Michelle Reid, Urban Space and Canadian Identity

SF-TH Inc
Urban Space and Canadian Identity in Charles de Lint's "Svaha"

Author(s): Michelle Reid
Source: Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Nov., 2006), pp. 421-437
Published by: SF-TH Inc
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URBAN SPACE AND CANADIAN IDENTITY IN SVAH4 421
Michelle Reid
Urban Space and Canadian Identity in Charles de Lint's Svaha
Although the world-view of most cyberpunk texts encompasses a near future in

which nation states are superseded by globalized corporations, this disintegration
of nations is usually depicted from the perspective of the dominant technopowers
of Japan and the US. Consequently, the resulting heterogeneous urban sprawl
described in these writings is still dominated by Japanese and American cultural
norms. In contrast, fantasy author Charles de Lint's only science fiction novel
to date, Svaha (1989), imagines a cyberpunk future from a Canadian perspec-
tive, an "ex-centric" position that draws attention to the issue of distinct national
identities in a globalized world. As Linda Hutcheon notes, "Since the periphery
or the margin might also describe Canada's perceived position in international
terms, perhaps the postmodern ex-centric is very much a part of the identity of
the nation" (3). De Lint uses this marginalized position to reject the cyberpunk
world-view dominated by fluid virtual spaces in which it is increasingly difficult
to maintain a stable social or communal identity. Instead, he addresses issues of
Canadian identity that are based on the division of physical living spaces by
various social and cultural boundaries. De Lint is one of Canada's best known
fantasy authors. His urban fantasies often create spaces that enable encounters
among Native American mythology, European mythology, and the urban myths
of the contemporary North American city.' This mapping of collective identity
and social space also characterizes his early sf novel.
In "Dis-Imagined Communities: Science Fiction and the Future of Nations"
(2002), Istvan Csicsery-Ronay argues that science fiction has shown relatively
little interest in the future of nationality in comparison with other forms of social
identity such as gender, race, sexual culture, and class (221). He identifies
cyberpunk's characteristic strategy of "Corporate Globalization" as one of the
five main ways nations are displaced in science fiction writing. In this case, the
displacement occurs because of vitual reality's destabilizing effect on the
physical body and the resulting lack of cohesion in the body politic: "On the
corporate globe, self-identification with a territory becomes problematic when
physical space becomes virtualized" (226). Csicsery-Ronay admits, however,
that this process of "dis-imagining" nations is perhaps more challenging in
cyberpunk texts than in other forms of sf, because this subgenre often depicts the
period of national disintegration:
Cyberpunk aims to depict the deterioration of the conditions of the present, and
nation-states are exemplary forms of human community (and one might say of
historical complacency, ripe for attack) in the present. This concern has inspired
some unusually respectful responses to nationality. As the near-future of
corporate globalization becomes realized, nations and nation-states come to
represent bases for resistance. (226)
422 SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES, VOLUME 33 (2006)
Yet he moves quickly from this mention of national resistance to complete a

more general taxonomy of how nationality is negated in the sf imagination for
example, from the distanced perspective of the far future or following
apocalyptic events.
Csicsery-Ronay acknowledges that national identity has a potency and
mutability beyond the political control of a national government. He cites
Anthony D. Smith's argument that "nations existed in complex forms before
they became the main legitimising concept of the modem state" (221). He does
not give sufficient credit, however, to the endurance and continuity of such
national identities in the future after the dissolution of the political nation in its
current form. He states that "globalist theory does not imagine that the complex
loyalties and histories that inspire national consciousness can still have a
significant effect on human history-a view currently shared equally by the
Left's internationalism and the Right's multinationalism" (220). He argues that
twentieth-century science fiction imagines a similar break with national politics
and nationality as a unifying force: "Where political communities continued to
operate, they were replaced by fantastic communities based on abstract
principles rather than histories: Male Lands and Female Lands, utopian
settlements and the capitalist multinations, Third World worlds, cultures of
desire and cultures of repression" (223). This view may suit the galactic empires
of space opera, distanced from our contemporary world by huge expanses of
space and time, yet it does not suit the social extrapolation of near-future science
fiction, such as cyberpunk, which imagines moments of national dissolution or
even reintegration. This view also fails to take into account the experience of
reading sf, which involves relating these supposedly non-national futures back
to our own context in a world still divided into national power blocks.
I believe Anthony D. Smith's view of national identity as an enduring set of
social ties and mythologies offers a better way of mapping the ongoing
interaction between the past, present, and future of nationality in science fiction.
In "Towards a Global Culture" (1990), Smith states that "many of today's
nations are built up on the basis of pre-modern 'ethnic cores' whose myths,
memories, values and symbols shaped the culture and boundaries of the nation
that modem elites managed to forge" (180). Smith goes on to argue that these
cultural images are part of an ongoing and resilient series of constructed
identities based on a shared homeland and history. He claims that the globalized
future proposed by many theorists is widely diffused in space and cut off from
any past; hence it lacks the necessary "world memories" to unite humanity and
supersede more cumulative national identities. He writes, "Given the plurality
of such experiences and identities, and given the historical depth of such
memories, the project of a global culture, as opposed to global communications,
must appear premature for some time to come" (180). Smith shows that
collective values and symbols are accumulative, not imposed upon a passive
population as if upon a tabula rasa. Similarly, science fictional futures are also
continuations of our pasts and presents, explicitly and implicitly influenced by
such collective identities.
URBAN SPACE AND CANADIAN IDENTITY IN SVAHA 423
In his article "Imaginable Futures," Graham Murphy responds to Csicsery-

