Passages: Welcome Home to Canada

by Michael Ignatieff

  When my school found out I was working there, I was called into the principal’s office and informed that a worthy member of the community had agreed to cover my school fees in order that I would not have to spend any more time at so disreputable an address. I was aghast and refused on the spot, and was promptly expelled for three days to contemplate my ingratitude. But I hung on to my gig until a year or two later, when the club was smashed up in a gang war.

  Thus, education was for me an adventure rather than a hardship, whereas for my parents it was a reward for long years of struggle. After seven years of night school, Aron earned a BA in Jewish Studies from Concordia University. He was seventy-two. It was his proudest achievement. After retiring, Chaja studied for two years and received a diploma in Gerontology from Collège Marie-Victorin. As usual, she developed close friendships with people from different backgrounds, including an Anglican priest who became a regular at our Passover Seders.

  Aron and Chaja were devoted to each other. While caring for Aron in his final illness, Chaja ignored her own health. Aron died in February 1992, Chaja in November 1993. They did not live to see what would have been their greatest joy—the birth of their grandchildren, to my brother, Sam, and his partner, Lesley Stalker. Leith Aron was born three weeks after Chaja passed away. His sister, little Chaya, arrived in May 1997.

  For a child, being “stateless” and on the run is not all bad. You see the world, you pick up languages, you hear different styles of music and eat a variety of foods. You begin to understand the richness of the world and the joys to be had from being open to all kinds of people and cultures. Even before starting grade school, I’d already lived through aspects of a world war and taken a hazardous trip that crossed many borders. These experiences left me a cocky little kid with a strong sense of self.

  It was a different story for my parents. For all their remarkable qualities, the capacity for happiness had been irretrievably killed in them. A gloom settled over everything. We were survivors, and one aspect of being a survivor is learning to keep your head down. I was not encouraged to go out and conquer the world. On the contrary, I was brought up to be grateful that we weren’t being killed in the streets or sent to the ovens. Above all, I was taught not to make trouble. Though I was a dutiful son and respected my parents enormously, it was a lesson I never learned …

  All immigrants feel that they are the last ones. I know I did. They think they’re on the bottom of the totem pole that leads to success and respect in Canadian life, and that everyone else is ahead of them in power and privilege. Of course, it’s not true. The inflow is perpetual, and yesterday’s refugees are tomorrow’s establishment, or at least their kids are.

  Still, I identify with all newcomers and have my fingers crossed for every one of them. I’ve lived their drama of struggling with a new language, of absorbing a new culture while trying to hang on to old traditions. But hard work and zeal for self-improvement actually do bring results in this blessed part of the world. Our little remnant of a family found in Canada a haven of tolerance in a land of opportunity. I’m sure they will too.

  Dany Laferrière

  ONE-WAY TICKET

  1. The car rolled quickly along, weaving across the many cracks full of green water. The city looked newly bombed. We were coming back from a nightclub in the southern suburb of Port-au-Prince. Around two o’clock in the morning. My city at night. Almost nobody on the barely lit streets. Here and there, large, thin dogs watched us pass with an almost scornful indifference. Five in the car: two women (a Russian and a Yugoslavian) and three Haitian men. I was dozing, in the back, jammed between the two young women. They were journalists, here to secretly make a documentary about Haiti. I had been their guide for the past week, an extremely dangerous situation at the beginning of that year—1976. The international press was beginning to demand explanations from Duvalier junior. The authorities were getting restless.

  The driver, a young doctor, wanted us to visit the general hospital in Port-au-Prince. The journalists woke up right away. They filmed everything. I was appalled to see the pitiful condition of the state hospital. I knew the place well: I went there often to count the dead. At the time, I was working for a weekly political and cultural newspaper (Le Petit Samedi Soir) that questioned the propaganda of the governing elite, who continued to claim things had changed for the better in Haiti, that Duvalier junior (Baby Doc) was different from his father (Papa Doc). I knew the hospital by day, but at night it was something else: the epicentre of suffering. All those people howling in pain, without a nurse to bring them even a Tylenol. Live pain. Twisted faces. You got the impression that these patients, almost participating in the government propaganda by day, finally let themselves go at night. I had the feeling (stimulated by the wan light) that I was descending into Dante’s infernal circles. The little spotlight above the camera searched tirelessly for a new case more dramatic than the last. Abruptly, the country presented itself naked before me.

  I was twenty-three years old, and I didn’t yet know that I would have to leave Haiti a few days later under truly dramatic circumstances. Indeed I learned, some time later, that my best friend (also a journalist at Le Petit Samedi Soir) had been assassinated by Baby Doc’s Tontons Macoutes not too far from the place where I had just been dancing. Dancing on the volcano. Learning that I was next on the death squad’s blacklist, my mother arranged for me to leave the country hastily.

  2. I disembarked in Montreal one ’76 summer morning, in the midst of Olympic euphoria. The immigration officers were trying to spot any terrorist arrivals in the crowd. Some African countries had decided to boycott the Montreal games because of the participation of South Africa. And even in the airplane itself the rumour circulated that because of the African boycott, blacks weren’t being warmly welcomed in Montreal.

