The New (Canadian) Imperialism, in Honduras
- Details
- Published on Monday, 22 May 2017 22:00
- Written by editor
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1418 .... May 23, 2017
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The New (Canadian) Imperialism, in Honduras: Ideology, the News Media, Pedagogy and Pop Culture
Tyler Shipley interviewed by Tanner Mirrlees
Tyler Shipley's new book, Ottawa and Empire: Canada and the Military Coup in Honduras (Between the Lines, 2017) is a focused, lucid, and valuable contribution to current historical materialist research on Canada as a "secondary imperial power."
Tanner Mirrlees interviews Shipley about the book and they address pertinent topics such as: the meaning of Canadian imperialism, the Canadian State's coercive and persuasive power, the gap between Canadian foreign policy words and deeds, Canada's imperial culture-ideologies, the Canadian news media as a propaganda model, the praxis of anti-imperial pedagogy, and popular culture as a site of Left struggles.
Tanner Mirrlees is an Assistant Professor... at UOIT and is the author of Hearts and Mines: The US Empire’s Culture Industry (University of British Columbia Press, 2016).
Tyler Shipley is a Professor of Culture, Society, and Commerce at the Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning.
Tanner Mirrlees (TM): Your book is about the 2009 coup d’etat of the democratically elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya. What inspired you to write this book? How did you select Honduras as your book's focus?
Tyler Shipley (TS): The whole project was, in a way, an accident. I was in Guatemala in 2009 when the coup took place, and it was headline news in Central America for months, so it was impossible to miss the gravity of the situation. My first trips to Honduras that year were not research trips at all but, rather, were to participate in the larger solidarity efforts by progressives across the hemisphere. I went to Honduras to try to help the peaceful resistance movement in whatever way I could. I joined marches and demonstrations and documented the violence of the military government that had taken over.
The moment that I knew I needed to write about this in more detail was when I realised that the Canadian government was steadfastly on the wrong side. I remember, in particular, in November 2009 when the military government (which had just abducted and overthrown a President) held "elections." Most of the international community refused to even play along with the idea that this government which was killing people and attacking its opposition could possibly hold legitimate elections. I was in the country while the process took place and it was very evident to most Hondurans that it was a sham, in fact, an overwhelming majority of the population refused to even participate. And the next day, I remember blinking at the TV, watching the Canadian government congratulate "the Honduran people" on holding "mostly fair and free elections."
I was dumbfounded that Canada would so deeply implicate itself in supporting a violent dictatorship. I knew at that moment that this was a story that needed to be told in detail.
