Antiaméricains, les Canadiens?

À Doug Wortham

Un de mes sites fétiches est un forum consacré aux amateurs de lutte professionnelle - celle d'aujourd'hui mais surtout celle des beaux jours : Wrestling Classics. J'y passe quotidiennement faire mon tour. Une des beautés de Wrestling Classics, c'est la liberté qu'on a d'y démarrer des discussions sur des sujets d'intérêt général (tous ceux dont le titre s'amorce par OT (pour off topic)).

Un Américain y a démarré hier une discussion traitant de son amour des Canadiens. Rapidement, les réponses ont dévié vers le soi-disant antiaméricanisme des Canadiens. (En mars dernier, un homme me disait effectivement, lors de mon passage en terrain amish, dans le comté de Lancaster, en Pennsylvanie, être venu souvent au Québec alors qu'il travaillait pour le géant du chocolat Hershey. Il m'a avoué trouver ses voyages moins intéressants, après le 11 septembre, une fois qu'il s'est mis à sentir l'antiaméricanisme des Québécois, disait-il. Remarquez que le Québec et le Canada, ce sont deux choses, sans doute.)

Cela dit, une des réponses qu'on trouve sur cette page s'avère des plus éclairantes : celle de Richard Berger, un journaliste sportif (avec qui je n'ai jamais eu l'occasion de discuter sur le forum en question). Berger, d'origine américaine, vit au Canada depuis 1974. Je transcris ci-dessous sa réponse. C'est magnifiquement bien écrit et vraiment très lucide, à mon avis. J'espère seulement que les 5-6 lecteurs qui passent par ici (à part Doug, bien sûr) soient suffisamment à l'aise avec l'anglais écrit pour tout saisir de la vision de cet homme qui peut se targuer de bénéficier des deux visions - l'américaine et la canadienne. Bonne lecture.

SL

I can't go along with the "Canadians hate Americans" designation, although I can understand why it may sometimes seem as much. In my 32 years of living in Canada as an American, I have never ... as in not once ... been treated with anything approaching disdain, much less hatred.

What has happened in the past six or seven years is that a lot of anger has been directed at the American posture (as opposed to a blanket condemnation of those of us that were born in the U.S.A.). The ultra-aggressive use of force as anything but a last resort, both militarily and otherwise, will do that. Refusing to insist upon diplomatic resolutions with equal belligerence is all-too reminiscent of countries that fomented wars based on false pretenses in decades and centuries past.

If there is hatred for Americans by Canadians (and I'm not conceding that there is beyond some simple-minded individuals), it is misguided. But, make no mistake, there is anger. To call what the current U.S. administration has done to the world "Naziism" would be wrong. It isn't. However, it would not be unfair to characterize it as a uniquely American form of fascist behavior.

The dismantling of the Constitution, the refusal to acknowledge or even attempt to understand that there are cultures, values and viewpoints other than that which exists in a very small and tightly controlled sphere is genuinely frightening. The extreme right, which has been in control since one year after the turn of the millennium, has directly created so much destruction on a world scale in so many different ways and on so many different levels that it borders on Nihilism.

Those that hold the "my country right or wrong" canard have been in charge since '01. It is a dangerous world view; when permitted to flourish unchecked, the result is constant conflict accompanied by violence, or at least the threat thereof. Fear is a powerful tool, and in the hands of the cynical and those with an agenda, it is perilous. To attack another country based on the flimsiest of (contrived) evidence is beyond reprehensible. The rest of the world sees the Bush Gang as powerful criminals that have made the planet a much less safer place to be.

But someone from Canada or any other country that despises Americans out-of-hand aren't looking at the people, the vast majority of whom are decent and respectable. If the citizens are to be held accountable for anything, it's for not having smartened up to what they'd unleashed in 2000. Rather than owning up to the grievous error they'd made, they succumbed to Swiftboat-style tactics and allowed the poison to override their common sense in 2004.

Iraq and the world have paid an extremely heavy price for the fear-mongering the Bushes, the Cheneys and the Republican Congress (when it was in control) have deftly exploited in the guise of a "war on terrorism." It is THIS, not the American people, which Canadians and the world find so detestable.