well.

does anybody have any statistics on the incidence of poppy-wearing in first generation canadians? it's an empirical question.

i don't care about don cherry. he's kind of an institution in this country, but one of the things i remember about him was thinking he didn't even know that much about hockey. i don't actually know what he was trying to say, or if it was actually offensive.

if you said that recent immigrants don't celebrate easter, you'd mostly be right, because they largely aren't christians. now, if you implied that they should celebrate easter, you'd be saying something confusing. why is it reversed with remembrance day, which is a very specifically eurocentric event? why would we expect muslim or chinese immigrants to commemorate the deaths of white canadians fighting a pointless war for the british empire?

and, cherry is wrong on that point - world war one had nothing to do with democracy, and these people didn't die to save anybody. rather, their deaths were a symptom of their lack of freedom. most of the soldiers did not gain the franchise until after the war (if they survived it) because they didn't own property, and most of the people that died were conscripted to fight. those millions of dead did not choose their fate, they were pointlessly slaughtered for reasons that historians still can't entirely figure out, a hundred years later.

it's a completely orwellian holiday.

further, the canadian story is inherently ethnic in context - quebec nearly started a civil war over it, something called the conscription crisis. they didn't think they were dying for anybody's freedom, at all, they thought they were being marched off to die by the anglos.

if i were to move to china, i'd be faking it if i were to get into emotional reflections about the rape of nanking, even as i recognize that it was a horrible war crime. i don't know if they wear ribbons, or do something else to commemorate it, but i know i wouldn't do it. i'd have the respect to sit quietly and wait for them to finish, but it wouldn't be my holiday, and i wouldn't participate.

so, what he said was weird. but, if the premise is that the insinuation that immigrants don't celebrate remembrance day is insulting, i'd question it on it's face.

if there's an issue at hand here, it's maybe in coming to terms with the fact that remembrance day is kind of a white holiday that lacks relevance for a growing percentage of the country, while recognizing that it was never commemorated uniformly across the country in the first place.

in french canada, this is the day where we celebrate the end of conscription. but, don doesn't like the quebeckers, either - he's just allowed to talk about that, as he pleases.