Al Mayadeen English

  • Ar
  • Es
  • x
Al Mayadeen English

Slogan

  • News
    • Politics
    • Economy
    • Sports
    • Arts&Culture
    • Health
    • Miscellaneous
    • Technology
    • Environment
  • Articles
    • Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Blog
    • Features
  • Videos
    • NewsFeed
    • Video Features
    • Explainers
    • TV
    • Digital Series
  • Infographs
  • In Pictures
  • • LIVE
News
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Sports
  • Arts&Culture
  • Health
  • Miscellaneous
  • Technology
  • Environment
Articles
  • Opinion
  • Analysis
  • Blog
  • Features
Videos
  • NewsFeed
  • Video Features
  • Explainers
  • TV
  • Digital Series
Infographs
In Pictures
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Europe
  • Latin America
  • MENA
  • Palestine
  • US & Canada
BREAKING
Abu Obeida: War criminal Netanyahu and his Nazi ministers have deliberately set their minds on reducing the number of living enemy captives by half
Abu Obeidah: Our freedom fighters are in a state of alert, readiness, and high morale; ready to demonstrate unique exemplars of heroism and bravery, and they will teach the invaders harsh lessons
Abu Obeida: The enemy’s army will pay the price with the blood of its soldiers, and the chances of capturing more soldiers will increase, God willing
Military spokesperson for the al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida: The enemy’s criminal plans to occupy Gaza will be a disaster for its political and military leadership
US to refuse visas to Palestinian officials at UN summit focused on state: State Dept
Lebanese Army Commander: We are carrying out the necessary coordination with the Syrian authorities regarding control of the northern and eastern borders, as it serves a common interest
Lebanese Army Commander: Nothing will deter us from continuing to shoulder our responsibilities in various regions [in Lebanon] and along the Lebanese border
Lebanese Army Commander: The army will take the necessary steps to ensure the success of its mission, while taking into account maintaining civil peace and internal stability
Lebanese Army Commander: The Army bears major responsibilities at various levels and is entering a critical phase in which it will undertake sensitive missions
Sources in the Ministry of Defense in Sanaa to Al Mayadeen's correspondent: The enemy aims to prepare the Israeli interior for the Yemeni operations that will strike deep into "Israel"

Trump’s threats and the dangers of national outrage in Canada

  • Timo Al-Farooq Timo Al-Farooq
  • Source: Al Mayadeen English
  • 29 Jun 2025 17:53
6 Min Read

What makes expressions of Canadian patriotism problematic is that they blur the thin line between “harmless” patriotism and nationalism.

  • x
  • Trump’s threats and the dangers of national outrage in Canada (Illustrated by Zeinab al-Hajj for Al Mayadeen English)
    Trump’s threats and the dangers of national outrage in Canada (Illustrated by Zeinab al-Hajj for Al Mayadeen English)

US President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to annex Canada and his trade war against the northern neighbour have really done a number on Canadians, who are pushing back with ubiquitous public expressions of patriotic fervour.

Passersby on the streets of Toronto are donning “Canada Is Not For Sale” hats, popularised by Ontario’s conservative premier Doug Ford when he wore one in a meeting in reaction to Trump’s proposition to make Canada the 51st US state, and T-shirts featuring the slogan “Elbows up”, a sports reference to a Canadian hockey great that has become a rallying cry against US tariffs.

It seems one cannot walk past a store window these days that does not broadcast Canadian patriotism. Upon entering a Dollarama chain store, you will be greeted by a framed poster in the colour and design of the Canadian flag, which reads “Proudly Canadian".

In order to expel any confusion as to what that sentence might mean, underneath it says, “100% founded and operated by Canadians.” Why is this information relevant?

Some of these declarations of national pride don’t even make sense: the streaming service Crave makes a point of proclaiming to be “Proudly Canadian” on billboards which advertise the second season of “The Last of Us”, an American drama series based on an American video game franchise.

This begs the question: What makes a streaming service Canadian, and why is that important?

Self-identifying progressives are also participating in this flag-waving jingoism we in Germany call Hurrapatriotismus. In Toronto’s gentrified Dundas Street West area, you will find vintage shops displaying “Proudly Canadian-owned since…” signs, as if the duration of Canadian proprietorship has any relevance to the quality of the wares one is selling.

The thin line between patriotism and nationalism

Coming from Germany with its genocidal history of obsession with racial purity and where the idea of shop windows displaying signs that say “Proudly German-owned” or “100 % founded and operated by Germans” remains rightfully unacceptable, I find these proclamations of Canadian pride to be deeply disturbing.