Ronay using the example of Pat Cadigan's 1998 cyberpunk novel, Tea from an
Empty Cup, in which Japanese nationality continues to exert a powerful
imaginative force even after the nation in question no longer physically exists.
In the novel, Japan has been fractured by a series of earthquakes and has been
replaced by the virtual community of Old Japan. The body politic has become
dispersed throughout the individual bodies and identities of its members, but the
effect is nonetheless unifying. As Murphy states, "Cadigan removes the
geographical terrain as the sole signifier of nationality and resituates nation in
both mythology and corporeality" (153). In this example, the virtual space so
crucial to the cyberpunk world-view is used to reaffirm, as opposed to
destabilize, national identity. Svaha provides a contrasting example of how the
connection between nationality and shared space can reaffirm collective identity
in a globalized world. Unlike Tea from an Empty Cup, de Lint's novel rejects
virtual space, instead focusing on living spaces in the physical world in order to
draw attention to the environmental cost of unchecked techno-industrial
expansion. In the novel, environmental disasters caused by the escalating
greenhouse effect, a limited nuclear exchange between the US and Russia, and
corporate expansion have led to a severe lack of inhabitable land in North
America.
The emphasis on the Canadian physical environment in de Lint's text can be
demonstrated by a comparison between the first views of the Boston-Atlanta
Metropolitan Axis (BAMA) in William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984) and the
similarly named Toronto-Quebec Corridor (TOPQ) in Svaha. The cities of the
BAMA are represented digitally:
Program a map to display frequency of data exchange, every thousand megabytes

a single pixel on a very large screen. Manhattan and Atlanta burn solid white.
Then they start to pulse, the rate of traffic threatening to overload your
simulation. Your map is about to go nova. (57)
This overload of digital information is in stark contrast to the environmental

overload inflicted on the TOPQ:
Later still, he [Gahzee] stood on the roof of a deserted tenement building,

looking not at the endless sprawl of the Toronto-Quebec Corridor that ran for a
hundred klicks like a river of broken buildings and streets from the southwest to
the northeast, nor at the smog-yellow skies that hid the stars and bright light of
the moon above him, but back along the path he had taken. (4)
Instead of a fast-flowing digital information network, the physical means of

communication and transportation are clogged. The river in the simile recalls the
Saint Lawrence River that runs along the eastern seaboard of Canada; hence it
would follow the sprawl of the TOPQ almost exactly. This collapses the simile
by suggesting that Canada's major eastern river is itself clogged by urban debris.
The environmental and social cost of late capitalism is "brought home" to
Canada via this blocked communications network. In addition, the positive
image of Canada as a cosmopolitan country founded on a long tradition of
immigration (most early settlers used the Saint Lawrence as their main access-
way to the country) has also broken down. The country is now isolated, and
there is an absence of safe havens and communities implied by the broken
buildings and streets.
A fear of contaminated land has merged with a fear of racial contamination.
Consequently, instead of fluid movement between cultural groups in a
heterogeneous urban sprawl, de Lint's Canada disintegrates because space is
jealously guarded as a means of preserving distinct racial identities. Enclaves
based on cultural and racial distinctions are not uncommon in cyberpunk texts.
Indeed, Michael Longan and Tim Oakes describe such a convention in reference
to Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age:
In 7he Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson envisions a post-nation-state world of the

future, where countless fragmentations of cultural identity differentiate humanity
into spatially discrete tribal zones.... Indeed, one can join the cultural group of
one's choice simply by taking an oath, acquiring the selected dress and manners
of the group, and living in the space they have carved out as their own. (39)
Svaha imagines a similar society that is divided into "spatially discrete tribal
zones"; the barriers between such zones are, however, far less permeable than
those identified by Longan and Oakes. Different ethnic groups live in close
proximity to one another but maintain rigid segregation. A person's place of
residence is entirely determined by racial identity. This direct mapping is
demonstrated by the nicknames given to different sections of society. The
privileged East Asian business workers and yakuza crime operatives living in the
Megaplexes are known as "Plex babies" (28). The excluded underclass of
mainly white Canadians in the sprawl are called "Squat rats" (7). The First
Nations groups are known as "Clavers," a derisive and aggressive-sounding
shortening of "Enclavers" (119). All non-indigenous Canadians are termed
"Outlanders," denoting their exclusion from the Native Enclaves (74). In de
Lint's Canada, one cannot simply become part of a different collective group by
"living in the space they have carved out as their own." This is emphasized by
the rigid barriers segregating different spaces, such as the mysterious high-tech
force fields surrounding the Enclaves, and the strict patrols and checkpoints
restricting entry to the Megaplexes. This disintegration of living space can be
read as an interrogation of Canada's self-proclaimed multicultural identity based
on the spatial metaphor of the mosaic.
Segregation of the Canadian Multicultural Mosaic. Concepts of space have

