ABSTRACT
The night before the closing plenary session of August 2000’s Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) – a Congress where the now ever-present topics of globalization and post-colonialism were discussed against the backdrop of the South African seaside city of Durban – I was flipping through the channels on the television in my hotel room. Apart from some local South African programming and the international version of the Atlanta-based Cable News Network (CNN), to my surprise I happened across Dan Akroyd starring in a 1997 Canadian-made movie on the development of the Avro Arrow, a Canadian jet fighter developed in the early 1950s which was reportedly capable of doing Mach 2 – a plane that was well ahead of its time. The movie, simply entitled “The Arrow,” chronicles how the development of this jet was abruptly and mysteriously ended in 1959 by the Canadian government and soon after all of the prototypes were completely dismantled and destroyed, and a U.S. missile system was purchased along with U.S.-made jet fighters. Although conspiracy theories abound concerning the causes for the government’s decision, we can at least say for certain that one of the effects of this decision was that the high tech industry packed its bags and, like Canadian Geese (or Canadian retirees wintering in Florida), flew south.
