Earlier I referenced an article by Leni Spooner who offered 3 future directions for Canada:
Double Down on the U.S.
Diversify with Europe, Japan, CPTPP
Radical Realignment with BRICS?
A future for Canada? A different philosophical, geopolitical, and socio-economic perspective.
A few of the authors I follow have been willing to take a bigger picture about the future of Canada. There is a growing recognition we are at the end of an era, and the geopolitical order that was established after the 1940’s will not be maintained.
I discussed my perspective, and my desire for decolonization that would include strengthening Asia-Pacific relations.
See: Decolonization is not a metaphor
This article will be about what I personally consider to be the worst case scenario. I wouldn’t phrase it as doubling down on the United States, but doubling down on the Anglosphere and ongoing colonization projects. I think there is far too much attention being paid to a few individuals (Trump, Ellison, etc) or one set of government institutions (United States of British North America), when it is worldviews, ideologies and other systems we should be paying closer attention to.
What is the Anglosphere?
This is England plus the current most violent outcomes of the British Empire’s settler-colonialism projects. This is sometimes discussed as UK+CANZUS which is England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United States. While there has been considerable rebranding, the British Empire, which is the largest empire humanity has endured, needs to be understood as still existing in a different form.
As with the earlier article, I will use a map to explore this direction.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
While I took that novel as a warning, some seem to have taken it as a blueprint.
I have found it interesting over the decades how so many (White) people within the Anglosphere believe that Ninteen Eighty-Four was warning about the former Soviet Union, when it is clear that Oceana included what had formally been known as England.
Even the names of countries, and their shapes on the map, had been different. Airstrip One, for instance, had not been so called in those days: it had been called England or Britain, though London, he felt fairly certain, had always been called London. ( Part 1, Section 3, Nineteen Eighty-Four)
It is in London that the character Winston Smith lives.
When I read Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1984 when I was 16, I didn’t occur to me to question that where I lived in Canada would be included within the description of Oceania. I didn’t have a way to articulate it at the time, but I felt that conformity was the strongest demand being made of me. The notion that something that grew from what I saw of Canada, USA and the UK would represent “freedom” rather than “conformity” didn’t make sense to me.
I believe the following article by Jaime Hoerricks, PhD, articulates some of the dynamic well.
The imposed social hierarchies and control of the Anglosphere are managed through behaviourism which continues to be mistaken for healthcare. This does not need to involve visible state control, at least not control that is visible to those who remain stuck within the ideological silo of individualism (especially myths around Rugged Individualism), and don’t seem to recognize how much of their existing lives are programmed.
Anglosphere Oceania
It was obvious, even in the 1940’s, that the Anglosphere would remain intact as an ideological unit. This is given the truth of the origins of the governments claiming jurisdiction over those lands, and the inability of the majority of the colonial-minded population to initiate any actual Truth, Reconciliation and Restitution process.
Oceania in my mind is merely the doubling-down of existing settler-colonialism. It will involve the Dominion of Canada having even closer relationships with what is currently known as the United States and the United Kingdom, but where the regions are controlled by blind conformity to ideology (The Party - no need for a human “leader”) rather than control via an emperor, monarchy, or even nation-states.
My ancestors are primarily Scottish and Irish, and while I might prefer the reunification of Ireland, and for the sovereignty of Scotland, the doubling-down on colonialism more likely involves a re-occupation of the entire of Ireland.
Further thought experimenting
It is other parts of the map that are worth thinking more about. Due to size limits for email, I have split those thought experiments into a separate article.
The dystopian vision in Fallout also talks about the US invading and annexing Canada.
Great article. For what it's worth, in my high school in California there was no debate about the book being about anything but the London/British empire. But we included America in that...