Reflection Four

Gendered Racialization in the Canadian Airborne Regiment

In Razack’s article on Canadian Peace keeping she addresses the issue of colonialism and how it plays a part in not only the racial aspect of the incident but also the gendered aspect. Gender and race often times go out together, especially I find in the context of whiteness and men. The article focuses on the reasoning behind the events that occurred in Somalia between the people there and the Canadian Airborne Regiment. The men of the regiment were accused of torture, murder and rape, which of course do not fit with the traditional view of the Canadian people. Through the article she often discusses the idea of Canadian’s as an innocent people, especially compared to our Southern neighbours. There are many different aspects that Razack brings up through the article, be it the essential colonizing which the Canadian people inflicted both on the Somalian people or the indigenous ones when the Europeans first came to Canada or the gendered
racism that takes place. Either way, she discusses the possibility of Canadian Peacekeeping and how this instance tarnished the image of not only the Canadian military force but also the general Canadian population and I am completely in agreeance with her.

            She talked extensively about the racialized gender issues at play, “The colonies are often depicted as the "proving ground for national manhood" (Ridley 1983:104), a place where real men must resort to violence in order to establish their own potency and the potency of their nations” (Razack, p.4). This is the most compelling issue I believe she describes, the fact that is not only racialization at work here but it is also becomes an issue of gender.  The men of the Canadian Airborne Regiment not only felt the need to assert themselves as a dominant culture over the Somalians but also as the dominant race and gender. Despite the men of Somalia being men as well, the Canadian men felt the need to sexualize them in a way that made them almost feminine in their eyes. By doing this, they made their victims not only lesser due to race but they also made them appear as a perceived lesser sex as well. The men who were supposed to be “peacekeeping” in Somalia merely became aggressors as bad as the men they were supposed to be keeping the citizens safe from.

            In keeping true to her points Razack looks at the issues of how these men perceive themselves and how throughout the violence inflicted upon others they maintain their pride and dignity. She says “some of the dimensions of the hegemonic masculinity that sustains and is sustained by violence against women and racialized bodies.” (Razack, p. 5), meaning that not only do the men pride themselves on what they have done to these people but they also feel that this validates their masculinity; women because they are supposedly the lesser sex and the racialized body because supposedly there can be no better race than that of the white man. This is not the first time that Canadians have exhibited such attitudes, during the initial settling of Canada in order to claim the land, the settlers colonized the indigenous people. Again they killed, tortured and stole what they felt necessary because they are the white man and nothing is beyond their privilege. In my opinion it is this attitude that Razack speaks of that allows the white men of the Canadian Airborne Regiment to feel the level of entitlement that they do.

Razack, Sherene. "From the "Clean Snows of Petawawa: The Violence of Canadian  Peacekeepers in Somalia." Cultural Anthropology 15.1 (2000): 127-63.