Unit 12 Flashcards
What is nationalism?
- A nation is imagined, or if you prefer, like gender, it is constructed.
- A dominant group invents or imagines the nation in their image, thus ensuring that nationalism reflects their values and ideologies.
- Nationalism then, in this sense, becomes the willingness to protect the ideologies and values that form the imagined nation.
What is a nationalist?
Those who believe their nation is better than the others. Remember, these terms can be placed on a spectrum, with extreme nationalism leaning into fascism, and often the eradication of other nations.
What does Benedict Anderson tell us about nationalism and nationalist?
That they are imagined “because members of even the smallest nation will not know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear from them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.”
What does Michael Bobidoux say using Benedict’s work?
that “ defining a national identity is a creative process that requires constructing a shared history and mythologies that best suit the identity imagined by those few responsible for responding to this task.”
When a nation is imagined, it will inevitably result in what?
- The rejection of others. Those people are not imagined as part of the imagination.
- It’s almost as if a membership is required to be part of the nation. A membership based on the color of your skin, the language you speak, your beliefs, your sexual orientation, and what’s between your legs.
- The idea of “nation” is gendered and racial.
- A good way to think of nation as imagined or constructed is to look at it geographically and temporally.
What is the malleable Nation?
- Nadia Eid defines the nation as a “historical concept” that is subject to change.
- History, symbols, and myths are all constructed. This means that things can be added and things can be removed from any of these in order to imagine the nation.
- Entire cultures have been erased from collective memory in order to build an identity. Those same cultures were then reinserted at a later time.
- National identity must be continually reproduced and updated to ensure the continuity of the national imagination.
Truth and Reconciliation
What’s the national imagination?
The national imagination encompasses what is deemed important to Canadians. It’s what makes up their Canadian- ness.
What happened when the NHL became very big?
- More and more teams were added.
- As early as the early 1960s, more than 5 million viewers tuned into CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada.
- In the 1970s, European players were drafted into the NHL and a certain emphasis was put on fighting and hitting. Star players like Mario Lemieux turned to skill and speed. The presence of star players however meant higher salaries and new revenues from TV contracts.
Which teams could not survive because of money?
• 1995, the Quebec Nordiques are sold and become the Colorado Avalanche.
• 1996, the Winnipeg Jets are sold and become the Phoenix Coyotes (return in 2011)
What happened in 2000 with the federal gouvernement?
Hockey was so important for Canada that, in 2000, the federal government decided to subsidize professional hockey teams. No can do! Huge objection because professional hockey is a private matter.
Establishment of salary caps, leading to disagreements, and a lockout, halting the 2004-2005 season.
How does the government get involved with the olympics?
- Prior to 1945, Canada was a fierce competitor at the Olympic Games.
- In 1956, studies demonstrated that the health and physical activity of Canadians were at a misereable state.
- In 1960, Canada places 26 out of 53 at the Olympic Games.
- In hockey specifically, the Canada sport (according to Canada), the Soviet Union wins several victories, often against Canada.
- Solution: start funding amateur sports
What is Bill C-131?
- Septembre 1961 – Bill C-131– “An Act to Encourage Fitness and Amateur Sport.”
- Symbolized a new commitment on the part of the federal government to be involved in the administration of sport and fitness across Canada.
- **Amateur sport included the Olympic Games
- According to you, do you think the federal government’s main concern was the health of the nation?
According to the government what does sport bring?
- The promotion of a strong national identity and demonstrates harmony and unity. The idea of union promoted over and over in Canada.
- The idea is to unite all Canadian under similar values. In this case, sport.
- Sport is also beneficial for one’s health – the promotion of public health (participAction).
What’s the myth of autonomy?
The idea (even today) that there should be, and there is a division between sport and politics.
What is the promotional politics?
The Olympic Games and other Mega-Events (World Cup) offer incontestable opportunities to define and present a particular image of the host city to its own citizens and to the entire world.
Résult: $$$$$$$
What were the issues with the Montreal olympics?
- In 1970, when Mayor Jean Drapeau sent his proposal to the International Olympic Committee and to the provincial and federal governments. He estimated a total budget of $120 million.
- Three years later, the cost had already reached $310 million.
- By the time the games were over, they had cost $1.6 billion. Causing immense debt for the city of Montreal. It took 30 years for that debt to be paid off.
What happened for the Montreal Olympics to be so expensive?
One of the biggest issues, if not the biggest, was the stadium called “the Big Owe” a play on words on “the Big O.” Estimated at $71 million, the stadium ended up costing $1.1 billion.
• Use of a very popular French architect, Roger Taillibert $$$
• Taillibert insisted on having his own team from France $$$
• His design was bigger than first thought $$$
• Very long worker strike between 1974 and 1976 $$$
• Corruption $$$$$$ (funds used to build someone a cottage and unchecked deliveries)
• Inflation in material $$$
What is an important question when talking about victory for Canada?
- “Whose victories, then, do sport victories represent, when a dominant collective identity can be imagined or invented or can be based on common or dominant social practices, sometimes at the expense of individual or marginalized identities and customs?” (213)
- When we think of Olympic victories, we imagine the victory to be inclusive. (We the North, not “Us but not you, the North”)
- When the media, in 2002 (and before and after) emphasized the men’s hockey gold medal victory as a Canadian victory, who do you think felt part of this victory?
- There is a difference between being pleased about a victory, and feeling that you are part of a movement.
