Who Am I If We Don't Have the Cup?

Nationhood, as a concept, is fraught with complication. It’s all about the “other”, about Us versus Them, but it’s more complex than that. Canadians define themselves through what they are not (American), but neglect to recognize that the line between us and them is blurry, and also don’t see that the notion of “Us” comprises many identities, as does “Them”. The idea of the stereotypical Canadian doesn’t include indigeneity, which is actually a source of satisfaction for some Aboriginal people. As western nations become more politically correct and examine their past, a “post colonial nationalism” emerges, according to O”brien and Szeman (244). This situation has been ironically addressed by Sykes, who asked “What? Post colonialism? Have they left?” (Smith 24)
Our own version of being Canadian doesn’t lend itself to racial difference. Black Canadians are generally “Afro-Canadians” (in case we couldn’t work out their racial background by visual cues). It seems to be important to give someone a niche, to slot them into a non-threatening identity. “Where are you from?” we might ask a person of a different skin colour, “when did you get here?”, we ask people with an accent. We want to avoid danger and we have to assign outsiders an identity so that we know our turf is safe. Then we can decide if they are “us” or “them”. This identity isn’t static either, it changes depending upon how secure we are in our assessment of whether or not we’re threatened. Having watched race riots on tv as a child, I am amazed now to see the relaxation of this insecurity in the election of a Black president.
Nationalism is about protecting our own; our own land, our own identity. The riots in Vancouver this week weren’t so much about anger and disappointment in our inability to win a game; they were also about the attack on our national identity as a hockey nation. Canadians feel threatened all the time by Americans; by their superior military strength, by their power, and by their disdain for us as a nation, as we frequently see in popular American television programs. It is interesting to speculate on what people would be like without the need for comparative identities.