizenship, she examines the ingredients of citizenship, including the impact of migration on the Canadian nation, and the impact of living in Canada on immigrants. She summarizes the substance of her lectures in a brief paragraph:

In what follows, I will explore how a sense of belonging is a necessary mediation between an individual and society. And in belonging to ourselves and to our society, we have the greatest possibility to live full lives, connected to all other human beings.

 I have rarely seen an important book’s message summarized with greater brevity and clarity. After she stepped down as Governor General, she and John Ralston Saul established the Institute for Canadian Citizenship. In many ways, her Massey Lectures set out the rationale for this Institute. In an earlier book, Room for All of Us, she described anecdotally and with empathy the immigrant experience of some famous and some less well known Canadians. In her memoir, Heart Matters, she described the impact of migration on herself and her immediate family. She has reinforced the message of Belonging by drawing upon ideas and concepts in those earlier books. This book is about much more than the social and cultural aspect of immigration. It is about citizenship and society. Here, however, I will focus mainly on immigration.

People who migrate from one country and culture to another may experience identity problems. They are perhaps more at risk for these problems if they are insightful and introspective. I observed this when I was a family physician in Adelaide, Australia in the 1950s; about a quarter of my patients were "New Australians" and some of them had problems associated with their split identity and loyalty, partly to their homeland, partly to their new country. I described some of the problems I'd seen in an article in the Medical Journal of Australia in 1960.  Then I became a migrant myself, together with my family: we moved to Sydney for a year, on to London, England for a year, back to Sydney, Australia for 2 years; to Burlington, Vermont, USA, for a year, then to Edinburgh, Scotland, for 5 years; and finally 45 years ago, to Ottawa, Canada. Wendy and I and our children all had identity problems, though only minor ones and no associated health problems more serious than allergies. Our children’s accents changed from Australian to London Cockney, back to Australian, then to Vermont Yankee, then to the lovely Edinburgh lilt that Wendy and I would have liked them to keep forever. But to our sorrow this delightful accent was soon replaced by Ottawa Valley Canadian. These were outward and audible signs of their absorption into the prevailing local culture. There were accompanying outward and visible signs, as they adopted local fashions in children’s clothes – from grey flannel shorts, long socks and bland shirts to jeans and colorful shirts, back to shorts, then back to jeans again. In addition to these outwardly observable changes, Wendy and I were aware of more subtle changes in behaviour, determined by equally subtle changes in values as all of us immersed in one culture after another.  In Vermont, Rebecca and David became a little more 'pushy' (or more assertive) and in Edinburgh, more polite and considerate of others; Jonathan acquired similar behaviours as he grew old enough to have observable behaviour traits. Perhaps all these behaviours were just age-related responses to Wendy's parenting skills, not part of local norms; I'm not sufficiently expert in behavioural science to tell, but I think it was at least partly, probably mostly, related to the local norms. Values and behaviour, like accent and clothing, are markers of identity. They may have to be modified as identity is molded, as the sense of belonging is consolidated and becomes more confident. 

Wendy and I at first regarded living in Ottawa as a temporary interlude, a staging post on our way home to Australia - or to New Zealand, we didn't care which, so long as it was the homeland of one of us. That was where we belonged, with bright sunshine and blue skies by day, the Southern Cross and the dazzling Milky Way - much brighter than north of the equator - by night. Only after our children became firmly rooted in Canada, acquired a sense of belonging here, and after we, their parents, had taken on multiple Canadian roles and responsibilities and for me, American ones too, did we begin to feel that we too belonged in Canada. That process took us about 15-20 years, longer for me than for Wendy.  A German couple, among our closest friends in Australia, described to us an exactly similar slow transfer of their sense of belonging, from Germany to Australia, long after their children had become 'dinkum Aussies' who felt no ties at all to Germany. My German-Australian friend Harald Ziemer marked the transition of his sense of belonging to the summer in which he first began to follow the fortunes of the Australian test cricket team, and to appreciate the artistry and strategy of cricket played at the highest level.  I have had no similar growing interest in hockey, to which I remain indifferent. (Perhaps, therefore, I don't yet fully belong in Canada). 

Adrienne Clarkson had minor identity problems, made more obvious in one way by being a member of a 'visible minority' and less obvious in another because her migration from Hong Kong to Canada occurred when she was a small child. The process of taking on Canadian identity, of acquiring that sense of belonging, was made easier too by being devout Anglican Christians. The Poy family (Adrienne Clarkson’s family) arrived in Canada having belonged already for several generations to this intrinsically English (and by extension, Canadian) institution. She mentions these identity problems and the way the Anglican Church helped overcome them, in her memoir Heart Matters.  She returns to these problems again in Room for All of Us, and in Belonging.

