2013-05-18T21:16:46-04:00 Lee Tunstall http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=lee-tunstall Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Lee Tunstall Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3049488 2013-04-10T12:06:46-04:00 2013-04-10T12:25:40-04:00

Lee Tunstall http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-tunstall/ Er Shun and Da Mao on their very own Panda FedEx Express last week, almost all of Canada stopped to welcome the darling bears to their new home for the next decade. Although not quite a gift, as the pandas are only here for 10 years and then must return, hopefully with a third little panda in tow, it has been crafted as a show of generosity and friendship by the Chinese people to the Canadian people.

Animals, especially exotic ones, have a long history of being used in diplomatic gestures. Pandas in particular have been great ambassadors for China, helped by their intense cuteness factor. The practice even has its own particular term as these arrangements are referred to as "panda diplomacy." One of the more famous was the gift of two pandas to the U.S. in 1972 after President Nixon's landmark trip to China. Not to be outdone, Edward Heath, the British Prime Minister, requested a panda pair for the U.K. two years later, and duly received them. But by 1984, the Chinese had decided not to offer pandas as gifts, but rather on 10-year loans, and with annual payments meant to be used for panda conservation.

Exotic animals have long been used as symbols of power and diplomacy. Ancient Rome kept lions, tigers and other dangerous animals for arena fights with gladiators. They were paraded through the streets to the awe of the populace to ensure all saw how a powerful animal could be kept under the control of an even more powerful ruler. The Emperor Trajan (98-117 C.E.) had a collection of some 11,000 wild and domestic animals, while Emperor Octavius Augustus (27 B.C.E.- 14 C.E.) had a menagerie that numbered some 3,500 and included a rhinoceros, a hippopotamus, 420 tigers and 260 lions!

Like China, other countries had their exotic animal of choice as diplomatic gifts. For Egypt, it was the giraffe, and a certain amount of historical "giraffe diplomacy" has come down to us through the years. The Egyptians had discovered the animals as a result of trade with the Land of Punt, which is further to the south in Africa. Possibly a gift from Cleopatra, Julius Caesar brought the first giraffe to Rome from Egypt, where it was dubbed a "cameleopard," due to its size and spots. Its gentle demeanour proved to be a disappointment to those who were expecting the ferocity of a leopard for the arena.

Later Egyptian rulers followed suit. Giraffes were sent from Egyptian sultans to the Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX (1042-55), to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1220-50) in exchange for a white bear, and to his son Manfred, King of Sicily (1258-66). In 1404, Faraj, the Mamluk sultan of Egypt sent a diplomatic mission to Tamerlane, who ruled most of the Muslim world at the time. As part of this mission, Faraj sent a giraffe all the way from Egypt to Samarkand, Tamerlane's capital in present-day Uzbekistan. A giraffe made a triumphal return to Italy in 1487, as the Egyptian sultan sent a female one to Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence, in order to try and enhance relations with Lorenzo to turn against the Ottoman Turks. Allowed to wander the streets freely, the people of Florence fed the animal from second-storey windows and were entranced by its grace and beauty.

Closer to our own time, the practice of animal diplomacy continues. Queen Elizabeth II has been gifted with many exotic animals over the years, including two black beavers from Canada in 1970.This was actually given by Canada as part of a rent obligation to the monarch by the Hudson's Bay Company as noted in its original charter. It was said that the two beavers became frisky during the ceremony, and the Queen rather innocently asked what the two were doing. The Hudson's Bay Governor, Viscount Amory, reportedly responded that he had no idea, as he was a bachelor. She promptly donated the pair to the Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg. So ended any further Canadian flirtation with "beaver diplomacy."

As for Er Shun and Da Mao, their mission is quite simple: create a third little panda. If they do that one simple act, they will further endear themselves, and their country, to the hearts of Canadians. And that's really what this is all about.

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Lee Tunstall http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-tunstall/ International Women's Day approaches again on March 8, many commentators take this opportunity to look back on the history of women to gauge how far we have come over the years. But it is often what is yet to be written that is most interesting, which made my mind turn to the history of girlhood.

Modern women's history, as a separate branch of history, developed at the same time as the second wave of the women's movement, starting in the 1960s. It began at the same time as social history, with its goal of giving voice to the silenced in history. Since then, it has gained traction to become an established area of study. There have been many methodological and philosophical debates within women's history over the past half century, including important distinctions between feminist women's history and gender history.

