Throughout history, decent, progressive-minded Canadians with humanitarian instincts have provided tacit, if not overt support for State violence. These have included genocidal policies against the Indigenous population of the country, the internment of thousands of Eastern European migrants in slave labour camps, and imperial aggression in South Africa, Haiti, and Libya.
Ottawa based radical and anti-war activist Richard Sanders is convinced that the bulk of the public have become captives of a psychosis springing from national narratives of Canadian exceptionalism. These narratives blind us to the violence being perpetrated against our fellow humans in the service of elite interests, even convincing us these actions are right and good.
The âCanada Syndrome,â as he calls it, is the subject of this feature length interview. It includes a discussion of the famous social gospel and how revered figures like J.S. Woodsworth displayed highly racist and xenophobic sentiments and ironically served to reinforce the authority of corporate elites.