the arrogance of interpretation

Secession is tricky. It's trite to nod at the controversy that plagues this political move, but I'll nod a second time to summon the idea that more nuances exist in such a controversy than even the hostile parties can name.

I sat listening to the CBC with my head in my hand last month when Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence. How does a young woman an ocean removed from the conflict formulate an opinion on a foreign conflict, and even if she does, how do I defend it conscious that my gap is greater than my fill of knowledge? The short answer is that I don't.

Our media, even the CBC that I hallow, presents us with information that is framed in such a way that we are predisposed to draw certain interpretations and conclusions before others. And rarely do these frames offer any insight comparable to sitting on a street amid Kosovars for months, listening, spinning my thumbs. Of course, I've never had such an opportunity. The closest I've been able to get to a first hand experience, between textbooks and lectures, is to receive an email from a high school friend asking me to renounce the unilateral declaration to preserve some of the historical integrity of Serbia. A second email to a Canadian Serb revealed her own confusion, over the situation.

I wonder, as a polity, how we are expected to take a stand on such issues, when the sources of our information cascade down from Parliament and the Prime Minister's office. Certainly, media sources like the CBC offer an invaluable service my calling upon expert informants who provide myriad paradigms on such a situation, but when an issue is so infinitely complex and time and attention are finite, the juxtaposition can serve only one result: decisions made on incomplete information.

And likely, incomplete information may also inform parts of the public who are involved in any conflict - whether civil war, secession, domestic dispute. Poorly communicated information and intentions are Hallmarks of this era, an age abuzz with instant communication and transportation technology. Texts soar between mobiles, emails rocket between informants, and plots chatter through airwaves, each to the extent that the mass of waves radiating around our bodies could themselves be a scapegoat for riling us up. Certainly this hyper-abundance of communicated, incomplete information fuels passions for action, identification with a cause, tensions between rivals, or at the least, curiosity that provokes the further dispersion of increasingly incomplete information.

I offer this blog as case in point.

But maybe the rapid pace of our technology only acts to stir stewing ideas. I mean, of course they do. But arguably, they aggravate passions as much as they help to resolve them. Which is a caustic symptom of our 'progress,' one we have an obligation to recognize - not for the sake of censorship, but to compel a responsible criticism to accompany our participation in the dissemination of information made accessible to us.

In Kenya, election controversy ignited a Western-diagnosed 'tribal conflict' that I never saw manifested during four months in Nairobi (capital for Kibaki's government) and Nyanza province (home to the Luo fisherpeople of Lake Victoria). I worked in a clinic alongside Luhya, Luo, Kikuyu, Kamba, Kissi - all Kenyans whose tribal identity never was relevant in our daily proceedings or post-work Tuskers. However, months later, these tribal cleavages have been emphasized and described in dichotomous, irreconcilable terms in our media. But the Kenyans at my clinic ne'er missed more than half a day of work together throughout the election furor, and only ever because of the Director's decision to close early so that mothers and fathers could get home to their families.

My incomprehension at how such a civil conflict could flare up so shortly after I witnessed the peaceful coexistence of Kenyans in an urban setting has led me to some conclusions. First, the conflict cannot possibly be comprehensively framed in all of its complexity by our media, and is therefore being distilled to an essentialist understanding that the media can use to engage a distracted and simple audience (from whom I don't dissociate myself). Essentially, it is just easier for us to see the conflict this way than in its profound complexity. Second, rational people - when provoked by tribal loyalties, economic fears, the quest for social representation, ancestral pride, and myriad factors I don't pretend to understand - can be irrational. Third, this could happen in Canada too.

It is this third assertion that scare me most. For the longest time, I cringed at a parallel being drawn between the secession of Kosovo and the secession of Quebec. Fine, I recognize the parallel to the extent that I understand the political posturing of a Federal government trying to placate any sense of possibility that secession could be repeated domestically. But I drew the line there.

"Quebec and Kosovo cannot be categorized as similar." One nation suffered a genocide, exists in the geopolitical context that birthed the term "Balkanization," and has witnessed street protests. Conversely, Quebec is ... civil? Western? I think not. If there is one thing that Kenya has shown me, it is the volatility of calm - even amidst people who share offices, pack into matatus (van taxis) sharing seats, and who dance, shop, sing, act, and attend church together. So Quebec is not so different - our language laws could be their street protests. And while we can - and I have been - awarding us an air of civility, this term only reflects our socialized expectation of how we expect things to get done.

I used to say Quebec was not like Kosovo because I did not want to offend Kosovars with an assumption that our circumstances were somehow equal to theirs. While the marginalization of the French off the land sought by the English was no genocide, it summons a notion of "injustice" that could be ignited, provided the (in)opportunity. I think perhaps I committed a greater offense by supposing that the absence of rock throwing somehow made us mild and only superficially similar to Kosovo. (Hello lady, recall the exploding mailboxes of the FLQ crisis?) Ultimately, we are all humans who passions can be ignited when we let them.


I offer this post as a call to consume our media aware of its flaws. But mostly, to urge myself to recall how our similarities to others, afar, abroad, might be greater than our differences. I'm wary of the next time I will housekeep and organize my information in a rigid, orderly, way that compels me to frame a rhombus as a square.