an important role to play in constructions of Canadian nationality. It is a
commonplace that Canada lacks the dramatic revolutionary history that gives
America a proud collective past. Instead, narratives of the Canadian nation
stress the constant need to work at national coherence through the continual
mapping and remapping of the Canadian territory. In Borderlands: How We Talk
About Canada (1998), W.H. New notes that Canada is most often discussed
using "boundary rhetoric," meaning that Canadian national discourse is
dominated by spatial metaphors used to describe the country's socio-political
relationships in terms of boundaries, borders, peripheries, and edges (5).
Canada, he argues, would be unthinkable without its southern border with the
United States, polar border with Russia, Atlantic border with Europe, and
Pacific border with Asia. This suggests that the country is hemmed in by more
powerful neighbors who could encroach on Canada's thinly defined territory.
New stresses the positive, oscillating flexibility of borders, however, arguing
that such boundaries operate more like three-dimensional metaphors than fixed
edges. They do not signify a binary "either-or" relationship, but a complex
association of "both/and' (5). This appreciation of borders also applies to
internal relations within Canada. The fact that Canada has been colonized twice,
first by the French, then by the British, means that national narratives have to
acknowledge that the land has a layered ownership and identity. Models of the
Canadian nation are decentered and based on a permutation of different regional
and provincial identities-for example, the "two solitudes" model of Anglophone
Canada and Quebec; the isolated but prosperous West (Alberta and British
Columbia); the Center (Ontario) versus all the other provinces; and certain
amalgamations based on a shared landscape and terrain, such as the Maritimes
and Prairies.
The most high-profile transformation of this decentered identity into a
national virtue came in 1971, when Canada adopted multiculturalism as an
official government policy, becoming the first country to do so. Many modern
Western nations now claim to be multicultural in some way. Canada has a more
specific, officially defimed relationship with the concept of multiculturalism,
however, as demonstrated by the Canadian Multiculturalism Act of 1985, which
is designed to respect the differences of different cultures within Canada while
also claiming such respect as "a fundamental characteristic of the Canadian
heritage and identity" that "provides an invaluable resource in the shaping of
Canada's future" (Department of Justice, Canada). Multiculturalism has been
adapted into a striking example of border rhetoric celebrating the Canadian
multicultural mosaic. The differentiated mosaic provides a positive alternative
to the strategies of absorption and amalgamation promoted by the American
melting pot."
Critics of Canadian multiculturalism, such as Bharati Mukherjee, question
the gridlocked rigidity that underpins the idea of the mosaic. Sharmani Gabriel
analyses Mukherjee's view of the American melting pot as a model that enables
vital processes of interconnection and intermixing and contrasts it with her view
of the Canadian mosaic as a model that enshrines barriers rather than overcom-
ing them. Gabriel states that, for Mukherjee,
the liberal, state-sanctioned discourse of Canadian multiculturalism is under-

pinned by this very view of cultures as fixed and mutually impermeable. This
conception of multiculturalism denies the presence of ambivalence or hybridity
through its assertion of superficial pluralism and its belief in the existence of
clear boundaries between cultures. In such a "multicultural" nation, differences
are organized into neat, virtual grids of distinct ethnic communities, each with
its own "culture." (7)
Svaha shows a Canada that has pursued this rigid mapping of cultural onto
spatial divisions to its extreme, leading to the disintegration of the nation.
In de Lint's novel, the greatest challenge to Canada's mosaic identity comes

from First Nations groups who reclaim their tribal lands and secure them as
enclaves, an act that distances Native identities from Canadian multicultural
identities. The Native groups collectively refer to themselves as "the People,"
derived from the Algonquin name "Anishnabeg," meaning "original people."
As such, the term "the People" emphasizes the primacy of the Native groups
more forcefully than "First Nations," which has a strong colonial overtone. It
is also an ironic comment on the common use of "the people" to refer to the
entire population of a country. Whereas it was once a homogenizing term that
erased the differences distinguishing individual citizens within a nation, it is now
a discriminatory term implying that all those excluded from "the People" are
somehow less than human.
De Lint's future Canada in which Native groups reclaim their tribal lands
through the courts is based upon ongoing land claims made by First Nations
associations in Canada today. The Multiculturalism Act of 1985 takes care to
ensure that Canada's multicultural policy does not infringe on the autonomy of
First Nations groups who have separate provisions at federal, provincial, and
local level for the maintenance of Native culture.2 Canada's multicultural
heritage is based, however, on the country's history as a settler colony and an
ongoing tradition of immigration; hence it is implicitly founded on the
dispossession of the First Nations from their homelands. The People's voluntary
seclusion in Enclaves is a direct and symbolic reversal of the North American
policy of confining indigenous people to reserves, and a rejection of a pluralist
mosaic identity that has been imposed upon First Nations' land.
In Svaha, the ease with which "the Japanese claimed Canada" (20) seems to
conform to the cyberpunk trope of future Japanese dominance. Joshua La Bare
has noted that Western sf often represents Japan's emergence from an
apocalypse to dominate the near-future economy due to an inhuman-seeming
social structure and a fascination with advanced technology. He argues that such
representations of Japanese identity mirror our constructions of otherness with
all the complex reflections and self-reflections that this metaphor implies. In
Svaha, this doubling and reflecting is further complicated by the suggestion that
Japan was able to claim Canada because of an already strong Japanese presence
both inside and outside the borders that define Canadian identity.
Currently, the greatest number of new immigrants to Canada come from East
Asian backgrounds.3 Many settle in Canada's largest cities such as Vancouver,
which has become known as a center of Japanese culture in Canada.4 In
addition, Canada's west coast border is regarded as a significant trade-link to
East Asia. Canadian provincial and federal authorities aim to open up this border
further and exploit its potential for trade. This high level of East Asian
immigration, however, coupled with high-profile business expansion, has
provoked fear and suspicion. In Svaha, the dominance of the yakuza is
extrapolated from current Canadian fear-mongering that gang networks, such a
the triads, are infiltrating East Asian companies in Canada and using the countr
as a base of operations. These fears culminated in the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police conducting the
URBAN SPACE AND CANADIAN IDENTITY IN SVAH4 427
controversial "Project Sidewinder" (1995-1999) to investigate the extent of such

