- 21-year-old journalism undergraduate student from Montreal, Canada
- Print, broadcast and online reporter (news and sports)
- Graduate of the ‘Europe in the World’ certificate program, 2007-08
- Fluent in French; starting Arabic lessons in Sept. 2008
- Professionally interested in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Middle East in general (particularly Lebanon) and international relations
- Personally into pop culture, volleyball, reading and traveling
Interesting piece about nationalism … but it is not so much about nationalism as identity, what the foundation of your identity is and how we define ourselves as individuals. I have had many, many similar experiences both in taxis and in classrooms and other places where people say outrageously prejudiced things over and over again. Danish politicians have been saying this kind of thing for years now, and much worse … things that would have ended their careers in Canada but here people get elected with hate speech.
Anyway … I am also from multi-cultural Montreal and living here can be a frustrating experience, at times it seems that the country is sleepwalking to disaster. Proposals to “solve” the “immigrant problem” reek of chauvinistic self-importance and belief in moral and cultural superiority over migrants, and then people wonder why they don’t feel connected to the place and are pissed off.