Related News

How ‘Human Rights’ became a Western weapon

Why the US is cozying up to Pakistan once more

They instantly remind me of the iconic Schopenhauer quote: “The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud.”

While expressions of Canadian patriotism are not new, the frequency and the way they are phrased, employing the language of otherisation and highlighting one’s national purity (which insinuates that foreign influences are dilutive), are a direct reaction to Trump’s economic war-mongering and expansionist overtures.

What makes them dangerous is that they blur the thin line between “harmless” patriotism and nationalism. Signs that say “Proud to be 100% Canadian” on the windows of stores, bars, and restaurants quickly become less about voicing opposition to an economic or geopolitical injustice (tariffs and annexation) and more about propagating one’s own perceived national superiority.

Dressed in the language of purity, statements like these seek to homogenise and quantify something as unquantifiable as a national identity and are all too often indistinguishable from racial supremacist rhetoric.

Violating Indigenous sovereignty

Pride in an artificial construct, such as the nation state, is problematic in itself, as Benedict Anderson successfully argues in his seminal work “Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism”:

“The nation is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately, it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willing to die for such limited imaginings.”

In a Canadian context, that “deep, horizontal comradeship” is downright oppressive because those who are espousing pride in their nation are predominantly the descendants of European settlers who refuse to acknowledge the violent colonisation and ongoing theft of lands from their original Indigenous inhabitants and custodians.

Doug Ford’s governance is a salient embodiment of this colonial hypocrisy, lamenting the attack on Canadian sovereignty in the face of US tariffs and annexation threats, but enacting policies that violate the territorial sovereignty of Ontario’s First Nation communities.

The province’s controversial Bill 5, now passed into law without prior consultation with Indigenous rights holders, gives the government the power to create “special economic zones” on lands protected by Treaty rights, allowing the cabinet to grant companies exemptions from labour or environmental laws in order to fast track harmful extractive industries projects.

Perpetuating settler colonialism

Focusing on the threats from and harmful behaviours of its southern US neighbour is a convenient way for Canadians to portray themselves as victims, while denying their own harmful role in what Canadian activist and author Harsha Walia in her eye-opening book “Undoing Border Imperialism” describes as “the global political economy of capitalism and colonialism.”

In their collective outrage against Trump’s economic warfare and annexation threats, indignant Canadians should use that activist energy to tackle the shortcomings of their own nation-state, many of which are a direct result of denying and perpetuating settler colonial and capitalist injustices.

Whether “Canada Is Not For Sale” or “Make America Great Again”, from the perspective of the original inhabitants and keepers of the lands on which European invaders violently erected artificial nation-state constructs within arbitrarily-drawn borders, they both just might be two sides of the same oppressive coin.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Mayadeen’s editorial stance.
  • United States
  • US President Donald Trump
  • MAGA
  • Canada
  • Trump
  • Make America Great Again
  • Canada Is Not For Sale
Timo Al-Farooq

Timo Al-Farooq

Freelance journalist and political commentator with a B.A. in Asian and African Studies.

Most Read

All
Declassified: CIA’s covert Ukraine invasion plan

Declassified: CIA’s covert Ukraine invasion plan

  • Opinion
  • 16 Aug 2025
Almost instantly after the Helsinki Accords were signed, organisations sprouted to document purported violations, whose findings were fed to overseas embassies for international amplification. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

How ‘Human Rights’ became a Western weapon

  • Opinion
  • 23 Aug 2025
Although it does seem likely they will launch some kind of operation in northern Gaza, one which will accelerate its mass murder of civilians, but will fail to achieve its stated objectives. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)

Here is why the Israeli occupation of Gaza won’t work

  • Opinion
  • 26 Aug 2025
Palestine will not be liberated by UN reports, but by pursuing a different strategic horizon: one that does not beg for recognition. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)

Economy of Genocide: Albanese's report accuses, but doesn't dismantle system

  • Opinion
  • 18 Aug 2025

Coverage

All
War on Iran

More from this writer

All
Germany is no functioning democracy anymore: Fanatic adherence to "Israel" has seen Germany swiftly regress toward its authoritarian ways of yore. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

Berlin police: The violent enforcers of Germany’s Staatsräson

Following October 7, 2023, the wolf in sheep’s clothing that is Germany immediately began cracking down on Palestine advocacy in an hitherto unprecedented manner. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

How Germany is coercing immigrants into normalising 'Israel'

Portugal is no longer immune to far-right politics

Portugal is no longer immune to far-right politics

How Germany continues to manufacture consent for genocide

How Germany continues to manufacture consent for genocide

Al Mayadeen English

Al Mayadeen is an Arab Independent Media Satellite Channel.

All Rights Reserved

  • x
  • Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Authors
Android
iOS