Elizabeth Jones
Executive Director,
North Shore Multicultural Society
North Vancouver, B.C.
Ms. Jones,
In the North Shore News, you were quoted as saying—in response to Chinese signage in your area—that:
“We all grow up within a certain culture and community the way it is” and “Some people are better at adapting to change than others.”
http://www.nsnews.com/news/chinese-signs-questioned-in-west-vancouver-1.1204398
You are certainly right about that. Before the 1940s, the Dutch, Danes and Norwegians, for example, all grew up within a certain culture and community—one that they were rather fond of actually—but they didn’t like the cultural “change” that was imposed upon them by the “immigrants” in jackboots from Germany. But as you would say, some of them (Quislings, collaborators and traitors) were better at adapting to this change than others. In fact, most of the Dutch, Danes and Norwegians refused to accept their own displacement or believe the persistent and omnipresent propaganda that was vigourously inflicted upon them day after day, year after year. They never felt “enriched” by the presence of those they never invited. Nor did they ever become reconciled to German signage and German symbols.
And there is no doubt that if the Nazis had won the war, and if the German occupation had lasted for another twenty years, a whole generation of Dutch, Danish and Norwegian youth would have been indoctrinated to believe that the “change” was a very good thing. Just as Canadian youth today have been indoctrinated to believe in the virtues of imported cultural diversity, and reconciled to their own dislocation and marginalization. Many of those young Canadians have since left their classrooms to occupy strategic positions in newsrooms, board rooms, court rooms, faculty rooms, ethno-cultural lobbies, and the Immigration industry. All are now “spreading the word” and “advancing” Canada’s ongoing colonization.
No Canadian government ever had a mandate to change the ethnic profile of Canada, nor did its bipartisan policy of mass immigration ever enjoy the support of the majority of the population. It is therefore to be expected that a great many of us, in fact most of us I would suggest, regard our “occupation” in much the same way as the Dutch, Danes, and Norwegians (plus the Poles, French et al.) regarded German occupation in World War Two. The proliferation of Chinese-only signage rubs our noses in the reality of our occupation. It is, as you characterized it, a “flashpoint”. But it is not a flashpoint that triggers “racism” as you contend, but rather, nationalism that has been long suppressed, but is still alive, like a dormant volcano on the verge of eruption. This is not about race, it is about culture. It is not about multi-racialism but multiculturalism. The two are too often conflated.
While most Canadians recognize the multi-ethnic character of their nation to be a sociological fact, and oppose forced assimilation, they do not accept the policy of Official Multiculturalism which, with the use of our tax dollars, endeavours to arrest and impede natural assimilation and instead, promote the cultural balkanization of society. Canadians do not want manufactured multiculturalism. They value cultural cohesion as much or more than “diversity”. That we share a common language is essential to that cohesion. Two official languages is as much as we can handle.
Quebec took steps to see that French remained the dominant and most pervasive language in the province. Why then is it “racist” to demand that Anglophone Canada be able to do the same? Why is it generally conceded that Quebeckers have the right to defend their culture, but not us?
George Bernard Shaw once remarked that “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
In other words, compliant “reasonable” people tolerate the intolerable—“unreasonable” people do not.
I, among many others, will not “adapt” to the world you wish us to live in. I, among many others, will not “adapt” to a Canada that resembles the Tower of Babel, a microcosm of the (Dis)United Nations. I, among many others, will not “adapt” to the ideology of “Multicultural-schism”. I, among many others, will not “adapt” to the promotion of cultural apartheid. I, among many others, will not “adapt” to a Canada where the two founding cultures are reduced to mere fragments of the “mosaic”. I, and many others, are “unreasonable” people. And progress depends on people like us. We refuse to tolerate the intolerable. We will never say die.
P.S. At least the “immigrants” from Germany did not inflate the real estate market in the European countries they occupied.
Tim Murray
July 28, 2014
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Chinese signs questioned in West Vancouver
Putting Canada First group says ads threaten traditional values
Jane Seyd / North Shore News
July 13, 2014 12:00 AM
Stickers were recently placed over a bus shelter that featured Chinese characters in West Vancouver. Photo Lisa King, North Shore News
A North Shore resident who is part of an organization that’s complained about Chinese language advertising signs in other Lower Mainland communities is taking aim at similar signs on West Vancouver bus shelters.
Brad Saltzberg, a North Vancouver resident and spokesperson for the group Putting Canada First, is taking issue with bus shelter advertisements along Marine Drive that have prominently featured messages in the Chinese language.
The signs also feature English.
But Saltzberg said he’s offended by the proliferation of signs in non-official languages, which he said undermines “traditional English and French Canadian identity.”
Saltzberg recently wrote to West Vancouver council about the issue after noting several advertisements featuring Chinese displayed on West Vancouver bus shelters. Signs have included ads for real estate agents, financial planning and food products.
“If it goes on unchecked it will continue to the degree we’re seeing in other business districts and other municipalities whereby No. 3 Road in Richmond, it looks like Hong Kong. It doesn’t look like Canada.”
If the trend continues, he said, “Our whole city will appear to be Asian.”
Last week, someone placed square stickers on the signs reading “Please Respect Canada’s Official Languages.”
West Vancouver’s bus shelters are owned by the Pattison Group, which sells advertising space on them, under an agreement with the municipality.
The company controls the content of the ads, which is guided by Canadian advertising standards, said Donna Powers, spokesperson for the District of West Vancouver.
“We have talked to them about vulgarity and sexual suggestiveness but not about language,” she said, noting West Vancouver’s sign bylaw doesn’t cover language.
Nobody from Pattison returned calls from the North Shore News.
West Vancouver Mayor Michael Smith said he doesn’t see any problem with the ads.
“I believe in personal freedom. If you pay your money you should be able to advertise your sign in any language you want. I’m not a racist. I
don’t see why anybody would be offended by an advertisement in a different language,” he said.
“There’s some people who would like to turn the clock back 50 years when all the immigrants to Canada came from Europe. It’s a different world.”
Smith said as someone who believes in individual freedom, “I don’t have
a lot of tolerance for the nannies and the higher purpose people who like to tell everybody else how they should think and what they should do.”
Elizabeth Jones, executive director of the North Shore Multicultural Society, said she’s not surprised that advertising signs have recently become a flashpoint in the Lower Mainland.
“I think signage is a big issue,” she said. “It triggers a lot of feelings people have about change and immigration.
“A lot of racism and a lot of feelings about the change that’s taking place in communities is unspoken. When you get signage, it is right there.
“We all grow up within a certain culture and community the way it is,”
said Jones. “Some people are better at adapting to change than others.”
In April, Saltzberg’s group successfully mounted a campaign to get the social service agency SUCCESS to pull its Chinese-only ads from Richmond bus shelters.
“I’m proud to say I’ve never believed in multiculturalism for even one minute of my life,” said Saltzberg.
According to the last Census data, more than 26 per cent of the North Shore population lists a language other than English or French as their first language.
Farsi, Mandarin, Cantonese, other Chinese languages and Korean are the most common languages spoken after English.
– See more at: http://www.nsnews.com/news/chinese-signs-questioned-in-west-vancouver-1.1204398#sthash.wqmkXQLy.dpuf