I have a theory that Canada's cities will implode. I have written about this in many posts (see my "multiculturalism" and "immigration" categories). Multiculturalism, which was supposed to bring people together and form one happy utopian global family, has alienated people altogether. Offspring of immigrants (those "Canadian-born" hyphenated Canadians) on whom great hopes were bestowed to build that wonderful multicultural utopia, are clinging together, since on personal cultural levels they have nothing to connect them to the "main" culture.
I recently sent bold and frank letters to relatives that they return to their homeland to live authentic and happy lives AS ETHIOPIANS, rather than in this forced cultural hot pot. My message has actually resonated.
So what happens when this stewing war starts to boil over, in five years, thirty years? I bet on sooner than later.
Mississauga and Toronto are now cities of enclaves. People gravitate to neighborhoods of their own ethnic makeup. And those who have settled in some multicultural hub do so because of mortgage commitments, or their children's high school, or simply because the neighborhood appears to be nicer, cleaner, more convenient, with attractive parks and convenient shopping centres.
In our building, there is no cheerful "Good Morning" or "Good Evening" as one enters the slow and often crowded elevator. What occurs is silence broken by some cell phone conversation in Urdu or Cantonese, often loudly, and clearly showing the cell phone converser couldn't care less about the rest of the elevator's riders. They don't understand what he's saying anyway, and he shuts them out of his radar and continues with his uncouth, careless behavior.
And it is the same with actual conversations, when they do occur. Those talking to each other do so in their country of origin's language, loudly and without regard for anyone else. For example, I could be between such two people, and rather than move to get closer to each other, they will talk over me loudly and confidently, as though I don't exist.
And the same with apartments units. The building was built about twenty years ago when Mississauga was erecting high rises to accommodate a greatly increasing immigrant influx and was choosing Mississauga for the much touted "farmland" and open space.
Walls are cardboard thin, which makes these sound insensitive residents' telephone conversations from China or India all the more grating. These calls are often during the evening hours (time difference?) when one would expect one's home to have some peace and quiet in preparation for the long night of sleep ahead.
Air conditioning and heating systems are dated and archaic (and badly constructed) that they churn out air through groaning turbines. Ventilation is ineffective in neutralizing the heavily spiced foods that permeate through the hallways. And structures both superficial (wall paper) and internal (the heating system) are deteriorating, despite the regular maintenance that takes place and which constantly disrupts life in the apartments and the building as a whole.
At one point I blamed the inhuman multicultural system that made Canada (and Mississauga) into this ghettoized Gomorrah.
But the residents are fully to blame.
There is something profoundly opportunistic about people who moved thousands of miles away to come and live in the land of plenty: in Canada. They left relatives, a cultural network, familiar landscapes, their gods and idols to live in a country which gives them much in material goods and benefits. Their children can go to school for free in some of the best educational institutions in the world. They can shop in clean and fully stocked grocery stores where fresh produce is available year round. And if they have monetary problems, and most are likely to, even extending to their "educated" children, there is a generous welfare system to hand out their monthly dollars as it takes the funds from the society's purse.
How long will this last, is the question.
I predict not for long.
Perhaps God's wrath will manifest itself as it periodically has. We might get a flood of Biblical proportions.
Or there might simply be an internecine warfare, slow at the beginning until it explodes into something big and destructive.
We have already started this warfare, if behavior in elevators is any indication. And I think it IS an indication.
And God might be preparing us for that clean slate, a new beginning, to rebuild a city, a land worthy of His name.
We should, we must, prepare.
Zephaniah 1
1 The word of the Lord which came unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah.
2 I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord.
3 I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked: and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord.
4 I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of the Chemarims with the priests;
5 And them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops; and them that worship and that swear by the Lord, and that swear by Malcham;
6 And them that are turned back from the Lord; and those that have not sought the Lord, nor enquired for him.
7 Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God: for the day of the Lord is at hand: for the Lord hath prepared a sacrifice, he hath bid his guests.
8 And it shall come to pass in the day of the Lord's sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king's children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel.
9 In the same day also will I punish all those that leap on the threshold, which fill their masters' houses with violence and deceit.
10 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that there shall be the noise of a cry from the fish gate, and an howling from the second, and a great crashing from the hills.
11 Howl, ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the merchant people are cut down; all they that bear silver are cut off.
12 And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil.
13 Therefore their goods shall become a booty, and their houses a desolation: they shall also build houses, but not inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof.
14 The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly.
15 That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness,
16 A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers.
17 And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung.
18 Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
Dies Irae, from Mozart's Requiem in D Minor (Text)
La Chapelle Royale Collegium Vocale
Orchestre Des Champs -Élysées
Philippe Herreweghe
