John A. Macdonald’s Aryan Canada: Aboriginal Genocide and Chinese Exclusion

By Timothy J. Stanley

Racisms are central to the creation of Canada through European dominance over the vast territories of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis people. A case in point is provided by John Alexander Macdonald and his enactment of Asian exclusion and the genocide of the people of the southern plains.[1]

Macdonald not only excluded the Chinese, he personally introduced biological racism as a defining characteristic of Canadianness. Continue reading

Old Chieftain or Old Charlatan? Assessing Sir John’s Complex Legacy through Political Cartoons

By Thomas Peace

This week ActiveHistory.ca has focused our attention to the legacy of Sir John A. Macdonald. In less than a week’s time, Canada will be in the throes of one big Sir John love-in. On 11 January, this country’s first prime minister will be celebrating the 200th year since his birth in Glasgow, Scotland. Over the course of this week, we’ll bring you essays on Sir John’s legacy regarding Indigenous peoples, immigration and the broader politics of his time. In doing so, we aim to present and assess Sir John in all his complexity. Neither then, nor now, has Canada’s first prime minister been universally celebrated and loved.

John_A_Macdonald_Daguerreotype Continue reading

New Directions in Active History: Institutions, Communication, and Technologies

Members of the editorial team are excited to announce that we’re organizing a conference. This three day conference will create a forum similar to our 2008 founding symposium “Active History: A History for the Future,” where historians interested in the practice of Active History can share their research, methods, and projects with each other. Second, as a primarily web-based and volunteer-run project, we also intend to use this conference to explore new directions for ActiveHistory.ca. With 20,000 unique visitors a month, ActiveHistory.ca is one of the best known history-related websites in Canada. Over the past five years, we’ve published nearly 1,000 blog posts, peer reviewed papers, book reviews, and podcasts. It is time to revisit the project’s goals and look towards what the next five years will bring.

Continue reading

A Toast to Jay Young

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Jay’s exit is our loss, but the Archives’ gain

ActiveHistory.ca is on a hiatus for the winter break, with a return to daily posts in early January. We’d like to leave you with an oldie but a goodie by Jay Young, Toronto’s subway historian and one of the founding members of the site.

This winter Jay left ActiveHistory.ca for a new job doing public outreach with the Archives of Ontario. Those who have contributed or worked with our site know that Jay played a critical role: greeting new contributors, working with them, and essentially making the site possible. His absence will be keenly felt by all of us, who had our days enlivened by the ability to work with Jay on a daily basis.

We’d like to publicly give Jay a toast (with a historically-informed Gin and Tonic, perhaps) – for the years with us, and to the exciting work that lies ahead at the Archives of Ontario. You’ll be missed, Jay! Continue reading

New paper: Campus Campaigns against Reproductive Autonomy

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ActiveHistory.ca is pleased to announce the publication of Carol Williams’s new paper: “Campus Campaigns against Reproductive Autonomy: The Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform Campus Genocide Awareness Project as Propaganda for Fetal Rights“:

In October of 2013 and 2014, the University of Lethbridge campus community was subjected to a visual spectacle staged by the Centre for Canadian Bioethical Reform or CCBR. CCBR is a subsidiary, or branch plant, of the California-based Centre for Bio Ethical Reform or CBR. These organizations are pyramid-like businesses who present themselves as concerned civil rights advocates working on behalf of fetal autonomy and other “traditional values.” Employing a range of carefully-crafted campaign strategies, and citing civil rights precedent, their political conservatism is not entirely transparent. Yet, political endorsements to “reform” civil society and policy are evident on their respective websites. For example, Mark Penninga, of the Lethbridge based Association of Reformed Political Action writes:

. . .we need a visionary strategy to open the eyes of Canadians to the evil that is being hidden behind the language of “choice.” CCBR’s efforts are an important component of that strategy. For the political arm of the pro-life movement to be effective, Canada needs these educational efforts.

