Justifying My Degree... Again?

I just realized that I owe half of my university degree to a failed model of encounter from the Elizabethan age of discovery… Depressing, but fun!

After spending the entire semester compiling evidence that supported the importance of my Arts degree in English (see “Justifying My Degree”), I have now also found a root for my Environmental Studies minor!

Looking at narratives of discovery and encounter, we discussed the “myth of unfathomable bounty” that is alluded to in Raleigh’s “The Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana.”  Raleigh takes time to list some of the various wildlife and landscapes of Guiana, but says that to list them in full exhaustion would bore the reader (350, right column).  Instead, Raleigh simply concludes, “that both for health, good air pleasure and riches, I am resolved it cannot be equaled by any region” (350).  Ultimately, Raleigh expresses the land as having unfathomable bounty, or endless richness, which was essential considering colonial desires for an expanded market.  This mentality, however, is problematic and in its continuance throughout western history, it has led to the threatened state of our environment and its resources.

            Here’s where I come in.  As first-year student I was introduced to this massive, environmental degradation in one of my science, elective courses.  Following that semester, I registered to start a minor in Environmental Studies to become more informed and find a way to do my part to make change.  Now, as a fourth-year English major, I’m finally finding out that there is a lot more in common between my major and minor that I once thought… What a way to finish!

"Requirimento" and Canadian Change

In the last few days, I have found myself fairly extensively engaged with the goings on of the oncoming election.  After learning about the “Requirimento” today in class and the connections it has with our current worldviews, it made me think about where we are as a nation and where we are headed (I had to make a connection with the election, I have been slightly obsessed).

First to address the Conquistadors’ document, “Requirimento.”  This text, which was required to be read upon landing in a new territory, establishes the duty of the Conquistadors to inhabit the land and outlines the mandatory assimilation of existing indigenous inhabitants under the name of God.  What is laid out in this document initiates the trend of our failure to accept difference, an unfortunate pattern of trampling otherness around the world, a disturbing precedent.  The narratives of discovery or encounter that follow thus become imperial, slave, and oppressive narratives. 

Our (Canadian) history and the history of all other colonizing nations are tainted with this truth, yet the natural tendency is to do all that can be done to forget about it.  History books fail to provide realistic accounts between the colonizer and the colonized.  People simply deny the facts.  Canadians have always prided themselves on being the emancipation destination for slaves who came from plantations in the United States.  What they fail to recognize is that entering the second half of the twentieth century, Dresden, Ontario, a small community in southwestern Ontario, was home to legal (public legislation was passed) racial discrimination!  Canada has its blemishes – it’s a fact.  A prime example of this ignorance comes from our very own Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, who said at the G20 summit in 2009, that Canadians, “have no history of colonialism. So we have all of the things that many people admire about the great powers but none of the things that threaten or bother them” (http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/derrick/2009/09/harper-denial-g20-canada-has-no-history-colonialism).  So we just grew out of the ground?  How can we still fail to acknowledge our faults?  How are the precedents set by documents like the “Requiremento” supposed to be broken with someone at the helm who cannot even admit that our nation is founded on colonialism?  Once again, I’m troubled.

            It’s unfortunate that out of a period of so much excitement and innovation, there are also these extremely sour moments.  What is more unfortunate is that we can maintain a similar mentality when we have been made aware of the deeply unsettling repercussions of our actions that result from this worldview.

Surveillance, Power, and the Telescope

            As part of the tangent today, we learned that glasses, the telescope and the microscope were all invented and developed during the Elizabethan period.  This factoid couldn’t have been timelier.

            In another of my courses, Forging the Canadian Nation, we have been studying John Richardson’s discovery narrative Wacousta and Foucault’s theory of power and surveillance.  We have talked about how the structure of the fort promotes a full range of visibility and enables the British to spot and anticipate any oncoming attacks from the Native people of the woods.  Additionally, note has been made of the recurring references to “the glass,” otherwise known as the telescope, which extends visibility not only in all directions but over great distances as well.  Providing the British with a serious advantage in some cases, the telescope also seems to highlight the weaknesses of the British garrison.

            Amongst the threats of a new land, the British garrison fears their inability to control open space.  Whenever venturing outside the fort (which doesn’t happen often), soldiers must remain in tight, group formations.  This inability to freely move about the space outside the fort inhibits any advantage that the telescope offers.  At one point in the novel, soldiers in the fort can do nothing but watch, as a troop that has ventured out is ambushed in the distance.  While able to see the ambush, they have no capacity to act on their discovery.  At another point, it is revealed that a friendly ship, approaching the harbour in the nearby town, has been commandeered by the Indians and once again, those stationed in the fort can do nothing to warn the soldiers stationed at that harbour.

            It’s interesting to see how the invention of an instrument that could provide such and amazing advantage for one side is ultimately nullified by the incompetence or fear of its users.  If only the British had two cans with miles of string, they might have been able to use the telescope more effectively and warned their comrades of approaching danger…