Describing with warm affection the village in Provence where she has lived from time to time, she mentions a darker side of Christian faith, the vicious sectarian conflicts which ripped apart mediaeval and Renaissance Christendom with repeated wars, torture and persecution, when belonging was more narrowly defined and confined within the boundaries of one sect or another. Sectarian divisions, albeit mostly more muted but still sometimes bloody, remain part of Christianity, and are more pronounced, often much more deadly, in Islam.

She describes with greater affection her school years in Ottawa, the years that gave her a profound sense of belonging:

When I was growing up in Ottawa, I attended public schools that were named after the streets on which they were located – York Street School, Elgin Street School, Kent Street School… I would walk twice a day, ten blocks or so each way, through winter and summer, picking up my friends at their houses along the way. The neighbourhoods varied: some friends lived in houses, some in duplexes, and some came from a part of town called LeBreton Flats… [T]he geography of my public education was my first acquaintanceship with true democracy, with what it meant to lead a democratic life and belong to a democracy. The way I grew up assumed equality among us children. We would all be imparted the same knowledge, along with the same benefits that come with that knowledge. The fact that we might or might not have meat every night for dinner, or only on Sundays was not material. We all attended the same school, we all sang “The Maple Leaf Forever,” we were all examined for head lice, and we were all Canadians.   

Belonging is a meditation on the complex interaction between individuals and the society of which they are parts. Adrienne Clarkson does not share the Weltanschauung of Margaret Thatcher who infamously remarked that there is no such thing as society. It is integral to the political philosophy of Thatcher and her soulmate Ronald Reagan that the world is made better by individuals striving to beat everyone else in a perpetual competitive struggle to acquire wealth, possessions, larger homes with more land around each, bigger, faster cars, and other evidence of ‘success’ in an acquisitive world. Adrienne Clarkson salutes instead a world in which individuals belong to mutually supportive and collaborating groups – to families, neighbourhoods, associations and clubs, communities, ultimately nations and the global community of all people everywhere, all respecting a benevolent system of governance that achieves success by collaboration, by helping one another, not by repression or ruthless confrontational competition.  

Voluntarism is an integral part of this vision of the ideal society:

… [In] Canada, voluntarism is the ultimate expression of civic virtue. It is considered a public good, and to be a volunteer is to be a participant in the creation of that public good… the Caring Canadian Award… honours people known in their communities for spending time with others for the benefit of others. The … result is the creation of civic decency and mutual help that have the intrinsic virtue of being personal, direct and consistent… The variety of work done by volunteers in Canada is enormous, and it is quite rightly heralded.

The proudest moment of my life came when Governor General Adrienne Clarkson presented the Caring Canadian Award to my late beloved wife Wendy, recognizing her many years of dedicated volunteer community service. Incidentally that community service did much to give both Wendy and me a strong sense of belonging to Canada.  

Wendy receiving the Caring Canadian Award from Governor General Adrienne Clarkson,
Rideau Hall, June 2003

Much more could be said about ‘belonging’ - cultural identity versus alienation, what’s being done, what more could be done, to make newcomers feel at home and welcome, the difference between the US ‘melting pot’ concept and the Canadian ‘mosaic’, about multiculturalism  and risk of developing ethnic/cultural enclaves that can become ghettos, and sundry other problems.

There are problems aplenty along the way towards development of harmonious, fruitful, interactions between individuals, families, and the society of which they are component parts. Problems arise for instance, in our multicultural society when immigrants and members of cultural groups fail to acquire a sense of belonging to the larger society that comprises Canada, or the even larger society that comprises western civilization.  This can happen when adolescent children of immigrants from certain ethnic and cultural groups rebel against the traditional values and customs of their parents. I saw this occasionally in Adelaide in the 1950s when girls from peasant Greek or southern Italian families, educated in Australian schools, mingling with girls from more enlightened backgrounds picked up some of these enlightened values, rebelled against arranged marriages that had been customary in their parents’ families. An Australian-born teenaged girl whose parents came from Greece went home from school one day to find a middle-aged man just arrived from Greece, and was confronted with the news that he was to be her husband.  She fled to our clinic waiting-room and implored several staff members including me to help her evade this fate. We interceded at the cost of her estrangement from her parents.  Today the same problem sometimes occurs among South Asian families in Canada. In its most extreme form it can lead to 'honour killing' - an oxymoronic name for a disgustingly dishonourable custom.

