Quite the chutzpah for Turkey to open this kettle of fish. If Turkey is now committed to "decolonization," does that mean they will give back the lands taken from the many ethnic and religious minorities who have been victims of Ottoman & Turkish imperialism? Will the Armenians have their ancient lands restored to them, or receive reparations for the genocide inflicted on them in 1915? The Kurds given the right of self-determination? The ancient Greek regions returned? Will the 1974 Turkish invasion and occupation of Northern Cyprus be reversed? Will the descendants of Jewish families who fled Kemalist policies of forced assimilation be given compensation? Will the Hagia Sophia be returned the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, from whom it was stolen? Will there be a truth & reconciliation project recognizing the millions of slaves taken & trafficked by the Ottoman Empire, particularly the countless boys kidnapped from Balkan Christian families for forced military service? Will compensation be given to Christians for the hundred of Churches and monasteries destroyed? The possibilities for Turkish decolonization are endless.

This attitude, together with the declining attachment to Canada amongst Gen Z, is partly the result of shredding Canadian history and civics in our school curricula. How many of these young people who prefer a strong-man republic could write a paragraph accurately describing our constitutional monarchy rooted in the Westminster Parliamentary tradition? How many of them have been taught the fascinating story of the organic development of Parliamentary government over eight centuries? How many of them have been taught to be proud of having inherited one of the most stable, democratic systems of government in the world? A system that created the concept of the rule of law through the Magna Carta, the Common Law, habeas corpus, trial by jury, religious liberty, the abolition of slavery, etc.. How many of them have been taught anything memorable about the fight for responsible government in Canada, and how it is embodied in our Parliamentary institutions? Or the division of powers in our federal system? How many of them know that Canada is the fourth oldest continuous democratic state on Earth? Not only have they been denied this basic civic literacy that is a requisite for responsible citizenship, but they have been denied access to the poetry of patriotism: the old stories and heroes (including ordinary heroes like the voyageurs and pioneers,) that formed and transmitted pride in Canada for generations. Instead they are more likely to have been taught that Canada is a genocidal white settler society built on stolen land; that our British and French roots and institutions are the regrettable vestiges of Eurocentric colonialism; that our founders were nasty racists; and that we continue to be characterized by systemic racism. So is it any wonder that rather than embracing the customs and institutions that made Canada one of the most successful nations on Earth, the emerging generation prefers a strongman? This is the rotten fruit of the Canadian educational establishment having been dominated by Gramscians pumped out by OISE and adjacent institutions for decades.