infiltration.5
Svaha focuses entirely on the Toronto-Quebec Corridor. This implies that
Canadian regional identities (such as those of the Maritimes, the West, and the
Prairies) have diminished, most likely because the land has been made
uninhabitable by contamination. In addition, it seems that the only vestige of
Francophone identity is found in the patois of the squats, "a mixture of French,
English, and Asian languages" (10). This is perhaps a realization of current
fears that the distinct French-language culture in Canada is being elided by
multiculturalism. Despite being a bilingual country with a supposedly equal
emphasis on French and English, Francophones are often depicted as only one
among many immigrant groups who make up the mosaic. Moreover, French
language and culture is commonly represented in geographical terms as entirely
contained within the province of Quebec, even though there are Francophone
Canadians living throughout Canada. Ironically, this subsuming of Francophone
identities into the squat patois in Svaha means that French is finally spoken with
the same fluency throughout all the Toronto-Quebec Corridor.
The discourse of Canadian multiculturalism is based on ideas of immigration,
borders, regionalism, provinces, reserves, and urban zones. In Svaha, however,
Canadian society has become segregated according to these imagined spatial
distinctions that were intended to preserve a respect for difference, but which
can easily become a means of sidelining minorities and ensuring discrimination.
Far from becoming a heterogeneous urban sprawl, de Lint's Canada shows how
a nation will disintegrate in its own way, thus reaffirming some of the national
differences that the cyberpunk globalized future seems to deny. The mosaic may
have become fragmented, but Canada's self-identity as a place of emptiness
surrounded by significant borders and distinguished internally by spatial-cultural
differences is reinscribed in the spaces of the Toronto-Quebec corridor.
First Nations Land Ethic: A New Model for Integration in Canada. The
desire for a reintegrated social order in the novel is demonstrated by a striki
example of urban infrastructure: the CanNational Very High Speed Transit
system. This transport network is run by a company that has a nationwide
presence and a name that suggests the possibility of a reunified Canadian nation:
The system was operated by CanNational, a consortium of corporations with

offices in every Megaplex. To defray the initial building and operating costs, the
tunnels included pipelines, power lines, laser and microwave communication
channels, and a slower railroad freight system. The various tubecraft stations
were open to anyone with the credits to use the system-citizen or squat
dweller-with maintenance and policing provided by CanNational's own cleanup
and security forces. The Megaplexes had no jurisdiction in either its stations or
freightyards. (185)
This highly organized, ingenious, and relatively egalitarian system of public

transport seems incongruous in the midst of the degenerated TOPQ. The brief
mention of CanNational seems like an expression of pride in Canada's utopian
potential. It is very similar to that expressed by Glenn Grant in his introduction
to the Canadian sf anthology Northern Stars (1994): "this country has been
shaped, from its inception, by the kind of utopian dreams one encounters only
in the most visionary scientific romances.... Consider the national railroad that
stitched together this obviously impossible confederation" (14). The CanNational
transport system in Svaha suggests that Canada can be unified by ambitious
social projects that link spaces as a means of fostering communal interaction.
The CanNational, however, is only an indication that a route to reintegration is
possible. After the failure of the Canadian multicultural ideal, de Lint's Canada
needs a new social model.
This social model is based on First Nations' relations with the land. It is
instigated by the main protagonist Gahzee, who adopts a mediator role
throughout the novel. Gahzee is sent out of his tribal Enclave on a mission to
recover a lost flyer that crashed in the Outlands (another example of Svaha's
emphasis on transportation in the material world, as opposed to the instant
navigation of virtual reality common to most cyberpunk texts). Once one of the
People has left an Enclave they can never return, making Gahzee's mission more
than a simple chase or caper plot. His permanent exile means his task is also to
negotiate the social spaces and relationships of the Outlander world in which he
must now reside.
Gahzee's negotiation of the unfamiliar urban environment is aided by his
entries into Dreamtime where he receives guidance from the Kachina-hey, the
dream teachers of the People. This Native dream-space might be read as a
spiritual alternative to the cyberspace explored by "console cowboys" such as
Case in Neuromancer. It could also be read as a response to the casual slippage
between metaphors of technology and mysticism in texts such as Gibson's Count
Zero (1986), in which Voodoo beliefs are used merely as a vehicle for ghosts in
the machine. Although the Dreamtime is accessed through meditation and not
by any technological means, the dream landscape overlaps considerably with the
urban landscape, creating a mixed spiritual and social space. For example, when
the Kachina-hey come to Gahzee telling him that he needs to embark on a
journey to become a "Twisted Hair," or mediator, he is standing "high on top
of one of the abandoned buildings in the TOPQ corridor, looking out across the
wounded land" (109). The longer Gahzee spends in the Outlands, the more his
dream visions occur in a landscape ravaged by pollution: "The elder led him out
of the vast building into a flat square. All around stood buildings similar to the
one they had just quit, manufacturing nothing but noise, pouring filth into the air
from their smokestacks" (178-79). This indicates how closely the spiritual
integrates with the material world, and demonstrates that Gahzee's mediator role
has a strong ecological dimension.
This overlapping of social, spiritual, and environmental relationships within
the same space fits with interpretations of the "land ethic" of traditional First
Nations cultures. In his collection of essays In Defence of the Land Ethic (1989),
J. Baird Callicott criticizes recent romantic characterizations of the human-
nature relationship attributed to traditional Native peoples. He argues that in
light of recent ecological damage, "traditional American Indian cultures came
to symbolize a lost but not forgotten harmony of human beings with nature. This
most recent Indian mystique blends nostalgia and optimism" (203). Callicott
attempts a more rigorous corroboration of this land wisdom by cross-referencing
early historical portrayals of Indian culture with later ethnographic studies and
current-day First Nations testimonies. He acknowledges that it is impossible to
ever recover a "pure" or "original" Native land wisdom from this complex
nexus of accounts, each with their own biases and distortions. Moreover, such
a totalizing approach is misleading, as different Native groups have their own
structures for organizing relationships with the land. Callicott's study concen-
trates only on the Algonkian and Ojibwa groups (in Svaha, Gahzee belongs to
an Anishnabeg [Ojibwa] enclave; hence he could be considered to share in this
heritage).
Callicott argues that the Algonkian and Ojibwa relationship with the
environment was neither a simple animistic reverence for nature nor a utilitarian
hunting-farming exploitation of the land, as is commonly believed. Instead it wa
based on an integrated social system:
The implicit overall metaphysic of American Indian cultures locates human

