Armaggedon on Tour

Abstract

In 1953, the Cold War was entering its sixth year. The USSR, the United States, and their allies sparred over the future of a divided Germany. A hot war still raged in Korea, where Canadians were patrolling, fighting, and dying to defend South Korea from Chinese volunteers. Canadian defence expenditures had skyrocketed to meet the global challenge of a divided world. Behind all of this was the stunning power of the atomic bomb and the growing fears that local conflicts in Germany and Korea would spiral outwards into a suicidal nuclear war. In response to political and military insecurity, many countries developed civil defence programs to prepare their populations for the very worst.During the fall and winter of 1953, the On Guard, Canada! civil defence convoy traveled to major cities across Canada. The exhibit, originally designed and displayed in the United States, was the first nationwide publicity campaign launched by the federal government to convince Canadians of the need to adopt civil defence measures. The federal civil defence agency, in cooperation with its provincial and municipal counterparts, employed the exhibit to make the case that the long, watery distances separating Canadians from Cold War conflicts in Europe and Asia no longer protected them. The enemy, at a moment, could reduce their cities to rubble with atomic bombs, salt the earth with volatile biological agents, and poison their air with suffocating chemicals. To meet the horrors of modern warfare, 100,000 young and old visitors were shown how to support civil defence in their homes and in their community. The high number of visitors to the exhibit did not lead to any significant increase in the number of volunteers for civil defence services.Civil defence authorities advertised more than just protective measures. They also promoted civil defence as a vital and permanent component of good during the Cold War. In the immediate postwar years, the Canadian government strove to highlight the rights enjoyed by Canadians as citizens by developing a citizenship education program. Both the Canadian and American versions of the convoy attempted to depict civil defence as part of the core obligations of citizenship. Preparing a basement shelter and saluting the flag were equated visually with the defence of cherished values such as freedom of speech. The exhibition displays, and the way in which attendance was promoted and organized, depicted a hierarchical order of citizenship that emphasized patriotic voluntarism and prescribed strict gender divisions suggesting how men and women could best fulfill their obligations to their community.The study of citizenship is a varied field, and in Canada scholars have investigated the process by which the individual immigrant or immigrant communities seek, find, or are granted membership in the host community.1 Citizenship may be described as a set of core obligations (military service, taxation, and obedience to the law) and individual rights (freedom of speech, religion, assembly) as defined by law. Citizenship may also be interpreted as a mark of pride and membership in a wider social network, traditionally linked to the confines of the nation-state. The trouble with studying citizenship in Canada is that it cannot be considered to have equal application/attraction to a society riven by so many competing ethnic, cultural, and linguistic communities, a fact that has disappointed some and excited others. The federal government began to consider these divisions in terms of support for the war effort, and officials in the Department of National War Services took steps to promote loyalty to a single Canadian identity through adult education.2 Citizenship during wartime was defined in terms of Canadian judicial institutions, and by contrasting the relative freedoms of Canadian society to Nazi or fascist dictatorships.After victory was assured, Paul Martin, the secretary of state, drafted the Canadian citizenship act with the aid of senior civil servants. …