Obama killed multiculturalism?

Our Obama will be nativeMulticulturalism, at least as one of Canada's binding national myths, is now useless, if not dead. And the blame goes to, of all people, Barack Obama.

The Democratic victory was a splendid one. It put substance in the party's name and was a joy to behold: that panoply of faces in the crowd, belonging to all classes and races, the meaningful sobriety of Obama's speech.

But for Canada, a nation on the margins, Obama's election had the further ramification of rendering our own multicultural creation myth redundant. Multiculturalism simply does not distinguish Canada anymore. As a nationally binding story it is, in the global scheme of things, now ordinary--and so as a myth about Canadian identity it is effectively useless. It has gone the way of basketball and Superman and a host of other Canadian inventions that the United States has taken on and can sing much, much more loudly.

The image of Barack Obama, a supreme icon of the meeting and fusion of races (a "mutt," according to his own amusing self-description), has been projected all over the world, and that of his whooping Kenyan grandmother, too. His speech has been viewed over a million times on YouTube. His message of a new democratic order has found resonance with hundreds of millions. The Canadian multicultural version just cannot compete, not even among our own citizenry.Comment:  Let me see if I have this straight. Because Obama is the epitome of multiculturalism, multiculturalism is now redundant? Because multiculturalism has triumphed, multiculturalism is dead?

This opinion comes from the National Post, a right-wing Canadian newspaper. Needless to say, right-wingers aren't known for their ability to think straight. Consider how they tried to associate Obama with William Ayers after Reagan sold arms to the Ayatollah Khomeini and Donald Rumsfeld shook hands with Saddam Hussein. Based on past associations, who's really guilty of palling around with terrorists?