On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:05:38 Christopher D. Green wrote: > There are lots of "hyphenated" Canadians but, so far as I can tell, it > is mostly an identity-making strategy that is adopted because of its > political successes in the US.
This may be true in some instances but it is probably short-sighted to think that maintenance of ethnic identity is done only as a political strategy. Indeed, religious minorities may have very different goals and even resist assimilation into the larger culture (limiting political activity of any form). In Canada, I believe that the most ready example of this are the Amish/Mennonite communities (how many of these are in political office?). Other groups may get involved in politics but may place their religious group membership above their political or even national membership, that is, political activity is a pragmatic choice in service of maintenance of ethnic identity. > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Case in point Canadian investigators who were questionoing an > > Al-Qaeda prisoner in Gitmo referred to him only as a Canadian and not > > as a Canadian of Moddle East descent. > > The issue for them was his citizenship (which is Canadian), not an > academic discourse on social implications of immigration. I would just like to point out that unless one is reading the source documents (e.g., notes by the interrogators) one should be cautious about the presentation made by the mass media because their goal is not always the accurate portrayal of events. In this case, calling the prisoner simply "Canadian" may elicit more of neutral view of him relative to identifying his Middle Eastern ancestry (implicit association anyone?). If the writer/presenter wants the reader to focus on the issue of torture, then minimizing the prisoner's ethnicity might be a good writing/presentation strategy (in recognition that at least for some groups in the U.S. it might be easier to accept the torture of people from the Middle East than Canadians; then again...) -Mike Palij New York University [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
