I promised
damned_colonial ages ago that I would write this. It finally seems to have come around on the guitar.
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,—
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England...
Um, right.
benet brought me a musket ball from the Napoleonic era, from back East somewhere.
It's in my hand right now; it's one of my writing talismans; I pull it out whenever I feel myself getting too fluffy, too easy, too a-critical of this matter of wars and nations that our fandoms rest upon.
Once upon a time, in a field in what is now Canada, an Englishman fired this ball at an American, with every intention of maiming or killing him. Or maybe the other way around; I don't know.
He missed; it's perfect and round. It's never hit a bone, never shredded flesh, never left shards of lead in a man's body. It lay there quietly in the dirt until someone dug it up and sold it for a souveneir.
Just another set of heavily armed tourists passing through, welcome to Canadian History. And to Napoleonic Fandom.
Souveneirs: Quebec licence plates say
je me souviens. I remember.
What do we remember, when we write, when we vid, when we participate in these fandoms?
Do we remember that "Colonial Regiment" means 'cannon fodder,' from the Plains of Abraham to the mud of Ypres and Gallipoli?
Do we remember that England's squabbles with France (and later with the US) left scars on our lands that we can still see today?
Do we remember that we were exiles, transportees, the trash that England and France didn't want?
And how do we reconcile that with the fact that we can never talk about English Canadian history without talking about England? About Canadian history without understanding what went on between England and France?
My grandparents were born Subjects of the Crown, even though they were born on Canadian soil.
I can't look at a street map anymore without reliving their damned expansions and refighting their damned wars.
They are us, and we are them, even if we have been their redheaded stepchildren. And to a degree, still are.
We care what they do far, far more than they care what we're up to.
I have no answers, only a sort of tiptoeing, precarious balance, that I am forever in the process of adjusting, and a sort of feeling that this, more than the pretty pretty men or the pretty pretty ships, is what draws me here and keeps me here. This eternal wrestling match that is my birthright.
And now I shall look expectantly at
damned_colonial, in hopes that she will tackle the Australian side.
ETA:
Statute of Westminster, 1931 -- Or, So Long And Thanks For All The Taxes -- Not YOU, India! , because it's a handy sort of thing to have around for reference, in a conversation of this nature.
ETA2: And I have yet to say one intelligible word about the French. Mostly because the French Canadian experience is not one I feel well-qualified to speak to, even though I live a narrow river away from it.
But when I say my country was torn in two? It is still torn in two.
Je me souviens -- that's a reference to, among other things, the Plains of Abraham.
This:
("Their courage gave them a common death, history a common fame, posterity a common memorial.")
However fitting I may find it, is
not the whole story.