JMJ
Sept.14,2011
The Canadian author and artist Michael D. O’Brien at StudiObrien.com has written a very important posting: Cankultur at the end of an age. He begins by quoting the Soviet dissident Solzhenitsyn “ Woe to the nation whose literature is interrupted by the interference of force. This is not simply a violation of “ freedom of the press. It is the locking up of the national heart....”To explain or summarise O’Brien’s essay would be more complicated than your reading it for yourself. Recommended.
Canadians have a battered wife syndrome. We can’t change things because we are too frightened to admit how bad things are. At best we will scream softly so the neighbours won’t hear. The fact is we have been and still are under a great deal of censorship, and oppression to the point of ntellectual and spiritual rape. We have lost who we are and despise those who want to restore our direction. It began not surprising under Prime Minister Pearson who was I.D.ed in his regime by soviet defector Gouzenko and by records released after the fall of the Soviet Union as a Communist agent. It continued by his hand picked, not elected Minister of Justice Pierre Trudeau. Along with a bottle green shrunken military our schools ceased to teach the Canadian story. Canadian readers such as UP AND AWAY, ALL SAILS SET et c by Copp Clarke were replaced by American pablum. The great writer and historian Thomas B. Costain, Catholic and Canadian was replaced by Pierre Berton, secular and globalist. The market place was replaced by Canada Council Grants. Writers got the message write without Christianity or starve. O’Brien tried for twenty years to get his work published before he gave up and found an American publisher, Ignatius Press. His stories are uniquely Canadian. They are not trivial, nor politically correct. They are literature. They are also widely read in America.
Our public school text books had more Catholic content than many present days Catholic school texts. Our history, literature and art had Catholic content because our country had and has a Catholic history, literature and art. The grade XII history text by Careless has an illustration and story of the Holy Canadian Martyrs and the massacre of the Huron Christian village because that really happened, shaped who we are and shaped our very existence. Now many Catholics haven’t even heard of Father de Brebeuf. History is not history but laundered should- have- been stories.
The Iroquois were not blood thirsty, demonic fighters . They were peacefully grinding corn in their long house until the priests came to steal their land. That is why captive Indians and priests were tortured and k....er I mean eliminated for security reasons. The Indian tribes lived in peace and plenty and occasionally smoked a joint er pipe with each other. And on and on. There were no need for priests, sisters, lay missionaries and martyrs because no one needed salvation. They had their own space on the back of a turtle. A wolf demon is as good as a Saviour dying for our sins. So why does no one want to be thrown to the wolves when they die but wants a Christian burial ?
We have had visiting American priests who held Fyfe’s poetry book in amazement at
the Christian collection of poems. Fyfe was a standard text book in public schools and still is mentioned as acceptable in the curriculum.. but you have to find a copy.
I have read one thing from Margaret Lawrence: a pamphlet asking for money for abortion promotion. That is enough. Margaret Atwood is not in our library either but Marjorie Pickthall is. I did not have to read O’Brien’s article to know why L’Ecole Notre Dame du Nord must continue to exist. I didn’t even need it to explain why a Fem Nazi wants to put me in jail and take away my computer. But it encourages me to know that one more person has faced the enemy and did not capitulate. Gay