The organization’s social conservatism contends that “liberal” values and perspectives including tolerance for same-sex relations and marriage, and “abortion, sexual liberation, pornography, new reproductive technologies and euthanasia . . . endanger the status of the traditional family” (Snow 2014, 154). As online endorsements clarify, CCBR strives for formal political change. The graphic display campaigns as witnessed at the University of Lethbridge signify a move by social conservatives to strategically rebrand themselves as advocates of human and reproductive rights.

Figure 1 Genocide Awareness Project, University of Lethbridge. Photograph by Don Gill. October 2014.

Figure 1 Genocide Awareness Project, University of Lethbridge. Photograph by Don Gill. October 2014.

While the CCBR displays and websites simplify the rivalry between liberal and socially conservative concepts of the individual, family, and public order, both liberals and social conservatives have, in fact, utilized litigation as a means to mobilize public opinion on moral issues (Snow cites Lessard 2002, 237 in Snow 2014, 156). Following the 1982 introduction of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, litigation was adopted by “interest groups” because political leadership tends to avoid decisive action on “morally sensitive issues.” The courts’ importance has therefore risen in tandem with political preference towards “judicial mediation” regarding “moral disputes” (Snow 2014, 154; 160). As Petchesky observed in 1987, the “anti-abortion movement made a conscious strategic shift from religious discourse and authorities to medicotechnical ones [to conceptually frame arguments for fetal viability and autonomy], in its efforts to win over the courts, the legislatures, and popular hearts and minds.” Paternal-medical “experts” like Bernard Nathanson— impresario and anti-abortion crusader—were recruited to legitimate a visual and moral text that granted the fetus a “public presence.” Nathanson’s visual exposition, popularized in the broadcast of the video, The Silent Scream (1985), explained how the “science of fetology” allowed spectators to “witness an abortion—“from the victim’s vantage point.”” Thus mass culture became “the vehicle for this [tactical] shift” rather than the medical profession although medical discourse served as authority (Petchesky 1987, 264-265). And so, as Petchesky convincingly argued, The Silent Scream resided in the “realm of cultural representation rather than of medical evidence” with the film’s moral and political imperative being “to induce individual women to abstain from having abortions and to persuade officials and judges to force them to do so” (267). [Continue Reading…]

Second Annual(?) Year in Review (100 Years Later) Bracket

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By Aaron Boyes and Sean Graham

Once again we've offered our two cents about the events of 100 years ago. Let us know what you think of the final results.

Once again we’ve offered our two cents about the events of 100 years ago. Let us know what you think of the final results.

Another year has passed, and with that more lists discussing the most important people/events of 2014 will soon be appearing on websites, in magazines, and on personal blogs. For us, however, we will once again be using historical hindsight to discuss, and debate, the most important/influential events of 100 years ago. We have identified the major events and placed them in a ‘March Madness’ style bracket. This year’s regions are: Transportation, International, Cultural Affairs, and Potpourri.

Readers will immediately notice that there is nothing about the First World War in the bracket. Before you start writing us angry e-mails, comments, and Tweets, a brief disclaimer is necessary. We omitted events of the First World War for two reasons. First, there is a wealth of excellent scholarship that has been written about the Great War to commemorate the centennial of this horrific conflict. Second, an event from the War would have won the bracket without any competition. Therefore, we decided to focus on other events from 1914 that may not be as familiar.

With this in mind, we selected what we think are the sixteen most important people/events from 1914 and pitted them against one another. Below is how our bracket turned out.

 We hope you enjoy the Second Annual(?) Year in Review (100 Years Later) Bracket! If you disagree with our decisions and have an idea for a more important event, be sure to join the conversation!

Sweet Sixteen (Seeds in Bracket)

Potpurri Region

(1) First Successful Non-Direct Blood Transfusion v. (4)  Oxymorphone Developed
Continue reading

Here We Come A-Picketing! Christmas Carols, Class Conflict, and the Eaton’s Strike, 1984-85

By Sean Carleton and Julia Smith

Eaton's PicketlineBy mid-December, the holiday shopping season is usually in full swing for Canadian retailers. Thirty years ago, however, several Eaton’s department stores in southern Ontario were experiencing a different type of holiday hustle and bustle: Eaton’s workers were on strike.