Another problem has taken on great urgency in light of recent episodes of extreme violence and murder perpetrated by immigrants or by young men who have adopted the antisocial, murderous ways of terrorist groups, in recent examples, associated with perverse interpretations of the teachings of Islam. We had a dramatic experience of this in the assassination of the young sentry at the National War Memorial in Ottawa and the assassin’s assault on Parliament. Soon after this came the blood bath in the offices of the Parisian satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Unfortunately the perpetrators of these and several other terrorist onslaughts have all been killed. We need to keep them alive so they can be studied by sociologists and psychologists. We need to find out more about the antecedents of these acts, how and by whom they were fostered, and what motivates the perpetrators, so that we can develop strategies and tactics to counteract them and prevent such heinous acts of violence. About 30-35 years ago I recall reading reports of sociological studies along these lines that had been done on terrorists associated with the Basque separatist group ETA, and the IRA. Those terrorists, called freedom fighters by their supporters, usually were motivated by ethnic nationalism. Similar studies are needed on terrorists linked to this perverse variant of Islam. Obviously these terrorists lack a sense of belonging to the countries and cultures against which their acts have been aimed. In light of the recent violent terrorist acts perpetrated by young men who have lacked this sense of belonging, more in-depth sociological and psychological studies are urgently needed, to find out more about why these young men (and occasionally women) are attracted to beliefs that induce them to engage in such violent antisocial conduct. That is our best hope in searching for ways to put a stop to this kind of behaviour once and for all.

In Belonging, Adrienne Clarkson has examined the social and cultural consequences of the tension in personal identity that immigrants may have to confront. Her Massey Lectures are a very well written, insightful and sympathetic analysis of this phenomenon. This book is a tribute to all who make the successful transition from one culture to another. I strongly recommend it to all who have migrated, and all who are here to greet the migrants.

(This is an expanded version of a piece I wrote for Ottawa Review of Books) 

It's Robbie Burns Day today

Robbie Burns Day, January 25, includes Burns Night, with haggis and 'neaps (turnips) and, of course, malt whisky.  I remember with much affection, several Burns Night suppers in Edinburgh. By the fourth of these, Wendy and I began to feel a strong sense of belonging in Scotland, a feeling reinforced by the fact that by then our kids all had lovely Edinburgh Scots accents. I'm sad that they lost these lovely accents after we moved to Ottawa. Rebecca lost hers almost overnight, Jonathan after a few months. David, who had become a Scottish nationalist by the time we left Edinburgh, clung tenaciously to his for many years. Even now after 45 years I sometimes think I can detect a faint trace of it if I listen carefully. 'Sense of belonging' - yes, I have a post lined up and waiting to add to this blog after it's published in Ottawa Review of Books at the end of the month, a review of Adrienne Clarkson's Massey lectures, on the subject of Belonging. 

There was another Burns night, in 1956, a hot, airless night with not a breath of wind stirring. I was in my room at my mother's home in Adelaide, and my vigorous exchange of letters with Jan Wendelken in Christchurch, New Zealand, had begun to morph into a courtship by correspondence. I became aware of a distant, incongruous sound, the skirl of bagpipes. They came closer until they were obviously in the lane behind the house.  I put aside the letter I was writing and went out to investigate. There was a kilted bagpiper in full regalia - which looked as hot as the red-faced piper obviously was. His father told me, in a thick Gorbals accent, that they were celebrating 'Rabbie Burrrns Night' on their first January 25 in Australia.  I wished them Goodnight and went back to my letter-writing.

Here's part of my letter of January 25, 1956 to Wendy - I began addressing her as 'Wendy' a month or so earlier - This came near the bottom of p 2 of a 5-page letter:

9.30 pm So help me, a solemn youth has just marched up and down our back lane playing unbelievably badly "Nut Brown Maiden" on the bagpipes. And his father, when accosted, answered in thick (and sober) Scots, "It's Rabbie Burrrrns birthday!"  And so it is. I just looked it up. Life is never dull for long.

This letter was the one in which I said to Wendy that I regarded her as my confidant, my principal, in many ways, my only one, to whom I confided my hopes and plans for the future. From this letter onward, our letters to each other became more intimate, more revealing of thoughts rarely uttered out loud in ordinary conversation. I'll say more about this and our letters back and forth across the Tasman Sea, another time.

More unmistakeable signs of planetary distress

The grim facts have been published: 2014 was the hottest year since systematic records of temperature began to be collected and compiled in enough localities around the world for global 'averages' to be collated. That was in the late 19th century, long enough ago for stable baseline readings to be established, for observers to begin observing and recently, observing with growing concern, as temperatures climbed year after year far above the average range of prior years. 

