Let’s get the down sides of Richler’s book out of the way first. They aren’t many.
First, I can’t help wishing that Richler had had an editor who—and Goose Lane Editions should find such fine tuning routine—could visualize how long sentences (and there are many) with too many parenthetical insertions—like this one—are unnecessary, confusing and impediments to the message—which, in this case, is an important one.
Secondly, Richler seems to feel that an argument is strengthened by its length and the number of times it’s repeated. This is a 100-page book bulked up quite unnecessarily to 362 pages.
So much for the down side.
Richler effectively argues that there’s a serious dichotomy between dominant Canadian values and the current language, priorities and directions in the Harper government, particularly as they relate to the military establishment. His metaphor for this schism compares the epic in literature with the novel. Epics have heroes, rely on good vs. evil distinctions and picture the world as black and white. Novels develop more liberally; they see good and evil as present in all humanity and don’t insist that the ending be a clear victory of good over evil, with us being good and them evil.
More understandable to many readers will be his characterization of Canada as a humanist, peacemaking culture with compassion for all the world’s people and a desire to be helpful and giving. Through the period of the war in Afghanistan, however, our government has worked hard at remolding us as a “war-making country,” able to be a formidable combat force alongside the big boys.
Richler traces the government, military and media push in the direction of war-fighting at length. Beginning with Harper’s contention that Canada would be unrecognizable when he was done, he endlessly quotes right wing commentary by Jack Granatstein (author of Who Killed the Canadian Military); Gen. Rick Hillier (former Chief of Land Staff), and Christie Blatchford (National Post columnist and author of Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army). By the time you’re done with War, you might well think of these three as Richler’s Antichrists! Their denigration of peacekeeping along with their eulogizing of Canada’s combat work in Afghanistan supports well the contention that the Harper government and its supporters have been working hard to cast the country in a more “epic” vision of itself and the world.
Policies of “war-fighting” rather than peace operations; of smaller alliances with like-minded states rather than entangling ones under the aegis of the UN oriented toward some vague, quasi-utopian future; of tighter immigration and greater demands made of newcomers seeking Canadian citizenship than those made by the gatekeepers of the previous, more open society in which merely alighting in Canada was enough, became in less than a decade the underpinnings of a more monolithic version of the country (p. 256). [Readers may have to read that run-on sentence a few times to comprehend it.]
Little of this comes as news to anyone who’s been paying attention. The ceremony around fallen combat soldiers (while muting the deaths of peacekeepers), the grandiose projections of 400 billion + to be spent on the military over the next 20 years (that’s roughly $800 per year for every man, woman and child in Canada), the fighter jet issue, the Royal put back into the forces’ names, these are only a few of the signs along the way.
Richler spends some ink on the subject of goals in Afghanistan and how they’ve shifted over the last decade from being a good ally to our friend, post 9/11 USA, to saving Afghanistan from the Taliban, to bringing democracy, to building schools for girls, all meant to support the contention that what we were up to in that country was a kind of “peace-making, nation-building” exercise. The goals have been wishy-washy in the extreme; the groping for palatable purposes difficult under the circumstances. The result has been disheartening for the war makers; as a war it cannot be won since the Taliban are Afghans and will be Afghans even after all NATO forces are gone. In the official language, it began as a “mission” when that was convenient, became a “war” in the middle and now again has become a “mission,” precisely because as a war, pulling out makes no sense when the situation on the ground is as unresolved as it is.
Richler ends with a chapter called, “What is to be Done?” In it, he proposes that the military must again reflect the values of the people, which in Canada are predominantly humanistic, compassionate and only mildly nationalistic compared to the current vision. He suggests that we go back to being the best peacemakers and peacekeepers in the world and that we establish an institution dedicated to training peacekeeping, peacemaking young Canadians fora new branch of the military to this end. It’s an intriguing thought, that we would be the providers of corps of Canadians expert in the field of negotiation, human rights and all those other skills that a helping and open people rely on when at their best.
I am an admirer of Stephen Lewis and the work in which he engages, and so his endorsement on the cover of What We Talk About When We Talk About War carries weight for me: “A book of enormous erudition. I am stunned by Richler’s courage and insight.”
The subject is pertinent. Almost accidentally, we’ve given majority government to a party that is out of step with its citizens, that has goals in mind for the military, industry and the natural world that are anathema to a growing number of citizens. We all need to read and discuss Richler’s take on this phenomenon reflected in military language; there are changes going on that will take a great deal of effort and courage to undo when we finally turf the right wing ideologues out of office.
George Epp
07/06/2012
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