Hoping that unionization would improve their wages and working conditions, many of the department stores’ mostly female workers had joined the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU); but management’s refusal to negotiate left them with few options but to withdraw their labour power. On 30 November 1984 RWDSU members at six Eaton’s locations went on strike. In doing so, they embarked on a significant struggle to win a collective agreement in a sector known for poor pay and precarity, all while enduring one of the coldest winters in Canadian history. Continue reading

Did You Know the American World War I Museum is in Kansas City?

By Jeff Bowersox

The Liberty Memorial, Kansas MI

The Liberty Memorial, Kansas MI

I found out about the National World War I Museum during a recent conference trip – yes, to Kansas City. I was curious to see how it would memorialise a conflict that, for most Americans, is greatly overshadowed by its successor, and decided to visit. The museum is intertwined with the Liberty Memorial, dedicated in 1926 to honor the sacrifices of those who fought for their country. The museum aims to go beyond reverence, according to its mission statement to “inspire thought, dialogue and learning to make the experience of the World War I era meaningful and relevant for present and future generations.” It certainly succeeds in engaging visitors through clear stories and thought-provoking artifacts. It’s worth visiting, and an excellent teaching resource.

There are many things to be said about the genuinely interesting exhibits, innovative multimedia resources, and friendly and knowledgeable staff. I will limit myself to a few observations relating to the museum’s grand narrative, since it raises questions about the purpose of a national museum and the relationship between commemoration and scholarship. Put another way, what story is considered meaningful, and for whom is it relevant.  Continue reading

Heroin as treatment? The calculations of a new ‘junk’ equation

Bayer_Heroin_bottleBy Lucas Richert

[This post was first published on Alternet.org]

“I have learned the junk equation,” wrote William Burroughs in his semi-autobiographical 1953 book, Junkie. “Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increase enjoyment of life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life.”

According to Burroughs, the beatnik, spoken word performer, and author of such other novels as Naked Lunch and Queer, heroin was a way of life for habitual users and addicts. It was not simply a drug that enhanced the quality of one’s everyday experiences, nor was it a means to be a more productive individual. Rather, junk was an end in itself. Burroughs, for his part, used methadone treatment to deal with his junk addiction.

Heroin has had a long and troubled history. Continue reading

Putin’s Lessons from History

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By Andriy Zayarnyuk

Vladimir Putin answered journalists’ questions on the situation in Ukraine (Source: http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/6763)

Vladimir Putin answered journalists’ questions on the situation in Ukraine (Source: http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/6763)

Now that Vladimir Putin has acknowledged his responsibility for invading Ukraine in February 2013, finding out about his worldview is no longer a matter of mere curiosity. Putin’s statements of the last decade demonstrate that his thinking about Ukraine and Russia is deeply mired in history. Already in 2005, reminding the upper chamber of the Russian parliament of “how contemporary Russian history was born,” he called the collapse of the Soviet Union the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” [1] The remarks that followed made it perfectly clear that “geopolitical” was not a slip of the tongue. He did not mean the imploding system of social security, post-Soviet economic decline, and people’s misery, reflected in plunging life expectancy. He meant exactly what he said: that the disappearance of the Soviet state’s borders was a disaster for the Russian nation per se.

Why was the disappearance of this particular border a disaster? According to Putin, it left “tens of millions of our fellow citizens and compatriots outside of the borders of the Russian territory.” [2] Apparently, he imagines that the Soviet Union was an exclusively Russian state. If the founding fathers and subsequent rulers of the USSR heard this statement, they would be spinning in their graves. The whole point of signing the Union treaty in 1922 was to create a federation of free and equal socialist nations, ending Russian oppression of other nationalities on the territories of the former Russian Empire. Continue reading