In 2001, I moved to Montreal, Canada, with my then-wife, a Canadian-born citizen. I didn't know much about the country and couldn't place most of its major cities and provinces on a blank map.
I had heard of Montreal, of course, as well as Toronto and Vancouver, but that was about it. The location and existence of cities such as Calgary or Halifax were entirely unknown to me.
The boundaries of Canada's provinces, moreover, were a total mystery, Indeed, I'm not even sure I knew that Canada's basic geopolitical unit was referred to by the term, "province."
I was 41 years old, an American and Israeli citizen, and had earned a PhD in political sociology from UC Berkeley and a BA in political science from Stanford. By that time, moreover, I'd also lived, worked, or done research in Albania, Congo (the Republic of, and the Democratic Republic of - different places!), France, India, Nigeria, Switzerland, Turkey, and (the former) Yugoslavia.
In other words, a dearth of international fluency or access to higher education was not my problem.
I had accepted a position at McGill University in Montreal, but many American friends and colleagues kept thinking that I had moved to Toronto. I'm not sure why, but perhaps they were confused because they knew McGill was an English-speaking university and thought it, therefore, couldn't be in Montreal, which is largely French-speaking.
Or, more likely, they were just confused by all things Canadian.
When we moved to Ottawa in 2006, the confusion from family and friends south of the border mounted. Some Americans may have a passing familiarity with the largest Canadian cities, but Ottawa, the nation's capital, has left zero traces on the US collective psyche.
Thus, when my highly educated and well-traveled parents came to visit us from the greater Boston area, my mother asked me whether Ottawa had a library. It wasn't a subtle put-down; my mother is an exceptionally nice person. Instead, she was genuinely curious and perhaps a bit confused - why would I, an up-and-coming university professor, move to such an obscure location?
My mom was by no means an outlier. Indeed, very few of my friends and colleagues in the US, Israel, or Europe had any idea where Ottawa was, or whether it had any universities of note. (It does!).
I taught at one of those institutions, Carleton University, but most Americans had never heard of it. Indeed, even my former boss at a major international organization, one of the best-traveled and smartest people I know, confused my employer with a small liberal arts college, Carleton College, located in the tiny Minnesotan town of Northfield.
Truth be told, I was also dismissive of Ottawa when we first arrived. I regarded it as a cultural, economic, and political backwater, and was somewhat resentful that we had moved there.
My ex-wife had secured a good job with a Canadian government agency, but I didn't want us to remain there long-term.
Twenty-four years later, the ignorance of most Americans (and others - it's not like Europeans or Africans know much about Canada either) about their northern neighbor is still profound.
Over the last two months, this ignorance, garnished with contempt, has taken on new and ominous proportions when wielded by the new US president.
Out of seemingly nowhere, President Trump has begun denigrating and berating the country and its leadership. Trump threatened tariffs, postponed them, imposed them, and partially postponed a set of massive new tariffs, wreaking havoc on both countries' economies.
When Ontario Premier Doug Ford imposed a 25% tariff on electricity exports to three US states on March 10, Trump responded with a post claiming that the US-Canada border was an "artificial" boundary that should be erased.
The Canadian response to all this has been one of utter shock and outrage.
Canadians are now talking about and partially implementing a consumer boycott of US products. Many Canadian businesses have removed some of those products from their shelves.
Many Canadian tourists, moreover, say they will avoid traveling to the US, including members of that massive flock of retired Canadian "snowbirds," many of whom typically spend the winter months in Florida, Arizona, and other warmish US locations.
On March 9, Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of Canada and then the United Kingdom, handily won the Liberal Party's leadership race. His supporters had successfully argued that he was the candidate best positioned to confront the US and Trump in a trade war.
The ruling Liberal Party, which was struggling mightily in the polls until this point, has now surged to a near-tie with their rivals, the Conservatives. The reason for this dramatic reversal is clear: many Canadians believe that the Liberals under Carney will be better positioned than the Conservatives to fight Trump.
Now, a parody of the popular song, "I Will Survive," has gone viral on YouTube, garnering 1.2 million views.
These sudden and remarkably intense manifestations of Canadian patriotism/nationalism confirm, to my mind, the validity of a sociological theory proposed long ago by Michael Billig in his wonderful book, Banal Nationalism.
Billig argues that scholars and commentators have focused too much, and for too long, on the most extreme forms of nationalism.
More often than not, Billig says, commentators dwell on comparatively rare instances in which nationalist sentiment morphs into political extremism and violence, typically during international or civil war, revolution, or conquest.
One example of this perhaps excessive focus on the most violent manifestations of nationalism is my PhD thesis, which focused on violent nationalism by Serbia in Bosnia, Croatia, and by Israel in the West Bank/Gaza and Lebanon.
Billig argues that scholars and writers such as myself miss the most prevalent and interesting forms of nationalism because of our excessive focus on rare, high-profile, and violent events.
Instead, Billig encourages us to examine the many mundane ways in which the "nation" is flagged for us in our daily lives, such as the flags that fly on our porches, the stamps on our envelopes, or the fact that we have no choice but to obtain and use a passport when leaving or entering any sovereign country.
These "banal" manifestations of nationalism, he contents, are constantly priming our brains, constructing us as objects of the nation and readying us to act as nationalist agents when crisis moments appear.
In Canada, that moment has arrived. Trump has disrespected, trolled, and punished Canadian leaders, businesses, and citizens, and Canadians have reacted swiftly.
In a flash, Canada has turned from a quiet place of unassuming cosmopolitans into a unified nation of patriots eager to defend their country and dignity. Canadians, like the citizens of almost any functioning nation-state, snapped into a defensive crouch as soon as their national dignity was threatened.
This may or may not be a good thing, but it is an observable phenomenon taking place north of the US/Canada border. Canadians are not angry or emotional people, on average, but they have been prodded into that by Trump's actions.
Indeed, one outcome of Trump's blundering threats may be to systematically stir up nationalism worldwide. Panama, Denmark and Canada may be the quickest to react, given the nature of Trump's threats against their sovereignty, but other countries may soon respond in similar ways.
Trump, in other words, is stirring the nationalist pot not just in America, but everywhere.
About James Ron
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