Canada–the America some wish it were

Now that Donald Trump’s lording over America, there were Americans planning to move to Canada and from a certain standpoint, Canada’s an uncanny valley version of America. It’s like America but also never quite. It’s open to immigrants, queers, global warming awareness, marijuana and several other things I’m honestly in the dark about. But given Trump’s immense impact on America, Canada emerges as a tolerant alternative and middle ground.

That’s wanting to hang out in places where both liberalism and English language are the majority. Not just California but also Canada as a whole despite the existence of Canadian right wing extremists. Though both nations do have their flaws and virtues, Canada’s like the parallel universe version of America where it never really strayed away from Britain the way America did. I could be wrong about Trump myself but Canada’s a very appealing alternative when you think about it.

2020 Recession

Somebody said that a trade war between America and China might trigger another recession, given the former having chilly relations with not only China but also Canada and Europe along with rising prices would allow a 2020 recession. Even if it’s not quite a recession, the effects aren’t without a cause. Not to mention a lowered reputation for both China and America.

If this ever continues, we could get another recession. (I’m afraid that a third world country like Ghana and Nigeria might overtake their Western counterparts in becoming big economies themselves.) The 2020 recession might even favour third world countries to take over and become bigger themselves.

Even the Philippines might emerge victories and develop stronger trading ties with China and some African countries. The 2020s might be marked by the West’s true downfall.

The Real All-American Cultures

I’ve been reading some Facebook posts insisting that many more Mexican Americans should embrace their Native American heritage and admittedly some of them are already doing this. Though admittedly, if there are civilisations that are truly all-American it’s better to think of the Incans, Mayans and Aztecs among others. Maybe not entirely the case but still noteworthy when it comes to massive Native American civilisations.

While Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, Guatemala and Ecuador certainly aren’t above mistreating Native Americans, I think it’s much more severe in places like Argentina, America, Canada and Brazil where Native Americans are really that underrepresented. Enough to be practically nonexistent and imaginary. But I still think Native Americans do deserve more than that.

They’re the first Americans and should be entitled to it. Even if it’s not entitlement, they deserve much better.

 

Native Americans and Americana

Like I said, Mexicans, Guatemalans and Ecuadorians don’t treat Native Americans any better. But that their sheer numbers are greater indicating a greater influence as well. Native Americans in America constitute like around 1.6%. (In Canada, it’s like 4.9%.) Not that they lack any influence given a good number of states are named after them. But they’re small enough to be misinterpreted and ignored many times over.

Keep in mind that Native Americans still vary a lot from each other even with shared experiences and sentiments. Oneidas could differ from Navajos, ad infinitum. While I don’t know much about Native American cultures so to speak but extrapolating from my understanding of African demographics per country, it could be the same for Native Americans.

But I suspect in places where Native Americans are nearly neglible (they make up around 0.6% in Brazil, 3.4% in Colombia and 2.38% in Argentina) these do deserve to be preserved for generations to come as well as to be studied extensively. Conversely speaking, if America’s any indication they could be just as vulnerable to romanticisation and misconceptions.

(Again, countries with substantial Native American populations aren’t any better either.)

But that given that they themselves are highly variable, their respective cultures are worthy studying and learning about.

British Colonies

Africa:

Nigeria

Ghana

Cameroon

Kenya

Tanzania

Gambia

Egypt

South Africa

Uganda

Botswana

Zambia

Zimbabwe

 

Asia:

Hong Kong (now part of China)

Malaysia

Singapore

 

Europe:

Ireland

Gibraltar (Spain)

Cyprus

 

Americas:

Guyana

Jamaica

Bahamas

Barbados

St Kitts

America

Canada

 

The Pacific:

New Zealand

Australia

Other French ex-colonies

Louisiana

Canada (part of Britain)

Tahiti

French Polynesia

Vietnam

Laos

Cambodia

New Caledonia

Syria

Lebanon

Britain Conquering The World

Not that France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany never attempted to colonise outside of Europe. But to my knowledge, Spain mostly colonised South America and the Philippines. France colonised Africa and to a degree Southeast Asia and the Pacific (Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, Tahiti and New Caledonia).

Actually Germany and Italy attempted to colonise Africa but with the former its territories eventually became French, Belgian and British respectively. These included Togo, Cameroon, Botswana, Tanzania and Burundi. Unsurprisingly they don’t use German anymore.

Italy only conquered Eritrea, Libya and to a degree Ethiopia. Turkey could be retroactively considered as a European colonial power with regards to its inclusion in the European Union and that it also conquered or heavily influenced Ethiopia as far as I can recall. Right down to using them as eunuchs during the Ottoman Empire though I could be getting my facts wrong.

Portugal conquered Angola, Cabo Verde, Mozambique, Brazil and to a lesser degree China via Macau. The Netherlands claims Suriname and previously Indonesia (again from memory). Belgium had Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi. Britain by contrast exceeds theirs.

