Stephen Henighan, in one of his columns for Geist, decided to meditate on “the power cut that paralyzed Ontario in August 2003.” (Actually, geographically speaking it only darkened a little under half of Ontario, but screw accuracy, right Stephen? Nobody cares what goes on outside of Toronto and Ottawa anyway.)
He begins by describing a heart-breakingly banal scene in which his snobbish, mostly-immigrant closed community (he expresses contempt for the restrictive nature of condominium life, yet lives in one) is forced to begin the work of basic human communication. Everything is sunshine and puppies until the poor English-deficient Yugoslavian immigrant that most of the residents avoid takes the common sense measure of bringing his kerosene cookstove outside so that, sans-electricity, he can have a hot meal without burning down the condo or suffocating his family from the fumes. Henighan attributes this complete lack of ignorant paralysis to the fact that this resident is “a Yugoslav who had learned survival skills in a grisly war.” Henighan, after essentially admitting that he is an imbecile (seriously, how stupid do you have to be to think that using a kerosene camp-stove during a power failure—and taking it outside no less—can only result from being conditioned for survival by dodging bullets) also admits to being a bit of a bigot. (“It was normal to be an immigrant; it was unacceptable to act like one.”) Just for the record, I know Henighan’s sister, and she is living proof that his ignorance is willfull rather than genetic; she seems to have none of his arrogance, and is fully possessed of the common sense that he seems to lack.
The point Henighan tries to make with this little story, is that tolerance in Canada is more about ignoring someone while they do their own thing, than it is about understanding and embracing them. Well, no shit. That’s why one of those concepts is called “tolerance” and the other is called “understanding”—they are two different concepts. But for Henighan (and he calls on Neil Bissoondath for support, at the same time taking a backhand swing at Pico Iyer, a somewhat spoiled cultural theorist who has more in common with Henighan that Mr. H would probably be willing to admit) this is tantamount to racism. Not only do you have to accept other cultures, live beside them peacefully and without trying to interfere with or cast judgement on their ways and attitudes, no, you must embrace them and understand them and, in a sense, explore how they are different from you. Only then will you not be a racist.
Here’s where things get tricky, because I think making an effort to understand another culture, or to embrace another culture, is a great thing. It can enrich your life in ways that no other human experience can. I just don’t think that indifference is an analog of hatred, or that lack of active interest is tantamount to racism. It may not even be possible to understand and embrace the different cultures around us, particularly since so many of us have difficulty understanding and embracing our own.
But wait, there’s more. As per usual, Mr. Henighan slips in a plug for his agenda for the New Canadian Novel (that’s my term, not his). Henighan insists that Canadian writers must ignore whatever issues it is that they are actually interested in (if it is indeed an “issue” that interests them, rather than, say, the rhythms of language or the structures of narrative—but the Canadian literary establishment’s obsession with “issues” is a subject best left for another entry) and focus instead on the ways that the various cultures now present in Canada, and urban Canada in particular, interact with one another. I quote:
The writer, of course, faces the danger that dramatizing cultural differences will descend into stereotyping. But the literary writer must take risks: must challenge and extend popular understanding, not just mimic the status quo. By averting their creative gaze from the cultural dissonance that clatters around us in the shopping malls of Mississauga, the ruelles of Montréal-Nord, the street corners of Winnipeg, the leaky condos of New Westminster, writers actually may contribute to prolonging a polite, latent racism. You do not overcome racism by avoiding the issue and changing the subject. Racism dissolves only when you ask the awkward, embarrassing question: do all Chinese women behave that way, do all Yugoslav men cook in parking lots? Until you voice this gut reaction, or, better yet, dramatize it in a scene, you cannot begin to question your own chauvinism. Such uncomfortable yet revealing moments abound in our daily lives. Our fiction could be feasting on them if fewer of our writers chose to sleep behind white curtains.
Thank you Mr. Henighan, but I believe I have my own agenda as a writer, and I also believe that not giving a damn about yours in no way makes me a racist.