beings in a larger social, as well as physical environment. People belong not only
to a human community, but to a community of all nature as well. Existence in
this larger society, just as existence in a family and tribal context, places people
in an environment in which reciprocal responsibilities and mutual obligations are
taken for granted and assumed without question or reflection. (189-90)
Although this is a more conplex and sensitive assessment of Native relationships

with the land than many romanticized views, it has some limitations. Callicott
offers an outsider's perspective of Native cultures. Although he does not claim
to recover "original" Native beliefs, he does try to recreate an interpretation of
"traditional" cultural practices, thus relegating the land-ethic to a static past. He
makes little mention of how this ecological model might have changed or
adapted up to the present day, other than providing a set of "ready-made myths
and parables" to help guide modern nations out of their present environmental
malaise ("American Indian Land Wisdom?" 219).
Gahzee's relationship with the land is also depicted from an outside
perspective, but one that is more forward-looking. De Lint is not from a First
Nations background; hence he approaches Native culture as an outsider. His
outsider's perspective is maintained in the text by the opacity of the Enclave
barriers that prevent any close insights into the People's way of life. Gahzee is
the only representative of the People in the text, and his exile means that he is
forced to adopt an outsider's role as well. In the TOPQ, Gahzee meets a young
white "Squat rat" called Lisa and he counters her misconceptions of what life
is like inside the Enclaves:
That's not to say we live in utopias.... It's true our lands are green. Our homes
are no longer primitive tents and lodges. Our technologies are as concerned with
the clean disposal of wastes as they are with advances. We have cities, integrated
with their environment, but we also keep our old traditions. (122)
This can be read as a future adaptation of the land ethic in which the human
community is situated in a wider environmental community with the reciprocal
obligations and responsibilities that this relationship brings. The land is regarded
as a social space, not just in terms of being the place where a society is located,
but also in terms of how this society relates to its environment. The future
development of the land ethic in Svaha acknowledges that the land is hybridized
and cannot be returned to a former "natural" state; hence the People respond in
kind with a hybrid mix of spirituality and technology.
The People's social relationship as part of a wider environmental community
is only partial, however. Gahzee's journey in the Outlands forces him to
recognize that such a reciprocal relationship cannot stop at the boundaries of the
Enclaves: "Now he perceived them for what they were: not simply lands ruined
by their present keepers, but also lands abandoned by the People" (43). Gahzee
depicts the People's voluntary withdrawal as a justified response to past
oppression. Yet, paradoxically, this act of separation means that the People are
still connected to the rest of Canadian society because their seclusion is regarded
as a deliberate and harsh sentence of exclusion by those outside the Enclaves.
Gahzee tells Lisa that some of the People wish to pursue such punishment to its
conclusion: "In our councils there are those who argue that we must finish what
your people have begun-cleanse the world of you and all your works so that we
may lead the world onto a new Wheel" (122-23); the interrelation between land
and society means any environmental "cleansing" would also entail ethnic and
cultural "cleansing." Gahzee realizes, however, that the People's merging of
technology and spirituality on a land that has a layered identity questions ideas
of segregation and cultural purity from inside their own Enclaves.
Gahzee fmds that his interaction with Lisa and other Outlanders continues to
raise questions about the People's segregation. He begins to teach Lisa about the
beliefs of the People. As a result of this teaching, Lisa finds that she can enter
the Dreamtime, first under Gahzee's instruction and then entirely on her own.
Her spiritual journeys show that the most sacred space of the People is also open
to Outlanders, which challenges the ideas of racial and cultural purity maintained
in the Enclaves. At the end of the novel, Gahzee uses Lisa's ability to enter the
Dreamtime in order to persuade the tribal elders that the People should open
their Enclaves and re-establish links with the Outlanders. Initially, the elders are
reluctant, and they continue to regard the preservation of the land and the plight
of the Outlanders living on it as separate concerns: "This knowledge you have
brought can change the way we perceive the Outlanders-it gives us hope that
one day the earth shall regain her former glory-but it cannot change our
decision" (303).
Gahzee maintains, however, that such segregation is at odds with the
People's view of the environment as social space. In the final chapter, the
thriller plot of rival factions each trying to seize the lost flyer is superseded by
the hope of reintegration. Gahzee asserts that "I mean to go among the
Outlanders ... and teach them the path with heart" (301). The word "path"
recalls the images of blocked streets earlier in the novel and suggests that Native
models of interrelated space, and journeys through such space, provide the
means to reconnect the segregated living areas in the TOPQ.
Gahzee claims the deserted Maniwaki Enclave as the base for this ne'v
hybrid tribe, indicating that this new integrated social model radiates from what
was once Canada. Significantly, the text begins and ends in two specific En-
claves-"Kawarthas" and "Maniwaki," respectively (4, 301)-that are both
situated in Canada and have existing Canadian place names that are themselves
Native names. This confirms that the land has a layered identity in which
individual locations serve as a reminder of the country they once formed.
Vestiges of the land's old identity are present in its new identity, as it has
changed from a tribal homeland to a reserve and National Park, then to an
Enclave, and now possibly to a new communal space. This is in accordance with
Smith's view, discussed at the beginning of this article, that collective identities
are constructed upon enduring connections to history and homeland; they do not
impose themselves upon passive populations as if upon a tabula rasa (Smith
179).
At the end of Svaha, the old Canadian nation is not restored, but a new
multicultural tribe is founded in the space that was once Canada. This wider
social identity can be compared to the "Pan nationalisms" envisaged by Smith
as a more viable alternative to a globalized culture. Smith regards these
collectives primarily as social groupings based on a "family of cultures," as
opposed to political or economic units (186). He writes, "Pan nationalisms, by
reminding burgeoning states and nations of a wider cultural heritage to which
they are joint heirs, help to counteract the fissiparous tendencies of minority
ethnic nationalisms and the rivalries of territorial state nationalisms" (186-87).
Gahzee's new tribe is not a regression to former Native ways of life but a
reminder that the American continent is connected by a series of indigenous
cultures that existed prior to the political boundaries imposed by European
settlers. A tribal structure combines local interaction with a sense of belonging
to much larger language and cultural groups.6
History Conquered by Geography. There are a number of problems with the