Many ages and stages of women's lives have been studied: widows, mothers, married women, and even single women have various journal articles and monographs to their credit. But one stage of a woman's life is still vastly under-researched, and that stage is the earlier years of girlhood. Although some work has been done on the history of childhood, gender is still not highlighted in many works. And the intersection of ethnicity, race, sexuality, disability and class for girls is even less well understood. Both the academic journals Girlhood Studies (co-edited by McGill's Claudia Mitchell) and the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth were launched only five years ago in 2008. It's fair to say that the history of girls is yet to be written, and that even their present is less well-researched than that of older women.

It's interesting then to see that girls are fast becoming a focus of interest for some charities. International non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in particular seem to have "discovered" girls. Plan Canada has launched their Because I am a Girl project and Care Canada is explicitly focusing on girls and women as agents of community change. In Canada, there are a number of national organizations that are also focusing on girls, including the Canadian Women's Foundation, the Belinda Stronach Foundation and of course the YWCA of Canada.

One of the only charities to focus solely on girls is Girls Action Foundation, founded in 1995 and based out of Montreal. In their own words, they exist to "lead and seed girls' programs across Canada." This foundation has just released a brief commissioned by Status of Women Canada on the main issues facing girls in Canada, of which I am one of the co-authors.

I'm happy to say there is some good news to celebrate. Girls in Canada are gaining ground in education, with more graduating high school and often on time. They are also smoking less and there is a decline in teen pregnancies. Each of these improvements helps set girls up for success in their futures.

Unfortunately, Canadian girls are still facing some serious challenges, especially when it comes to mental health and everyday violence and abuse that can touch their lives. Too many girls suffer from problems related to negative body image, depression or self-destructive behaviour and too many also suffer from bullying, unwanted sexual attention, or dating violence.

Girls who are Indigenous, racialized, immigrant and girls who live in rural areas face even more challenges and barriers than others, although it is encouraging to see that they also often show some signs of heightened resiliency. There is still much work to be done to ensure all Canadian girls can reach their best potential.

As we approach another International Women's Day, it's important to realize that our girls today will all too soon become women in the future. And as important as the future generation of women is, remember, we can still learn from the past. If the history of girlhood is indeed waiting to be written, I sincerely hope the wait is not too long.

Lee Tunstall has a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge. She is an adjunct assistant professor in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Calgary, Alberta and co-author of the recently released "Beyond Appearances: Brief on the Main Issues Facing Girls in Canada."]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2662920 2013-02-12T15:45:48-05:00 2013-04-14T05:12:01-04:00

Lee Tunstall http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-tunstall/ curious meeting held between Quebec's separatist premier, Pauline Marois and Scotland's nationalist first minister, Alex Salmond. Billed as a "separatist summit" by Marois and the PQ, the 45-minute "courtesy" meeting was decidedly played down by the Scots. Poor Marois could not even squeeze a measly joint photo-op out of the Scottish leader.

This must have been disappointing for Marois, who had hoped to stand side-by-side with someone she clearly viewed as a separatist colleague, and one who is soon to face his own referendum on secession from the British.

Marois could have benefitted from a briefing paper in history in advance of this meeting, as the two political regions experienced distinctly different paths on the way to their union with England.

Quebec became part of Britain against their will, as a result of war. France's loss at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759, followed by the capitulation on Montréal in 1760, virtually ensured that Britain would control the North American colonies, including the colony of Canada, from that point forward. This was formalized by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, which ended the Seven Years' War between France, Spain and Britain that had raged on both sides of the Atlantic.

Ardent PQistes might want to take note that France had the opportunity to retain the colony of Canada as part of this treaty, but instead traded it for the Caribbean island of Guadaloupe, which was then a major producer of sugar, as well as access to Newfoundland's fisheries.

Scotland's journey to become part of Great Britain was quite different. While Quebec had become part of Britain as a result of war, Scotland actually negotiated the Acts of Union with the English in 1707.

