(FROM “O CANADA!,” THE NATIONAL ANTHEM OF CANADA) IOn the Love of Country Loving a country is an act of the imagination. We start from what we know—the street where we grew up, the brightly lit skating rinks at night, the tingle of the lake water when we first plunge in, the feeling when we set our feet back on native soil—and we make these parts stand for the whole. What we know is only a fragment of what is there. We have to imagine the expanse we have not seen. We have to imagine the ties that bind us to our fellow citizens, many of whom may not even speak the same language. We reason out from the rituals we share, the rights we enjoy, the traditions we hold in common—and we imagine belonging to a place we can call home. Our political system, the leaders, the laws, the symbols and anthems matter to us because, when they work as they should, they give us the feeling that we share a life in common with the strangers we call fellow citizens. We engage in this act of imagination because we need to.
