I’ve wanted to write about this for a while, and then this article written by Eugenia Tsao inspired me:
Smug Toronto Seethes as Tamils “Go Too Far”
“Tamil protests a test of our tolerance,” the Toronto Star pronounced, while the Globe and Mail chided the demonstrators for squandering public support with their disruptive tactics (“Tamils earn goodwill—then lose it,” May 20).
“Ours, you see, is a tolerant society” Canadians smugly confide to visiting Americans. And while the line between tolerance and mere endurance is a slender one, few would deny Canadians’ infatuation with cultural diversity. We like to lunch on sushi and samosas, sport henna tattoos, practice yoga, wear paisley embroidery, listen to reggae, and hang feathered dreamcatchers from our rearview mirrors. We proudly subscribe to magazines like National Geographic for the exotic, high-contrast photography and romanticized verbal portraiture. We love falling asleep on the subway to a velvet medley of diasporic languages, and nothing delights us more than consuming enormous sandwiches filled with things like prosciutto and chorizo.
But we cannot eat acts of non-violent civil disobedience or wear political grievances, you see, and this confuses us.
Tsao is so right on. In fact, whenever I hear certain liberal multi-culti white folks in Toronto yammer on and on about cultural diversity, it’s almost always immediately followed up with some bull about how great it is that in Toronto they can have samples of cuisines from around the world.
Of course that is something that I, too, value about living in Toronto, however, to simply eat the other is not enough. Consuming culture (metaphorically) and food (literally) without a political understanding of struggles, power and colonialism, is just reiterating imperial power relations all over again.
Back to Tsao:
Rather than forcing the natives to dance for us at the crack of a whip, we expect them to do so voluntarily, citing our need for unending cultural enrichment and enlightenment, or their need to evince gratitude for our generous foreign policies. Rather than accusing them of high treason when they dare to publicize historical injustices in inconvenient—and unentertaining—ways, we cluck our tongues and accuse them of strategic imprudence. “Can’t you see you’re just alienating your audience?” we hiss, annoyed, mouths full of falafel and tandoori chicken.
Hot damn, I love this woman.