Saving The Lost Ones in Newfoundland

An unknown soldier from Newfoundland, whose body lay in France for a century, has been returned to St. John's. As I drove home through town yesterday, I was amazed to see Newfoundlanders out in uniform en masse, holding the Union Jack, and waiting for the procession.

I am conflicted about this.

On the one hand, it is only fitting we honour someone who laid their life on the line for their country. The show of sympathy for one poor, lost Newfoundlander coming home after a century in foreign soil was moving.

On the other hand, where was this mass outpouring of sympathy when other poor, lost Newfoundlanders shivered in tents in Bannerman Park for months? People insist we need to honour this fallen soldier who fought for our safety, but what would he think of us leaving fellow Newfoundlanders to freeze? He might even ask us how we could do such a callous, inhuman thing.

The answer is that it is easier to give premier Furey a free flight to France to bring home a poor, dead lost one, than to stay here and make an actual effort to save all the living lost ones in St. John's. History shows us that as a government gets more corrupt and ineffective, there is an uptick of parades and spectacle. Pane et circum writ large to distract from the shivering masses.

And flying the Union Jack, the flag of the country that ended Newfoundland's 79 years of self-government and essentially stole the country that this young soldier died for, is a bitter irony. 

In Newfoundland, we used to have a Memorial University to elevate the youth our soldiers sacrificed themselves for, so their deaths would not be in vain. Ditto a stadium. Now, all we have is a price-gouging corporate supermarket and a corporate university shilling out to mainland talent. This is the direction we are going in.

Would this young soldier be happy to know what we have become?