Fancy Pants

Democracy For All

We live in an era where democracy is under constant scrutiny. I grew up believing democracy was wonderful and crucial. It rules! But in the last ten or twenty years we’re all looking at it a little differently.

Trump is no longer the leader of the free world -“foreigners” are increasingly not seen as equal, and technology could change everything - if the climate does not wipe us out first. I was raised to think democracy mattered. I still do, but the story I was told tended to be male and white. Democracy worked for them, less so for everybody else. It all got me thinking about what democracy means.

I went to public school in the late 60s and 70s. We were taught a few things, things that were unquestionable, or at least that’s how we were educated. We were told how Canada was discovered by the fur trade - coureurs des bois- and, of course, about how in 1867, the Fathers of Confederation gathered in Prince Edward Island to found a new nation. The fact that there were people already here for thousands of years was hardly mentioned.

There were no Mothers of Confederation - mothers did not exist in the new Canadian Constitution. Like Indigenous people, or anyone not British, women couldn’t vote. Only men could, and then only if they were British subjects who owned property and made enough money. They all wore pants, fancy pants at that. No one wearing a skirt was allowed. Women, after all, were not considered “persons”.

Did I mention that we all sang the British anthem back then? Maybe I was a British citizen, by Jove! At least I got to vote - in 1929 Parliament passed an act saying so. Most Indigenous people got the vote decades later. Along with “Asians,” they were allowed to vote in 1960. 1960!

Also, we were taught that there were two founding nations - English and French - “warring in the bosom of a single state.” But there were three in that bosom. It was only in 2011 that they were officially changed to three. A bosom with three nations as“Aboriginal” people were added. It only took 250 years.

I was not just told about my birthplace. We were taught the American Constitution in 1787, apart from splitting from the UK, was about making everyone equal, at least making all men equal. George Washington and all the Founding Fathers were heroes! It was not mentioned that equality was only for some, just like in Canada. They are still referred to as the Good Old Days.

We learned too about the Holocaust. In the 70s, the atrocities were still fresh, and everyone seemed to agree the Jewish people needed a homeland. Israel was formed in 1948. We were not taught about the Nakba, another example of how one version of a story was told. Like Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu is challenging what democracy means.

I’ve been thinking more about what we were taught as I read Elan Nehorai’s latest Substack on democracy, where he often writes about disenfranchised groups. “They understand that the dominant group sees themselves as human enough to deserve a vote, and they know within their souls that they are also equally human……As long as that opportunity exists, there will be a constant struggle for inclusion from those who have been cut out.”

In other words, why can’t I be equal too? Democracy makes it possible.

Province House, where Canada was formed, is going through a lengthy retrofit. In a 2022 newsletter, Parks Canada admitted, “Figuring out how to tell the stories of Province House isn’t easy.” I’ll say. It’s easier if you don’t ask any questions. Nehoria argues about George Washington et al… “For their time, relative to other European colonialists, they could be considered progressive.”

Democracy was first developed in Athens hundreds of years ago. And yes, the Greek Constitution then barred “women, enslaved people, and foreigners”. What Nehoria says about all humans thinking they are worth something and democracy encouraging it stuck with me. The perception of equality for all was never really true. Democracy keeps expanding, and then shrinking - it never stays the same. It’s still worth fighting for.