  People have no idea of the number of rumours that circulate in an airplane coming from the Third World. It’s a wonder how false tourists, coming from the poorest countries on the planet, can, without even leaving the plane or receiving any information besides that concerning the weather, know in such detail the frame of mind of the Canadian immigration officers. Someone on the plane remarked that these expulsion measures didn’t concern us for the simple reason that, even if we were black like them, we were not Africans but Haitians. It must be made known to the Canadian authorities before we were driven away because of our colour. In this case it would be racism, a woman said. Someone added that you could possibly understand the rather brutal attitude of the Canadian officers towards the Africans who boycotted the games (even if they had a good reason to do it), but extending this to the Haitians, who were participating with a strong delegation of three athletes accompanied by twelve officials, could be nothing but pure racism. Is it necessary to explain that Haiti isn’t Africa? All blacks are not Negroes. The Haitians, who won their independence from Napoleonic France by blood and by sword, on that first of January, 1804, continue to refuse to be confused with those Africans who didn’t gain their independence until recently, in the 1960s. Well, it’s like that in Haiti: patriotism is never far away. And a spark can light the powder keg. It was for good reason that a Haitian friend, describing the difference between Quebec and Haiti, said later that if in Quebec blood smells like eau de cologne, in Haiti it’s the eau de cologne that smells like blood.

  I think we were almost ready to land when a man behind me suggested that in a case like this (the boycott of the Olympic Games because of the presence of South Africa), we should align ourselves with our African brothers. All the Haitians on the plane applauded and promised to refuse the Canadian entry visa to protest the participation of South Africa in the Montreal games. Naturally, everyone knew it would happen differently in reality.

  3. I had a strangely easy time with the immigration officer. The usual questions were asked. I was well prepared. A friend who had already lived in Canada had explained the matter to me: the only thing the immigration officers hate is when you don’t respond directly to th
eir questions. In Haiti, it’s straight-out impolite simply to answer a question. It’s imperative to make a little digression; otherwise the speaker receives his answer like a slap in the face. When I was asked my name, while the officer held my passport in his hand, with my name spelled out in full, I didn’t think, like my predecessor, that the immigration officer didn’t know how to read, or even that he thought I was an idiot. I simply told myself that Canadians (at that time in Haiti, Quebec didn’t exist; we knew only Canada, which to us was a totally French country) are different from Haitians. That’s another good reason to travel.

  The immigration officer quickly understood that I was ready to co-operate. To him, a man from the Third World who directly answers questions that appear common (name and address, for example), without attempting any supplementary explanation, well, this man has already made half the journey towards the dreamed-of integration in the welcoming country. The idea is to quickly make good little Canadians out of these immigrants, to have them swallow the habits and customs of the country as fast as possible. The officer smiled at me as he returned my passport.

  4. Here I am already at the airport customs. There is an enormous woman right in front of me, in a heated discussion with the customs officer.

  The customs officer: Have you declared these mangoes, madame?

  The large woman: Where are the mangoes? These aren’t mangoes!

  The customs officer: But, madame, I see mangoes right here …

  The large woman: These aren’t mangoes … I can tell you this because I’m the one who planted the mango tree. And it was this morning, just before running to the airport, that I went to pick these mangoes myself.

  The customs officer: I understand all that, madame, but these mangoes—

  The large woman: Why are you calling them mangoes? I just explained to you that they aren’t mangoes in the sense you mean …

  The customs officer makes a weary gesture with his hand to say he’s throwing in the towel. And the large woman, with a magnificent smile, pushes her cart full of heavy suitcases towards the exit.

  5. She won, but how far will Canada accept this strange way of seeing life? Mangoes that are not to be called mangoes? Of course there’s the other debate, about the individual’s place in society. In the south (or the Third World), the human being is even more important than the laws (although the Tontons Macoutes often mistake us for wild ducks). It’s for this reason that there’s a difficulty there in obeying the Constitution. Each person expects to be treated on a personal level, and what he has to say in his defence always seems more precious to him than any rule. In the north, institutions exist precisely to prevent the citizen from believing he can be a singular entity. We’re all equal here; only collective harmony prevails. In Haiti, anarchy reigns. And despite the terrible dictatorship that crushes them, people firmly believe that their social organization is preferable to that found in Western countries. In Haiti, everything revolves around the individual, in a negative way (dictatorship) as well as a positive way (one who maintains that a mango is not always a mango would easily be believed). Why? Well, because at the end of the day a human being is more important to us than a mango.

  This way of seeing the world can sometimes put you into a certain state of confusion. I knew early on that I would have to become a maroon, at least intellectually, if I didn’t want to lose my mind. In my case it meant pretending to accept a culture while trying by every means to blow it up. But you can’t hold this position for long. Flight is all that remains.