optimistic resolution of Svaha, however, that also concern the representation of
space and identity in the novel. In their analysis of 7he Diamond Age, Longan
and Oakes interpret the cyberpunk future as "a world where history has been
conquered by geography" (39). Csicsery-Ronay makes a similar assertion that
in cyberpunk, "the concept of a nation, with its implication of some historical
homogeneity through time, has been made obsolete by the dramatic heterogene-
ity of human, primarily urban, society" (225). Yet the reinscription of Canadian
national identities in the urban sprawl of the TOPQ means that the triumph of
geography over history takes a different form in de Lint's novel.
Canadians often defime their nation by its lack of a dramatic history on which
to found collective memories and myths; instead the country was "[b]rokered
into existence by rational men with a rational plan" (Shainblum and Dupuis 8).
In contrast to the violent confrontations between settlers and Natives crucial to
American frontier myths, Canadian settlers supposedly achieved a less violent
and more "legal" dispossession of Native groups. Consequently, the prioritizing
of geography over history can be considered part of Canada's national
narratives. Indeed, in Svaha, history is not made obsolete by a fluid, heteroge-

neous society; it is flattened and represented schematically in an attempt to
balance colonial legacies and First Nations' claims.
Svaha draws to a close with a romanticized image of a coyote howling and
a roll of thunder as Gahzee's tribe establishes their new home. This fits with the
novel's title which is, as we are informed at the beginning of the text, an
Amerindian word meaning "the time between seeing the lightning and hearing
the thunder; a waiting for promises to be fulfilled" (Preface iv). The narrative
itself covers a period of only a few days and is structured as a fast-paced caper
story, in keeping with the brief moment of anticipation between the lightning and
thunder. Despite this linear, fast-moving plot, the "waiting for promises to be
fulfilled" also refers to a much longer historical legacy of dispossession and
dislocation of the First Nations in Canada. The backstory of how the People
came to withdraw into Enclaves is recounted by characters in the text in the
form of summaries or "info dumps," a technique familiar to sf readers. This
technique means that the historical narratives become flattened and sche-
matic-for example, Lisa "began to relate the events of the past few days, laying
it all out for him [Gahzeel in the same straightforward manner he'd used to tel
her about how the Enclaves came to be" (124). The ordered unfolding of spatial
relations becomes a metaphor for a supposedly clear and simple historical
narrative. This can be compared to the "laying out" of different cultural and
racial groups in de Lint's fragmented Canada. The word "straightforward"
emphasizes the idea of geometric structuring in the linking of cause and effect.
Such direct links between consequences characterize Gahzee's account of the
creation of the Enclaves. The chain of events began with the popular success of
a First Nations musician who used his fortune to fund education programs for
Native students. These programs produced the lawyers and scientists who won
back tribal land in the courts and developed the technology needed to seal it off
from the rest of Canada. This suggests that the People worked within the
capitalist system until they were ready to withdraw and become self-sufficient.
When this time occurred, the break with the capitalist economy was made
cleanly. The People's "step-by-step" progression from a rich benefactor to
complete self-sufficiency seems reductive, as social and technological change
rarely occurs so quickly or so smoothly.
A squat leader known as Ragman offers his assessment of the change in the
social hierarchy from an Outlander's perspective:
Come the big business invasion from Japan and China, it was the blacks that got
the shaft again. Only this time the whites went down with them. All they were
good for was to scrabble out a living in the squats with the other rats. Chinas too
lazy to make it in the Plexes. The criminals that lost their citizenship and got
tossed out. (209)
Ragman complains that black people like himself are unjustly oppressed and
dispossessed; however, his observation that the whites also also have gone down
"this time" conveys a sense of justice that they finally got what they deserved
for their years of dominance. There is a strong parallel between the situation of
white Canadians and the criminals who are tossed into the squats, in
the white society is now being punished for the social injustice it condoned and
perpetuated while in power. The phrases "got the shaft" and "went down" imply
a diagranunatic representation of the social hierarchy in which changes in status
are represented by changes in height.
Gahzee's, Lisa's, and Ragman's narratives suggest that history in Svaha is
constructed according to balanced, schematic inversions: reserves to Enclaves;
inclusion to exclusion; top of society to bottom of society. This is very similar
to the idea of the Wheel of Fortune, in which changes in status are directly
linked to changes in height on the wheel; history is represented as a cycle of
rises and falls. Gahzee offers an alternative to this structure, but one that is still
based on the model of a wheel, when he teaches Lisa about the spiritual beliefs
of the People:
"Everything fits onto a Wheel," Gahzee was explaining.

