Yes, it's been a long time - just two months - since I posted here. I have had other things on my mind. On this Fourth of July, with Canada Day celebrations ended and our neighbours the Americans celebrating their national holiday, a new sequence of thought has come to the forefront.

An article in today's New York Times website by Francois Furstenberg, assistant professor of history at the Université de Montréal, celebrating American Independence Day gave rise to some thoughts about nationalism. If I understand Furstenberg correctly, American nationalism came did not come about as a result of the heroic personages of the Founding Fathers like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin et al. Rather is was lesser lights who published what in some cases were largely fictional stories about the accomplishments of a motley group of lawyers, politicans and gentrified slave owners, who made them greater men than they may have been. At the same time, they also laid the groundwork of American nationalism.

Among those largely unknowns whom Furstenberg names as publicists responsible for creating American nationalism were Mason Weems, Mathew Carey, Caleb Bingham and Noah Webster.
Noteworthy is the fact that all of these were writers or printers responsible for publishing books that children good read in school, thus imprinting the myths and legends of the Founding Fathers on future generations. Today we would call them journalists or political commentators.

Canadians have been far behind the Americans in popularizing our national myths. On theo the rhand, our nationalism takes the shape of a self-deprication. We have not been slow, however, the minimize the accomplishments of our Fathers of Confederation who dreamed of and brought together out of a handful of British colonies and a large acreage of snow, a nation from sea to sea to sea.

For instance, apart from Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Georges Etienne Cartier, who can name any others. I certainly can't. We laugh at John A.'s alcoholism and frown at the CPR scandal that brought British Columbia into Confederation on the backs of Chinese labourers. We denigrate that early Manitoba separatist, Louis Riel and his Métis followers for their desire to mainain their traditional way of life based on hoards of buffalo wanderin the vast western prairies. Laurier's reciprocal trade policy and opposition to conscription during World War I are more fully reported than his inspiration of French Canadian to participate in federal governments through the 20th century. Mackenzie King's spiritualism and mother fetish are featured more than his political leadership during the difficult years of the Depression and World War II. Mike Pearson's lisp and his fondness for hockey and baseball make better copy than his international peacemaking. John Diefenbaker's witty asides are better known than his 1959 defeat of the Liberal government that had been in power since 1935.

Yet nationalism springs more from myths than from reality. Perhaps Weems and Co. were right. And so was Furstenberg to recall their contribution to the humanizing of history.