Forget the children,
what about the nerds?

by RAF KATIGBAK

There’s been a lot of hemming and hawing about the recent cancellation of the re-enactment of the 1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City. For those of you who haven’t heard, National Battlefields Commission (NBC) boss André Juneau blamed the cancellation of the 250th year commemoration on a handful of threats that had been made in the past few weeks, saying that the safety of visitors had been compromised. In reality, the cancellation was mostly due to a small extremist separatist group Réseau de Résistance du Québécois that began an online campaign against the event saying that the celebration of the French loss at the hands of the British was insulting to French Canadians. Some public ambivalence to the event soon became apparent, causing the NBC to axe the re-enactment entirely.

As far as I’m concerned, nobody wins. The separatists come off as petty whining babies who can’t get over the past (so the French lost, whatevs. France didn’t give a shit about New France anyway. They were given a chance to get it back in the Treaty of Paris in 1763 and were all, “Um, thanks but, uh, we’ll take Guadalupe, Martinique and St. Lucia instead. Doye.”), it also disrespects the memory of how bravely the French fought for what they believed in (they were way more ballsy than the local militia). Quebec City also loses all the tourists dollars the event would most likely have drawn to the city. And the general public loses because now we don’t get to watch a bunch of people in triangular hats blowing stuff up. Oh yeah, and also we don’t get all that learning about history stuff and being doomed to repeat the past and yadda yadda.

But my heart goes out to the real victims of this situation. For once, I’m not talking about the children. Truth be told, the only way the younger generation is affected by the tragedy of war is when they can’t get past a level in Call of Duty. No, the true victims here are the nerds. Yes, the nerds are the ones who are hit the hardest by this. Not just any nerd mind you, but history nerds.

In general, history nerds have it the worst. In the nerd pyramid, music nerds are at the top because they write blogs and start record labels or bands that get you into some awesome weird shit. Sci-fi nerds are great because they’re interested in the future and make crazy things like iPhones and wheelchairs that can walk up stairs and break through walls like the Kool-Aid guy a reality. But history nerds are at the bottom (just above LARPers). I mean, have you ever tried to hang out at a bar with a history nerd? These guys are trapped in the past worse than most Montreal fashion designers. Unless you’re super high, hearing someone drone on about treaty this and the battle of blah blah that is like getting ear-raped by an ice dildo.

The Battle of the Plains of Abraham was their one chance to show the world that history is actually exciting, and that all the crap they go on about endlessly actually means something. This was a chance for history nerds to come out and throw around random dates and figures without people around them pretending not to look at their watch. A chance for them to debate which of China’s six dynasties was the most culturally influential without normies making lame Wu Tang Clan jokes. Do you know the amount of sheer human strength it takes to peel yourself away from the History Channel and squeeze your rotund form into a historically accurate 18th century waistcoat that took you 20 painstaking hours to sew together? It’s no small feat, let me assure you.

Yes, my heart goes out to all the history nerds who get the shaft and so I hereby make this decree: Let them re-enact the battle not just for their sake, but the sake of socially starved nerds everywhere. And if some extremist separatist nerds come out with paintballs to disrupt the proceedings, then so be it. In fact, let’s open the battle to nerds everywhere! Why not throw in some Trekkies with phasers!? That would be cool. And some of those medievalists from the mountain with their orc clubs and foam battle axes! Awesome! Hey, let’s get all the horror and cos-play otakus out to join the fray! How awesome would it be to have zombies attack the British while some Vietnamese kid in a Super Mario uniform throws giant foam mushrooms at French Tmusketeers? Fuck it, let’s make history! Nerds of the world unite!

RIFF-RAFF@SYMPATICO.CA