"You mean, like everything repeats itself? History rolling in cycles?"
"Not exactly, although there is a Wheel of history. But to the People, the
opposite of present is not past, but absent. " (137)
This view is based on existing concepts of First Nations medicine wheels and the
Midewiwin (medicine society) of the Ojibwa Nation. This structural representa-
tion of Native beliefs ("the opposite of present is not past, but absent") provides
a striking contrast with the Outlander society that values historical progress and
status.
Although Gahzee is identified as a mediator and teacher of Native spiritual-
ity, he does not seem to follow Native models of teaching and learning. In their
analysis of how current educational practices in Canada impact upon Native
students, Dennis H. McPherson and J. Douglas Rabb state that Native models
of education are flexible and indirect. According to McPherson and Rabb, these
education practices "may be summed up in words like 'respect' and 'noninterfer-
ence'" (63). This ethic of noninterference precludes direct instruction:
It is a common remark that if you ask an Elder for advice you will never get a
straight answer. You will often be told a story which seems to have nothing
whatever to do with the question asked or the problem raised. You are given the
autonomy to discover the relevance of the reply and hence to work out the
problem for yourself. This is a sign of respect. It is also a method of instruction
which fosters independent thinking and self reliance. (63)
In comparison, Gahzee's teaching seems more didactic. He tells Native stories,

but he makes their allegorical significance explicit. When Gahzee is teaching
Lisa, he draws the Wheel of the Twenty Count, showing the positioning of each
of the numbers and what they represent. Although Gahzee tells Lisa that copying
down the Wheel is not as important as developing a subconscious understanding
of its relationships, a diagram of the Wheel is still included in the text (141).
The more direct and schematic teaching methods represented in Svaha may
be influenced by the fact that de Lint is not from a First Nations background,
nor are the majority of his audience. In his Afterword to the 1995 Dark Side
Press edition of Mulengro, de Lint states that he conducts careful research into
other cultures, "not to be politically correct, but for the sake of veracity.
Nothing is worse than the uninformed author; all they do is spread stereotypes
and often outright lies." Gahzee's explicit teaching methods in the text may be
an extension of this authorial concern not to misguide the audience.
There is a didactic emphasis throughout. Inclusion in Gahzee's new hybrid
society of People and Outlanders depends upon learning the spiritual beliefs of
the People. As Ragman complains, "Does this mean we all gotta learn about
these frigging Wheels?" (305). Although this is a lighthearted joke, it reinforces
the idea that entry into this new community is conditional on accepting Native
spirituality. Moreover, Gahzee's new community is called a "tribe," further
highlighting that this society is firmly based on Native models. On the one hand,
this is a positive endorsement of Native beliefs, suggesting they are more
conducive to forming hybrid communities than Western models of society. On
the other hand, the overriding emphasis on Native spirituality raises questions
about the extent of hybridity enabled in this community, which is dependent
upon a single set of beliefs and practices.
The most problematic aspect of the reintegration of society and space at the
end of the text involves Gahzee claiming the Maniwaki Enclave as the base for
his new tribe. The fact that this new community is closely identified with a
specific area of land fits with the correspondence between territory and
collective identities in the text. The founding of this new home hides a more
worrying act of dispossession, however. The Maniwaki Enclave is empty
because all the residents have been killed by a spore released into the Enclave
at the command of the yakuza boss. This spore only targeted the human
population, then deactivated, leaving the land free of contamination-a
seemingly convenient plot-device intended to clear a space for a new community
without its members having to bear the responsibility of dispossessing others.
Yet it is ominous that a supposedly reintegrated society takes advantage of land
that has been wiped clean of its former inhabitants.
The clearing of the Maniwaki Enclave fits with the schematic and spatial
rendering of historical narratives throughout the text. The lives and histories of
the People living in the Maniwaki Enclave are conveniently "balanced out" by
the new community that takes possession of the land. Indeed, this quick
substitution adds an ironic inflection to Gahzee's assertion that, "to the People,
the opposite of present is not past, but absent" (137).
The prioritization of spatial relations in Svaha seems to be a positive attempt
to overcome the legacies of past problems that continue to lead to separation and
segregation. Lisa distances herself from connections to her past and to her white
settler heritage: "We had nothing to do with it. Our ancestors fucked up-but all
we've ever done is tried to survive in the mess they left us. Why the hell
shouldn't we get a chance?" (302). Her assertion that the Outlanders have
suffered enough suggests that the schematic reversals between Enclave and
Outlander societies are perhaps a means of balancing out past injustices before
a truly integrated community can be formed in the space that was Canada. Yet
although Svaha imagines a new social model that reconfirms the primacy of the
First Nations in the land from which they were dispossessed, the text risks
reducing both Native cultures and historical legacies to a spatial pattern

