Given the recent trend to seek out corporate sponsorship from major construction projects, it seems only a matter of time before we rename the province according to the wishes of the corporate benefactors that will swoop down and save us all from recession when the rights to all of our natural resources have long been squandered. If it works for large sports facilities and other public buildings, why not the whole damn province?
Public-private partnerships (P3s) really need to go the next level - think outside the building.
• "Disney North" comes to mind immediately (perhaps they could throw a "Pirates of the Caribbean" attraction into the Disney Line a.k.a.Canada Line tunnel before they cover it up)
• "Telus World at Telusopia" seems wordy in the beginning, but we'd get used to it if they just ignored us. Plus it makes for an easy acronym to work with.
• major US automakers are out of the picture due to impending financial ruin, but we could look to Asia. There is already a Toyota City, so, again, the next step seems natural - Toyota Spirit Park? Kia Land?
It's bound to happen sooner or later. I say we make the change now! But not in the form of corporate branding. 'British Columbia' is a sorry reference to a sorry past that does not in the least reflect the present make-up of our population or our place in world. Why?
Firstly, the 'British' part. It links us to a once-mighty imperialist island nation that travelled the seas sucking up all the natural resources it could for consumption back home, colonizing indigenous cultures, spreading the joys of 'proper' and 'civilized'. You just don't hear people throwing open their shutters and screaming "God save the Queen" anymore (Okay, maybe after a few pints down at the Legion).
Secondly, the 'Columbia' part. Columbia, Colombus, Colombass. The first (arguable) of many explorers to the 'New' world to lay claim to a land that wasn't theirs to claim. Colombus, to whom we owe the misnomer 'Indians.' These explorers brought disease and destruction to entire populations of indigenous cultures. We are still at the beginning stages of cleaning up the mindset and the mess that was introduced in the late fifteenth century.
We are named after an empire with which we share nothing but history and a misguided megalomaniac, with which we share nothing but blame: British Columbia... Ottoman Cortezia... American Bushland...It's time for a change.
4 comments:
Thats a very interesting idea. Remember that kids concert in Vancouver that was sponsored by Kia and they had a huge dinosaur air ballon for decor. Kids love dinosaurs you could see some "events coordinator" saying...not noticing the irony of Kia a car company and ossil fuels and making it all "pretty" It was very funny.
I wonder if the name British Columbia-which has always rubbed me the wrong way too- might not be an apt name for the purpose of remembering all the history? A warning device built right inot the name rather than a clelbrational name?
This remeinds me of Stephen Jay Goulds essay on trisomy 21, the medical naem for down's syndrome or mongoloid diease. Gould suggested the new term or politically correct tem trisomy 21 shouldn't be enforced...instead keep the name Down's syndrome after the doctor who deined with his his racism the term mongoloidism. Downs fear of "mongoloid" and his concept of the race of asians...as name for a disease kind of like insulting all parties involved...why not keep the name Down's syndrome just because it would piss the doctor off if he knew...Well I am murdering this paraphrase, but its a great essay.(I think its in The Pandas Thumb)
Cheers!
Candy
Corporate sponsorship at children's events is incidious - the reason for Raffi's withdrawl a couple of years back.
Keeping the tag BC as a reminder of our past is interesting, but a museum could suffice for that purpose. It's akin to keeping 'fireman' and 'policeman' to remind us of our patriarchal past, our hanging on to 'Indian' for that matter.
You continue to be my dearest and only respondent. What's up at technorati? Do you create a blog there or only link to one?
Cheers!
HI!!!
Well I'm working on building you up some visitors, you are linked to me. Um, yeah, I should e mail you some pointers give me a sec okay?
Oh...
p.s. you make a perfect point by the way of dropping b.c. by example of "fireman" which I think is long gone and silly....so I'm with you 100% to change the provinces name.
Well Mr Harper is gung ho to allow all the rpovinces to separate he's got Quebecs ding dong in his mouth as I type, so maybe you guys will soon be part of America, sure looks like it. If so maybe we can teach them how to shame their politicians, we are usually really good at that...
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