The Webmaster Sounds Off

Sankofa is an Akan word that means, "We must go back and reclaim our past  so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today."

I started to search for the meaning of the word "Sankofa" after hearing a tune by Cassandra Wilson bearing that title. This idea that our past dictates our current state, has been tested severely by the wide ranging changes that have affected the world in this century. People have migrated from formerly remote corners of the globe to make a new home for themselves in Canada, and abandoned their roots in varying degrees. As the information age takes hold of our lives, we're so busy learning about the stories of other people, we're forgetting our own.

As I get older I realize that my roots are important to me. I have done some small investigation of my genealogy, just to find out more about my ancestors and their lives. Let me explain who I am. Firstly, I'm another ordinary Canadian. My mom's family descends from refugees from post revolutionary America. As the Canada Company parceled off sections of Ontario from the early nineteenth century  onward, mom's ancestors migrated farther north and west from the populated parts of Upper Canada to settle around Grey County by the 1850's. My forebears arrived to find the virgin forests waiting to be hacked down and turned into agricultural land. Since their arrival, they and their neighbours built a society that formed the foundation of our great country. My father, on the other hand, arrived on our shores from Ireland in the mid 1950's. He has made no small contribution to Canada despite his humble origins in Ireland's largest city. He and millions of other Europeans have had an enormous impact on Canada's development in more recent times.

My pedigree has placed me in a strange predicament. I sometimes feel that I am of two worlds. I have heard stories from both sides of the Atlantic, and have a sense of being associated with both worlds. You might say that I am a cultural fence sitter, and you could be quite right. This view has made me something of an outsider. I have been compelled to investigate my history, and the world in general and try to come to some sensibility of who I am and how I fit in. The word "Sankofa" encapsulates this perfectly. The Canadian dilemma is one of forming an identity, and I am as troubled as anyone who bothers to think about it. Diaspora's have been happening for millennia, no doubt, but the pace of movement has accelerated since the industrial age. With the advent of the information age, we've all got to start telling our own stories to everyone else. We can get on with solving this quirky state of confusion we Canadians suffer from.

The Canadian Identity, is formed by the native peoples, the pioneer stock that opened up the land, coupled with more recent arrivals from Europe and other parts of the globe. The recent immigrants have given us all a sense of urgency to find out who we are becoming. The steady and unstoppable change that Canada has embraced has led us to keep reinventing ourselves rather than have a static view of our identity and culture. A paradigm emerges; our cultural identity will never be known. My personal view of myself as an outsider has given me an unbridled sense of curiosity and wonder. I'd like to try to share some of that with you in these pages while I relate my own stories and those of my friends.

Othercat.net is dedicated to a search for the Canadian Identity and the cultivation of new expressions to bolster it. Our world is changing, and we should keep a firm handle on our own expressions. This is one source of ideas on the internet, and we've got plenty to talk, write, and sing about.