The murals in Cuba remind me of the mural my little rural town has painted in its efforts to revitalize some of the rundown buildings. At first I thought it was a little tacky, but now I kind of like it. I just hope they don't let it start peeling. Yikes!
That's interesting about the different sentiments toward the military in the US and Canada. I don't have a ready explanation, but I suspect that part of it is ingrained in our cultural mythology. People often say that America is an idea based on its founding documents and values. A sort of vaguely Roman civil religion in which duty, honor, and sacrifice are celebrated (or used to be). Despite the rise of 'victimhood culture', many americans, especially in more conservative areas, still practice these communal values, and I'd include celebration of military service and sacrifice among them. I don't get the sense that it's normally about power or jingoism, but more about pride and purpose. But I don't have anything to back that up with. Just my observations.
Canadian military culture is an interesting thing. If we have an ingrained cultural mythology, it is as peacekeepers, but that has faded. Canada has never fought or won a foreign war on its own. It twice repulsed American invasions, but it was still a colony then, and it was British troops and ships that did the main fighting.
It became independent through negotiation, not war. Its founding document, the British North America Act, is a act of the British parliament. Every conflict since, except for small internal insurrections, has been as the junior partner of a major power, either Britain or the US. The nearest it has to a founding battle is the Battle of Vimy Ridge in WWI, which was the first time the Canadian battalions fought together under their own command.
After World War II, Canada came to see itself as a peacekeeping nation. It did not participate in any of the regional conflicts, but contributed to and led many UN peacekeeping missions. I think two things tore down that peacekeeping image. The first was the failure to stop the Rwandan genocide. The second was 9-11, where Canada began to undertake combat missions rather than peacekeeping. (Peacekeeping does not seem to be much of a thing these days anyway.)
Being a junior coalition partner in wars that no one is quite sure are effective or justified or winnable doesn't do much to form a new military mythology. Canadians do turn out to honor the dead from these conflicts, and for Remembrance day ceremonies, though poppies seem far less ubiquitous that they used to be. But all in all there is not much to build a national myth on in all this.
That's really interesting. I guess as young nations, Canada and the US had the chance to shape their own cultural mythologies to some degree, and it's kind of fascinating to see how they resemble one another and where they diverge. We in the US often look to Canada as our "good twin" and I think a lot of us would prefer if we had embraced a more peacekeeping persona, but I don't know if that was ever realistically a consideration for the US. It would make a fascinating military mythology, though.
The murals in Cuba remind me of the mural my little rural town has painted in its efforts to revitalize some of the rundown buildings. At first I thought it was a little tacky, but now I kind of like it. I just hope they don't let it start peeling. Yikes!
That's interesting about the different sentiments toward the military in the US and Canada. I don't have a ready explanation, but I suspect that part of it is ingrained in our cultural mythology. People often say that America is an idea based on its founding documents and values. A sort of vaguely Roman civil religion in which duty, honor, and sacrifice are celebrated (or used to be). Despite the rise of 'victimhood culture', many americans, especially in more conservative areas, still practice these communal values, and I'd include celebration of military service and sacrifice among them. I don't get the sense that it's normally about power or jingoism, but more about pride and purpose. But I don't have anything to back that up with. Just my observations.
Canadian military culture is an interesting thing. If we have an ingrained cultural mythology, it is as peacekeepers, but that has faded. Canada has never fought or won a foreign war on its own. It twice repulsed American invasions, but it was still a colony then, and it was British troops and ships that did the main fighting.
It became independent through negotiation, not war. Its founding document, the British North America Act, is a act of the British parliament. Every conflict since, except for small internal insurrections, has been as the junior partner of a major power, either Britain or the US. The nearest it has to a founding battle is the Battle of Vimy Ridge in WWI, which was the first time the Canadian battalions fought together under their own command.
After World War II, Canada came to see itself as a peacekeeping nation. It did not participate in any of the regional conflicts, but contributed to and led many UN peacekeeping missions. I think two things tore down that peacekeeping image. The first was the failure to stop the Rwandan genocide. The second was 9-11, where Canada began to undertake combat missions rather than peacekeeping. (Peacekeeping does not seem to be much of a thing these days anyway.)
Being a junior coalition partner in wars that no one is quite sure are effective or justified or winnable doesn't do much to form a new military mythology. Canadians do turn out to honor the dead from these conflicts, and for Remembrance day ceremonies, though poppies seem far less ubiquitous that they used to be. But all in all there is not much to build a national myth on in all this.
That's really interesting. I guess as young nations, Canada and the US had the chance to shape their own cultural mythologies to some degree, and it's kind of fascinating to see how they resemble one another and where they diverge. We in the US often look to Canada as our "good twin" and I think a lot of us would prefer if we had embraced a more peacekeeping persona, but I don't know if that was ever realistically a consideration for the US. It would make a fascinating military mythology, though.