Forwards

I don't usually like forwarded emails... This one is not bad, in a bang your chest kind of way. Enjoy:

British newspaper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. It is funny howit took someone in England to put it into words... Sunday TelegraphArticle From today's UK wires:Salute to a brave and modest nation - Kevin Myers, 'The Sunday Telegraph'LONDON:

Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, probably almostno one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops aredeployed in the region.

And as always, Canada will bury its dead, just as the rest of the world, asalways will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearlyeverything Canada ever does.. It seems that Canada's historic mission is tocome to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, andthen, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored.

Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall,waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out, sherisks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers seriousinjuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes, there isCanada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped Glamorously cavortacross the floor, blithely neglecting her yet again.

That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent withthe United States, and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two globalconflicts.

For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two different directions:It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one,and that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the gratitude itdeserved.

Yet it's purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in two worldwars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10% of Canada'sentire population of seven million people served in the armed forces duringthe First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The great Allied victories of1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiersin the entire British order of battle.

Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, it'sunique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular Memory assomehow or other the work of the 'British.'

The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war witha half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlanticagainst U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in theNormandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore onD-Day alone.

Canada finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourth largestair force in the world. The world thanked Canada with the same sublimeindifference as it had the previous time.

Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if it wasnecessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in which the UnitedStates had clearly not participated - a touching scrupulousness which, ofcourse, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separateCanadian identity.

So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywoodkeep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus MaryPickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William Shatner,Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art Linkletter and DanAykroyd have in the popular perception become American, and ChristopherPlummer, British.

It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to beCanadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably Canadian as amoose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find anytakers.

Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements ofits sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware ofthem. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and are unheard by anyoneelse - that 1% of the world's population has provided 10% of the world'speacekeeping forces.

Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatestpeacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six on non-UNpeacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia.

Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular non-Canadianimagination was the sorry affair in Somalia, in which out-of-controlparatroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was thendisbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for which,naturally, the Canadians received no international credit.

So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selflessfriendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan?

Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac, Canada repeatedly does honourable things forhonourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remainssomething of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, for which Canadiansshould be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost. This past year moregrieving Canadian families knew that cost all too tragically well.

Lest we forget.