Although there was no love lost between the Scots and the English, by the early 18th century, they had been sharing a monarch since the Union of the Crowns in 1603, and had been talking of political union for almost as long. Serious discussions began in 1705, and progressed quickly. Scotland wanted access to the lucrative English colonial markets, which within six decades was to include Canada. England wanted to ensure that the Hanoverian royal house would ascend to both the thrones of Scotland and England after Queen Anne's death. This union had long been a goal of Anne, who was destined to be the last Stuart monarch. She had actually been pregnant 17 times, but not one of her children survived.

Fast forward to the 21st century, and both Quebec and Scotland are seriously considering independence. But again, the echoes of history are strong. As they did with union, Scotland entered into negotiations with the British government to initiate the process of devolution, beginning in 1999. Admittedly, former Prime Minister Tony Blair was wary of beginning the process, fearing it would eventually lead down the road to independence. But bilateral negotiations around devolution have continued and Scotland not only has a working parliament again in Holyrood, it now has taxation powers. The referendum for independence, which seems like the next natural step forward, is scheduled for fall 2014.

Contrast that to Quebec's rather bumpy journey towards separation. It is safe to say that Quebec's relationship with the rest of Canada has echoed its rather adversarial beginning to this day, with the FLQ and the October Crisis of 1970 as the extreme example of this. As opposed to Scotland's more progressive approach, Quebec moved directly to its end game - separation - by holding two failed referenda, one in 1980 and one in 1995.

In essence, the two failed referenda bookended intense constitutional negotiations held between 1980 and 1995 to try and find a way for Quebec to exist successfully within Canada. Witness the repatriation of the constitution in 1981, the Meech Lake Accord in 1987, and finally the Charlottetown Accord in 1992. As a result of these failures, but because of the extremely close defeat of the 1995 referendum, the federal government passed the Clarity Act in 2000, to provide clarity on exactly how Quebec could exit Canada. Quebec immediately enacted its own, contradictory law in response. We now have a separatist leader in a minority government, openly musing about a third referendum.

Hindsight is, of course, 20-20. Pauline Marois' trip to Holyrood was doomed before it began - the two separatists have little in common, other than their divisive end goal.

Lee Tunstall has a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge. She is an adjunct assistant professor in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Calgary, Alberta.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2444838 2013-01-10T10:37:30-05:00 2013-03-12T05:12:02-04:00

Lee Tunstall http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-tunstall/
It is worth remembering that Spain was once a global empire, and that during that 16th and 17th centuries, "Golden Age" Spain had access to dazzling amounts of New World gold and silver. That this wealth came at the expense of two major New World empires, the Aztec and the Inca, is what we would perhaps refer to today as collateral damage.

The Spanish Golden Age boom led inevitably to a bust, as this new-found Spanish wealth actually led to inflation of prices of everyday items. In a type of informal European trade union, Spain needed to import most everyday items from their European neighbors. But what really caused the 16th century Spanish financial crisis was one four-letter word: debt. In fact, the Spanish Hapsburg monarchs practically invented the term "sovereign" debt crisis.

By 1516, Ferdinand, of Ferdinand and Isabella fame, died, and ultimately his grandson, Charles I (1516-1556), from the Austrian royal house of Hapsburg took over both Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. Charles was keen to add the title of Holy Roman Emperor to his regal portfolio and to aid this campaign, he took out a huge loan of 850,000 florins to bribe the Electors. The lenders of this loan were the Fuggers, a merchant banking family from Augsburg, which just happened to be in Germany. The idea was that gold and silver from the New World would pay for the loan. Unfortunately, Charles just kept right on borrowing. Estimates were that he owed a staggering 37 million ducats by 1556, the year he abdicated his throne in favor of his son and retired to a monastery in Spain.

Charles' successor and son, Phillip II (1556-1598), immediately defaulted on the Fugger loan, effectively bankrupting the country. But Phillip was actually just changing bankers, and had no plans to stop borrowing. He simply moved to Genoese bankers, who happily indulged him even further. Phillip actually defaulted on his loans with his bankers three more times during his reign, in 1560, 1575, and 1596. His last default in 1596 was precipitated by the disastrous defeat of the mighty Spanish Armada by the British under Queen Elizabeth I in 1588.

