|
|
Re: Heritage of Drum and Fife
KRISTIAN PEDERSEN (KLRPEDER@ARTSPAS.WATSTAR.UWATERLOO.CA)
Sat, 25 May 1996 22:50:32 EDT
affirmative action programmes, inasmuch as they refuse to be responsible
for the putative crimes and moral transgressions of their forefathers.
My parents immigrated to Canada and thus did not have the opportunity to
exploit anyone, being from a peasant stock themselves. To hold all with
'white flesh' culpable for the transgressions of a bygone era --
transgressions that, in the Zeitgeist were perfectly acceptable -- is
certainly ridiculous. Affirmative action, if it is to appear more than
simply revenge against those supposed to have benifitted from their
forefathers violation of contemporary moral sentiments, must not paint
everyone of European heritage with the same brush. Being a peasant in
Europe during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was unpleasant
and their lot in the New World again not enviable. To do otherwise is
simply racist and, worse of all, it holds people simply born to parents
that were children of immigrants responsible for things that they were
perhaps a century or more removed from.
Perhaps we should look through the archives then and find those
that did benefit from slave-holding, etc., and then make them pay :).
(This is of course meant sarcastically).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KRISTIAN L.R. PEDERSEN
Independent Studies Programme
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada
|