as static as the multicultural mosaic.
In "Dis-Imagined Communities," Csicsery-Ronay writes that the glo
virtual future in cyberpunk texts displaces the geographical and histo
continuity required for maintaining "a sense of integration with a societ
than one's mortal self" (226). Yet such displacement does not have to me
disavowal of specific national identities; it can enable the reconfiguration
form of collective identification in other times and spaces. As Svaha s
individual nations tend to disintegrate in their own ways, bringing int
some of the distinct national differences that cyberpunk seems to deny. D
novel can be read as a response to the legacy of Canada as a settler colon
prioritizes immigrant identities over First Nations identities. The mosaic
of Canadian multiculturalism that perpetuated static relationships bet
cultures and their living spaces is replaced by a more integrated model b
a First Nations land ethic in which all communities are connected by the
social relationships to the environment. Science fiction's supposed
interest in nationality is perhaps due less to a thematic "blind spot" wit
genre than to the fact that we, as critics, have only begun to explore the c
negotiations of time (history) and space (geography) that define how we
identify with a nation or nations in the future.
NOTES
1. For a discussion of how the hybrid space of de Lint's "Otherworld" e
continual encounters between "Old World" and "New World" myths, see Steve
2. See Department of Justice, Canada (paragraphs c and d of the section en
"Interpretation").
3. According to the 1996 Canadian census, the top two places of origin for
immigrants to Canada are Hong Kong and China. See Statistics Canada.
4. William Gibson tells how he based his representation of Japanese identities o
experience of living in Canada; he had not visited Japan before writing Neuromanc
he regularly came into contact with Japanese culture in his home city of Vancou
an interview with Takayuki Tatsumi, Gibson says that "Vancouver is filled with
affluent Japanese people.... There are Japanese restaurants and nightclubs tha
entirely to Japanese tourists" (qtd in Ketterer 145).
5. The Canadian government commissioned a review into "Project Sidewinder"
found that the initial report was poorly researched and used inflammatory,
mongering language. The project team was required to write a second, more me
and rigorous draft. Although the threat of East Asian criminal gangs infiltrating Can
businesses is supposedly fairly low, it is still an issue that incites controversy in C
See Government of Canada, Security Intelligence Review Committee.
6. In Svaha, there is an indication that the People have already formed a Pan-t
understanding with other peoples "who maintain their traditions, who care fo
world as they might a brother or sister-or a mother" (123). Yet this wor
connection with other "tribes" privileges indigenous groups as the only ones w
have an ethical relationship with their land. At the end of the novel, Maori, Masa
Soyot "Twisted Hairs" arrive to support Gahzee's assertion that such connections
not be limited only to those people who can claim tribal heritage. They endorse h
Pan-national model that radiates from Maniwaki over former tribal connections.
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De Lint, Charles. Svaha. 1989. New York: Tor, 1994.
. "Afterword from the 1995 Dark Side Press edition of Mulengro. " Spring 1995.
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McPherson, Dennis, H. and J. Douglas Rabb. "Indigeneity in Canada: Spirituality, the
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Globalization and Modernity. Ed. Mike Featherstone. London: Sage, 1990. 171-91.
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Bossiere. Ottawa: U of Ottawa P, 2004. 57-72.
ABSTRACT
This article analyzes Charles de Lint's 1989 novel Svaha as an example of how distinct
national identities can endure in the globalized future espoused by most cyberpunk texts.
Instead of imagining a generic urban sprawl in which it is increasingly difficult to
maintain a stable social or communal identity, Svaha addresses issues of Canadian
identity based on the division of living spaces by various social and cultural boundaries.
The article begins by assessing Istvan Csicsery-Ronay's argument that science fiction
shows little interest in the future of nations, a notion I counter by means of Anthony D.
Smith's claims for nationality as an enduring connection to history (time) and homeland
(space) that extends both before and after the current political incarnation of the nation-
state. The article then offers a reading of the segregated urban space in Svaha as a
response to the legacy of Canada as a settler colony that prioritizes immigrant identities
over First Nations identities. In the novel, the mosaic model of Canadian multicultural-
ism that resulted in the fragmentation of the country is replaced by a more integrated
model based on a First Nations land ethic. The article ends by considering some of the
problems with the optimistic conclusion of the novel, in which space is used to overcome
historical legacies of dispossession.

Michelle Reid, Urban Space and Canadian Identity

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Michelle Reid, Urban Space and Canadian Identity

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SF-TH Inc

Urban Space and Canadian Identity in Charles de Lint's "Svaha"

Urban Space and Canadian Identity in Charles de Lint's Svaha

Although the world-view of most cyberpunk texts encompasses a near future in

Yet he moves quickly from this mention of national resistance to complete a

In his article "Imaginable Futures," Graham Murphy responds to Csicsery-

Program a map to display frequency of data exchange, every thousand megabytes

This overload of digital information is in stark contrast to the environmental

Later still, he [Gahzee] stood on the roof of a deserted tenement building,

Instead of a fast-flowing digital information network, the physical means of

In 7he Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson envisions a post-nation-state world of the

Segregation of the Canadian Multicultural Mosaic. Concepts of space have

the liberal, state-sanctioned discourse of Canadian multiculturalism is under-

In de Lint's novel, the greatest challenge to Canada's mosaic identity comes

controversial "Project Sidewinder" (1995-1999) to investigate the extent of such

The system was operated by CanNational, a consortium of corporations with

This highly organized, ingenious, and relatively egalitarian system of public

The implicit overall metaphysic of American Indian cultures locates human

Although this is a more conplex and sensitive assessment of Native relationships

History Conquered by Geography. There are a number of problems with the

narratives. Indeed, in Svaha, history is not made obsolete by a fluid, heteroge-

"Everything fits onto a Wheel," Gahzee was explaining.

In comparison, Gahzee's teaching seems more didactic. He tells Native stories,

reducing both Native cultures and historical legacies to a spatial pattern

Fiction and Fantasy Literature. Ed. Jean-Frangois Leroux and

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