Not only they claimed Nigeria, Ghana, parts of Cameroon and China, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malaysia, Hong Kong (now part of China), Singapore, Papua New Guinea, India (including what’ll become of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) and Egypt to varying degrees. But also North America which Canada, Jamaica, Barbados, Bahamas, Australia and New Zealand remain British commonwealths.

I think I remember reading somewhere that the British invaded much of the world. Admittedly I can name more British former colonies than I do with the rest since the British Empire’s scope exceeded all these other European empires. France and Spain come close but even then France mostly influenced Africa and Spain to South America.

It’s really astonishing that Britain conquered a lot of territory for a small island country.

Jamaica

Jamaica’s one of the islands in the Caribbean that arguably has come a long way if you believe Geoba.se which at this point its own fertility rate is now 1.94 children per woman with people living up to their seventies mostly owing to better education and efforts at birth control. While it’s still got its own problems at times, let’s not forget that it managed to catch up with many, if not most of, North America in fertility declines.

Many more Mexicans are expected to live up to their seventies as well and now there are around 2.17 children per woman over there. Canada fares at around 1.60 children per woman and America at 2.06 births per woman. As for both Mexico and Jamaica, it’s also got to do with rapid economic growth and industrialisation that would’ve been unthinkable (to some) before.

It’s safe to say that both Jamaica and Mexico are firmly within Stage 3 of demographic transition.

Italy and America

America and Italy have some interesting connections. America actually got its name from Amerigo Vespucci (relative to Simonetta Vespucci) who was one of the first Europeans to discover it, alongside Christopher Columbus. America not only hosts one of the largest overseas Italian communities (alongside Brazil and Argentina) almost on par with France (hence the transalpine cousins thing).

As for France, it’s helped by that Napoleon Bonaparte’s of Italian descent. Not only did he create the French Empire but also attempted to (re)create Kingdom of Italy and their flags are very similar.  But onto the similarities between America and Italy, if America’s been compared to Rome and Italy’s the successor state to Rome, then it’s almost something of a self-fulfilling prophecy that both would have rather similar figures in power.

There’ve been comparisons between Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump in that they’re chauvinistic showbiz personalities that became their countries’ respective rulers of sorts. Even Berlusconi considered it obvious. The next logical step to the America/Rome comparison is the city-state period.

There technically was a Kingdom of Italy for as long as they’re connected to the Holy Roman Empire considering how much infighting over there and Alpine barriers. Arguably, Italy at the time was a collection of semi-autonomous city-states and fiefdoms comparable* to how Macau and Hong Kong are to China with Venice the Italian Taiwan.

(Except that Venice eventually declined and became part of the Austrian Empire.)

Coincidentally, there’s a Venice Beach in America among other things. America could enter its own city-state period, should predictions about its decline ever occur at all. Let’s not forget that America was historically a collection of separate kingdoms and chieftaincies (Hawaii originally had its own monarchy) as well as having states that originally belonged to different empires and kingdoms.

Parts of America came from Mexico via Spain as well as France where the state Louisiana was named after a certain King Louis. Alaska originally belonged to Russia and there’s even an Alaskan Russian dialect. Historically, there was a civil war between seceded states and those that didn’t. Considering that both California and Texas have considered secession, that’s frighteningly likely.

Add rapid urbanisation and mega-cities to it and America could start resembling Italy especially after the dissolution of the Roman Empire.

*Or better the many Italian city-states were commonwealths of the Holy Roman Empire in the same way Jamaica, Canada and Australia are British commonwealths. Britain being the country that America seceded. America itself got its own commonwealths in American Samoa and Puerto Rico.

Far behind

Like I said, colonies have a tendency to be sometimes far behind their colonisers in some regards. Historically Ghana seemed very gay friendly especially with ‘male wives’ whilst its coloniser England had very strong homophobic laws, the very same laws were imported onto Ghana (there are some Ghanaians that endorse LGBT rights) and later repealed in England itself. Brazil could be no different. Actually so are Ireland, America and Canada which some linguists think their accent (pronouncing the R) is a leftover of Elizabethan England.

Since Ireland’s the first British colony, being colonised since the Tudor and Medieval times, it would seem parsimonious to suggest that the infamous Irish accent’s rather close to what the Elizabeth English sounded like. Logically, Brazilian Portuguese is no different. From what I recall, European Portuguese has words for yes and no similar to Spanish but there’s no counterpart in Brazilian Portuguese (almost paralleling the Irish language in it).

When it comes to how the word for dog is used, there was the old European belief that the Devil enjoyed appearing as a dog so Portugal would’ve not been exempt at the time (Brazil, as we know it, had yet to exist). Since colonisation, this belief still exists in that the word for dog also doubles as a slang for the devil. Similarly some Ghanaian and Ugandan churches and communities believe in demonic and witch dogs, something also found in Renaissance Britain and Scotland.