An equally alarming set of observations was published by marine biologists. All forms of marine life are distressed, some gravely so, some threatened with extinction. Animals and birds that rely on the sea for sustenance are hurting,  some are endangered. Sea birds along the Pacific coast of North America are experiencing a massive die-off.  Autopsies show that they are dying of hunger: the fish on which they previously lived are becoming increasingly scarce. The explanation is partly linked to the world's rising average temperature. Phytoplankton and zooplankton, the tiny plants and animals at the base of marine food chains, reproduce only within a very narrow temperature range.  Global climate change is driving oceanic and coastal sea temperatures outside the upper limit of that range. This process is just beginning. The specific heat of the earth's oceans and other large bodies of water, will continue to rise relentlessly, carrying many of these tiny aquatic organisms to extinction. The process is aggravated by increasing acidification of oceans, seas and lakes, caused by rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. This dissolves in water to produce carbonic acid. The wave of extinction will extend upward through aquatic food chains.  It will involve humans sooner or later. At the rate events are moving - much more rapidly than forecast in the early reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - it is likely to be sooner.

Here in Canada we have one of the most scientifically ignorant, politically inept sets of political leaders on earth. They are worse than ignorant, they are willfully obscurantist, hostile to science, blindly blundering towards extinction. I wouldn't mind in the least if they became extinct. But it makes me angry to think of them carrying bright children with them to extinction, children who manifestly could run Canada and the world a great deal better than they have.  In the interests of life in Canada and life on earth, we must get rid of this bunch of scientific ignoramuses who have been mismanaging our lovely part of the habitable world for far too long. 

More myths - one dangerous, another just plain wrong

Here are two more myths that need to be dispelled like fog on a sunny morning.

Myth #1. The market can decide best policies for us all.

The market can mean the New York Stock Exchange or the souk in Marrakesh, or any other venue where money, goods and services are exchanged or bartered. The way the term is generally used - for example in the Wall Street Journal - the market (sometimes capitalized, as in The Market) is endowed not merely with intelligence but with superhuman wisdom. The reverend Charles Mackay exploded the myth of the market's wisdom in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds - a classic work first published in 1841 that everyone should study when tempted to plunge into the stock market. Mackay explored the mediaeval dancing mania, the South Sea Bubble, Tulipomania, and other passing crazes that separated well-to-do but greedy-for-more folk from their life's savings. Money, and the way it changes hands, are usually involved in these varieties of madness based on myths and fantasies. But not always. The myths and fantasies of threats to national security involve vast sums of money that are willingly - eagerly - transferred from national treasuries to the share holders of multinational corporations that manufacture armaments; but there is an associated national paranoia which doesn't require vast expenditure yet is often extremely harmful. Perhaps the worst example of this in my lifetime was in the USA in the late 1940s, early 1950s. The Un-American Affairs Committee of the US Congress, chaired by Senator Joe McCarthy in the early 1950s, destroyed the careers of some gifted performing artists by accusing them of communist sympathies and placing them on a black list so they could not work in the movie industry. At the time I had only recently become politically aware, and my homeland, Australia, was as severely afflicted by national paranoia as the heartland states of the USA. I found myself utterly out of step with national sentiment and might well have got myself into political trouble if I hadn't left for the more tolerant British Isles.

Like other issues I've touched upon in posts on this blog, the myth of the all knowing, preternaturally wise market requires a book-length essay to do it justice. This short paragraph might be enough to provoke debate, I hope.

Myth #2. Females are too flighty to be entrusted with important decisions best left to wise men.

Like most of my male classmates when I was a medical student in the 1940s, I resented the presence among us of a whole bunch of flighty females. Medicine was a serious profession for us capable men, and these "girls" as we called them, had no place in it. Only really weird women went into medicine. They were certainly weird in one important way: they got most of the prizes and medals for excellence. Working a few years later as the principal investigator on well-designed research studies for the UK Royal Commission on Medical Education, I was at first a bit disconcerted to find all the evidence that pointed to more determined motivation, higher intelligence, better exam performance, by women than men. By then, too, I had seen enough sick men and sick women to be well aware that women reacted better than men to the pain, suffering, distress and disability associated with serious diseases and injuries. The evidence I gathered did a lot to convert me from a male chauvinist to a card carrying feminist.  Over the 55 years of my marriage I found also that my beloved Wendy was a better manager, a wiser homemaker, emphatically a far better parent, and a better cook, than I was.  Now I fully understand the truth. Intelligence, ability, and wisdom are not evenly distributed between the sexes.  Women have a distinct advantage in these important qualities. I think we can find the explanation in evolutionary biology: the survival of the species over the millennia has depended on the survival skills and expertise of the females, who must care for their young as well as for themselves. As for the men, once they have fulfilled their biological purpose, they aren't much needed.  Like the cavalry, they can love and ride away (or if motorized, screw and bolt). Perhaps that's why among parents there are more irresponsible fathers than mothers. I'm condensing much well studied evolutionary psychology here as well as evolutionary biology. It's deliberate. I want to provoke argument and discussion.