You would think that his son, the aptly named Phillip III (1598-1621) would have learned a lesson or two about debt from his father's poor example. Perhaps he did, but it was the wrong lesson, as he too defaulted on his debts in 1607. Not to be outdone and to continue what had now become a Hapsburg family tradition, Phillip IV (1621-1665) also went bankrupt in 1627, in 1647 and 1653. It was only the final Hapsburg king, Charles II (1665-1700), said to be the least capable, who avoided bankruptcy during his 35-year reign. After this, the French royal house of Bourbon took over the Spanish throne, and yes, you guessed it, Spain went bankrupt again in 1739 under Phillip V.

In total, Spain has suffered 13 bankruptcies in the four centuries between 1500 and 1900. Their current predicament is therefore nothing new. Financed by exuberant foreign bankers, encumbered by huge debt, and trying to dominate a dysfunctional Europe, Spain was an overextended empire that eventually squandered great wealth.

There are definite echoes of the past that have come down from this time to modern-day Spain. The 1990s and early 2000s were another Golden Age of renewal in Spain, with major infrastructure projects initiated and paid for by virtue of their entrance into the European Union in 1986. A real estate boom brought the "wealth effect" to ordinary citizens, with more than 80 percent of Spanish citizens owning their homes. After the credit bubble burst in 2008, the country has spent the past four years trying to deal with its latest sovereign debt crisis and fend off bankruptcy.

For 21st-century Spain, it's fair to say that this is simply déjà vu all over again.

Lee Tunstall has a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Calgary, Alberta.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2139595 2012-11-15T17:55:07-05:00 2013-01-15T05:12:01-05:00

Lee Tunstall http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-tunstall/ leftover single women," I'll admit I was mightily aggrieved. This is because, well, I resemble that remark.

"It's the same situation as the leftover single women ... It will be the same for the oil sands, they will be outdated just like unmarried single women," Chen Weidon said, when speaking at the annual Canada-China Forum on Energy and the Environment in Beijing.

This statement was more than "jarring to Canadian ears" as the Globe and Mail diplomatically put it. It was flat out offensive.

However, after a calming chamomile tea and some deep breathing, this statement began to make much more sense after I found Leta Hong Fincher's October 11, 2012 op-ed in the New York Times, which explained the concept of sheng nu, or "leftover women." The term refers to any unmarried Chinese woman over the tender age of 27, and was coined by the All-China Women's Federation, which was founded by the Communist Party in 1949.

When a Chinese reporter told his Canadian counterparts at the Forum that the term sheng nu is common in China, he was telling the truth, but not the whole truth: solving the sheng nu "problem" is in fact, a key plank in Communist party policy.

The term itself is relatively recent, and first appeared on the Women's Federation website in 2007. This coincided with China's State Council policy direction which included changes to the Population and Family Planning program. In particular, the policy changes are focused on redressing the sex-ratio imbalance and "upgrading" the quality of its population to keep China globally competitive. To achieve this, the Women's Federation has been on a public relations campaign to try and get unmarried single women to leave their careers, marry and have some quality children.

In truth, this term speaks more to the cultural disconnect between our two countries than anything else, and I believe this is what is making most Canadians uncomfortable with both the potential CNOOC-Nexen deal and the Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Investment Agreement (or FIPA).

Most Canadians fear that China just doesn't get us.

If they don't even believe that "leftover single women" is a slap in the face to many single Canadian women, not to mention other women and some progressive men, what else don't they get? Especially when we know that China is actually experiencing a surfeit of leftover single men due to its one-child policy.

While the Harper Government is busy trying to decide if the CNOOC-Nexen deal is in the best interests of Canadians as per the Investment Canada Act, the Canadian public is also busy making up its mind. Comments like these will not help CNOOC's case, as they add to the doubt already building.

Women, especially single women, are becoming a powerful force in society.

Just ask Barack Obama, who took 67 per cent of the single female vote (which was 23 per cent of the total vote) over Mitt Romney. In Canada too, single women are flexing their economic and political muscles. Although single women in Canada are still vulnerable to living in poverty, a younger generation of single, professional women are delaying marriage and motherhood indefinitely. There are even television shows devoted to the trend, such as Buy Herself which looks at single women buying their own homes.

Knowing that the power of single women in the U.S. and Canada is slowly growing, the term "leftover single women" particularly rankles. At best, it was a cultural faux pas; at worst, it was a harbinger of how out of step the ruling cultural elite of China are with Canadian values, behaviours -- and ways of doing business.

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