  6. Marooning is an old technique that goes back to colonial times. The maroon is the slave who flees the plantation to find his free brothers in the mountains. Of course, the maroon Negro is always on the alert, constantly expecting to see his masters arrive with the dogs. This is a man who eats quickly, sleeps little, invents a number of codes to communicate with the other maroons, and often changes locations to protect himself.

  Despite independence, the maroons haven’t changed their ways. They’re recognizable because they don’t have confidence in anyone, they keep everything secret (name, address, date of birth, phone number) and they never share their true thoughts. Be careful: these are not paranoiacs—they are maroons. The paranoiac, in a feverish way, believes he is surrounded by enemies, while the maroon sets himself up, very serenely, in a kind of long-term underground. His deepest self remains impenetrable. From his point of view the notion of cultural integration seems to be one of the most sinister Judaeo-Christian jokes.

  7. Here I am in the city. In Montreal. People are celebrating. The Olympic Games represent the most important event (both social and sporting) since the Universal Exposition in 1967. I’m very happy to come across a city in full effervescence. The obvious joy that I see on the faces of the Montrealers is a nice change from the Haitian drama. It’s the middle of summer. The girls are wearing such short skirts, it puts me on edge. Young people are kissing each other on the mouth in the streets. It’s so new. To tell the truth, everything is new for me. And even today, twenty-five years later, I’m still stunned by this change. I had just left a country so closed sexually, so harsh politically, so terrible socially (hunger, health, education), to come so abruptly to the Montreal of 1976.

  The first thing that impressed me was the absence of Tontons Macoutes, those hoodlums armed by the state. I will always remember the first time I witnessed an altercation between a policeman and a young hippie. The aggressive hippie was almost insulting (in fact he was only defending his rights), while the policeman kept his cool. Finally, the policeman left without having been able to make the young man leave the park bench where he was lying. I didn’t understand this country where a young hoodlum (in Haiti, anyone dressed this way could be nothing but a hoodlum) could thwart the police. At the end, the smiling hippie made a sign that could have been Churchill’s V for victory or the peace sign. Was it to let me know that he had defeated the dragon or to welcome me in a brotherly way to his territory?

  8. Scarcely two weeks later, I was walking calmly down a dark little street when a car stopped abruptly behind me. When someone started shouting at me quite harshly, I turned around to see two guns pointed my way. In an instant, I was spread out on the hood of a police car, legs apart. Standard procedure. My situation was complicated by the fact that I didn’t understand what they were saying. They spoke with a thick joual accent. Well, I said to myself, the only way to act in front of a policeman, no matter where in the world, is to be silent and keep your head down. Here’s the first big lesson that I learned instinctively in North America.

  One of the policemen got into the car while the other continued to keep me in firing range. The first came back out a moment later and told me I could leave. He said it in a tone that was still aggressive, as though he were truly devastated to let a criminal go free. I walked a little before turning around to face them. I know it was reckless on my part, but I couldn’t let it end this way.

  “Why did you call me over?” I asked in a polite tone.

  The two policemen gave me a surprised look. As I wasn’t moving, one of them said, “We’re looking for a black man.”

  And the other added, “Don’t play cute with us!”

  I didn’t exactly understand the expression, but I knew he wanted to make me understand that I had, by asking the question, crossed a boundary.

  I went over the two events with a fine-tooth comb for a good day in order to understand, beyond racism, what the difference was between them. With the young hippie, it happened during the day and in a busy public park. Maybe the policemen who work by day in the Latin district are different from those who operate at night in the dark alleys. Or if they’re the same, they have different mandates. So the same hippie, at night, in a dark alley, with two policemen searching for a criminal, would have behaved differently than he did in the park (he wouldn’t have been so sure of his rights). Another point caught my attention: the accent. I hadn’t quite understood what the policemen were saying. Of course, I had adopted t
he universally accepted behaviour in front of a policeman: silence. But it wouldn’t be sufficient in future. I would have to plunge into Quebec culture right away, not only to understand what was said around me, but also to be able to quickly decipher the gestures, the signs, everything left unsaid in this new culture. Otherwise, I was a man in danger.

  9. I get into a taxi downtown.

  “I’m French,” says the driver. “I’ve been living here for forty years now.”

  “Do you like it?” I ask shyly.

  “If I didn’t like it, old man … I like the winters, people are very friendly, but from a cultural point of view, it’s the desert.”

  “I arrived barely a few weeks ago …”

  “Your French is good. I don’t understand how people can massacre such a beautiful language like they do here. I’ve been in this country forty years now and I’m still not used to their accent. They have an atrocious accent, don’t you think?”

  I don’t dare tell him that, as I see it, all accents are of equal merit. Let’s just say I find it scandalous that, after forty years in a country, someone can still have such prejudices. For the moment, the people here are still “them” to me, but I’m anxious for “them” to become “us.” Because if I’m here, it’s really my choice and not theirs. So it’s up to me to adapt.

  “Montreal has changed a lot, I believe, since your arrival …”

  “A lot. When I first arrived here, in ’36, there was nothing. Now there’s the metro, the stadium—a very nice stadium—Expo 67, it was quite an expo … It must be said that everything started with the Expo.”