Dundas Street in Toronto (yes, all 25 kilometres) is losing its name: boohoo! But I pity that Canadians cannot tolerate paradox. Toronto ‘the Good’ cannot cope with the idea that Dundas, who never once set foot on Canada, was responsible for over half a million slaves being shipped out of Africa. Not a nice legacy, indeed. But in our effort to purify Toronto, and by implication our image of Canada, are we not actually imitating historic movements which did not tolerate impurity?
In a recent opinion piece contributed to the Toronto Star, Canadian sage John Ralston
Saul writes: “Imagine the same street if it were called Goebbels Street?
Himmler Street?”[1]
Saul seems to forget that everything Hitler did was about purity: he was a
vegetarian; he didn’t smoke; he was obsessed with germs; and above all, he
wanted to cleanse Germany, along with the rest of Europe if not the world, of
so-called impurities, Jews and other ‘inferior’ people. If we cannot tolerate perceived imperfection, are we
not by implication being intolerant?
Why now? The pandemic has much to do with this. As is often said (but without the irony) we
are not only enduring a Coronavirus pandemic, we are also experiencing – it is alleged - a “racism pandemic”. While unable to socialize with each other, for fear of spreading viruses, we nonetheless aim to promote
socialization by spreading diversity and inclusion. While we obsess over possible germs, we rid
ourselves of our historic weaknesses.
While the coronavirus kills, we nonetheless strive to make Canada a
“safe” place. Constrained by the pandemic, we anyhow take the given time to adjust our urban landscape, or at least its nomenclature.
After Dundas Street, what’s next? All the Dundas streets in Canada? (My Mom is
moving to one of them). Today I see the name British Columbia is on the chopping
block, among some. In my view, the province is neither British nor Columbian,
but, heck: out with the old and in with the new!
Perhaps, in the future, we should use numbers instead of
names for streets. The city of New York,
for example, must be an improvement over “Old York”, where one has to pay
attention to odd English spellings.
The welcome mat is always at Canada's door. But as we retrofit the house, we also need to remind ourselves that imperfection is not always a bad thing, that it, too, should be included in the name of diversity. Otherwise we lose our sense of tolerance.
[1] John Ralston Saul, “Dundas Street is
a terrible name. Changing it would show
Toronto is no longer trapped in the image of a major slave baron” Toronto Star (Tuesday, July 6, 2021). See also Matt Elliott, “Spending millions to
rename Dundas and other streets will not fix the real inequities in Toronto. Here’s an idea that might help.” Toronto Star (Tuesday, July 13, 2021).
No comments:
Post a Comment