March 31st 2025,
Canadian History class was cancelled again so we had video lectures. A lot of it was pretty boring, in that I do not think it is relevant to write about here so I will try my best to only write the interesting bits. The first video lectures began with the Polar Sea incident where, soon after the Shamrock Summit, the US dispatched the Polar Sea from Greenland to Alaska without Canadian permission because the US straight up believed they did not need it. The Canadian public was obviously pissed at this disrespect but Mulroney was hesitant to do anything about it and was able to sweep it under the rug due to issues with the Free Trade Agreement, which was seen as more important than Arctic Sovereignty. Trudeau wanted to reduce reliance on the USA and pivot towards Europe, Japan, and South America. In the 1980s, Canada and the US had torturous negotiations over free trade, Reisman was the Canadian negotiator and Murphy was the American.
These negotiations were torturous because the Americans were impossible to talk to as they wanted to essentially exhaust the Canadians into accepting an unfair deal, Murphy wanted to “run out the string” because congress did not want the negotiations to end. This lasted 18 MONTHS! Instead of conceding to a bad deal, Reisman was instructed to walk away, he even called the US unserious which is hilarious. This strategy worked by showing the US in a bad light on the international stage, how could other countries expect a good deal if the US couldn’t even make one with its neighbour? So in 1987 a good agreement was made; US markets would be open to Canadian goods while the US couldn’t even show off that negotiating with them is possible and should be done.
When Mulroney wins in 1988 he immediately passes the Free Trade Treaty, but this was not a public victory as majority of the population voted for parties that were anti-Free Trade. Mulroney, a conservative, was opposite to John A. MacDonald as he saw the US as the best part of North America. That is so embarrassing for a sovereign nation’s leader to think. But is Canada truly sovereign? Don’t ask my Polisci professors. Mexico would join in on negotiations and NAFTA would be finalized in 1992. Funnily enough, NAFTA may have contributed to the loss of Bush to Clinton in 1992 and the Canadian Conservatives to the Liberals in 1993. Do you have any opinions on NAFTA, I remember it being incredibly hyped up in my Social Studies classes when I was growing up.
The last lectures were about the Meech Lake Accord and Charlottetown Accord. This was a lot, but the main goal of both was to bring Quebec into the constitution. The failure of these two accords was Mulroney’s biggest regret. The Meech Lake Accord wass never passed because Elijah Harper of Manitoba held up the vote, allowing it to expire, because the Accord failed to mention anything regarding Indigenous people. It did see Quebec as a distinct Society, but what about the Indigenous? Elijah Harper has been brought up quite a bit recently due to the rise in Alberta separatism. Meech Lake was done without public discussion but Charlottetown was, although this still wasn’t enough to get it to pass as the people were not willing to accept any new constitutional structure. My question is, how educated was the Canadian public on the constitution? How educated are current day Canadians? Probably not much considering there are actual university classes (I have seen them when enrolling in courses) all about studying it.
French Revolution started with the Bois Caiman Ceremony, which happened mid-August of 1791, and kickstarted the Haitian revolution when a group of slaves met in secret to make sacrifice and pray for liberation. This is where voodoo is developed. Boukman Dutty, a former slave and voodoo priest, makes a prayer where he states that the God of whites asks for crimes while theirs desires blessings. France sends troops to “restore order” and planter’s property rights. Britain and Spain jump at the opportunity to take Haiti for themselves, trying to win over rebel slaves. There was a 40 day burning of the Capital.
Toussaint-Louverture (spelling?) was a political genius, Enlightenment man, a skilled general, and saw himself as French. He was a former slave that adopted the last name which meant “the way forward” or “the opening.” He was the most active and indefatigable man, with great sobriety, never reposing. He had influence over the masses that borderline lead to fanaticism in his “subordinates.” Some French thinkers had criticized slavery as incompatible with natural rights, they were morally against it but the National Assembly was torn between the principle and pragmatic concerns (losing profits, alienating planters lobbies). After three years of war, the French government (under Robespierre) emancipates the slaves through empire, being the first of its peers to end slavery. Britain did not ban the trade until 1807, colonial slavery didn’t end until 1833, and the US did not abolish slavery until 1865.
That decision was not done because of altruism, it was a mixture of the principle and cynical calculation. They wanted to honour the universality of the DRMC and were pressured to conceded by rebel slaves’ demands in order to prevent a worse outcome: like falling into British rule or royalist hands. After the Terror, there was a purge of suspected terrorists: the Paris Jacobin club was shut down and there were show trials for a handful of Robespierre loyalist. Napoleon was briefly imprisoned for writing pro-Jacobin pamphlets but this did not amount to much. The Thermidorian Convention tolerates, but reins in, White Terror like with the Jeanesse dorée who were elegantly dressed young men who attacked the sans-culottes. The tasks of the Thermidorian was to write a new constitution that protects against “anarchy” but maintains the revolution’s gains against royalists/despots.
The Directory was tasked with ending the revolution and restoring stability as politics veered between threats: full on counter revolution waged by royalists, populist radicalism (the poor were seen as violent and not ready for political rights), and an overpowered executive. The Directory was gridlocked, there was a lot of corruption and inflation PLUS the collapse of the currency all led to growing inequality. Because of that some of the poor (especially women) lost faith in the revolution and returned to the safety net of Catholicism. Others, like Babeuf, would call for a radical social revolution.
This next lecture for Political Science is the last one of the semester and it is about a topic my professor was excited for: hallyu, aka the Korean Wave. First he defined some terms very briefly: neoliberalism is when there is a small government that does not intervene in the market; developmentalism has stronf government intervention; hallyu is a combination of both. Hallyu actually begins in France and proceeds to spread to the rest of the west. He then went over the history of pop culture, which starts with Pop Art in 1956, created by Richard Hamilton. This was a form of art that could be commercialized and expanded to film and other cultural industries. It combines art and consumerism.
The “Pop” in pop-culture means to suddenly appear, it is spontaneous and has mass acceptance. This pop phenomenon also sees the emergence of fandom and public participation (first time I have ever heard the word “fandom” be uttered in class). He then talks about the aesthetic inclusion and hybridity in pop-culture. Two examples given were of techno west German music mixed with US and Kung Fu movies; the other example is anti-war films existing while war movies are propped up by the US government.
Hallyu 1.0 happened from 1997-2007. This initial wave was mostly about music, like Rough Guide, and k-drama but they were all regional successes. So they did not make it out of Asia. Hallyu 1.0 showed off the ability of SK producers adapting western products for an eastern audience, since modernization was equated with the west. Hallyu 2.0 has been happening since 2008 and is a global phenomenon that integrates many cultural elements from Korea and others (specifically Black American culture). There are so many fandoms related to Korean pop-culture, some are so big that they affect politics like with BTS fans messing with Trump’s convention. Capitalism is a key element in Hallyu so my professor went on to define “cultural capitalism,” which is the aestheticization of capitalism and the marketing of differences (diversity over homogeneity). Hallyu is a form of soft power, he also used the term “sweet power” due to the popularity of romance k-dramas.