It’ ok not to speak French. Really. Some very smart – if uncool – people will never get to experience the brain candy that are the lyrics of Serge Gainsbourg and Loco Locass. Some very useful members of society will never experience just how satisfying it is to call someone an ‘estie de con’.
Vic Toews is one of those people. The Conservative minister of the Treasury – who speaks English, Spanish and German – was criticized by the Montréal Liberal MP Pablo Rodrigez for not speaking French last week.
« It’s clear », snapped the Minister, « that the Liberal Party considers those of us who speak one official language to be less Canadian. »
He’s right.
The objective of the Official Languages Act has never been to force everyone to learn both French and English. In fact it’s the exact opposite. The law dictates that the federal government, Parliament and all it’s associated agencies shall function and give services in the two official languages precisely so that Canadians won’t have to learn a second language to communicate with their government.
This only applies to the Federal administration, by the way. Provinces, which are sovereign when it come to issues of culture and education, can have different policies, as do Québec, Ontario and New-Brunswick. That is what federalism is.
That means many jobs in the federal public service will require people to speak both French and English. Is the position of minister one of those jobs?
Not necessarily. We assume the Treasury Department has plenty of staff that is perfectly able to communicate in both French and English to reporters and citizens. But a minister wants to go beyond that. He wants to sell the government’s program and convince the population that they want more and that they should re-elect the Conservatives.
If Stephen Harper in comfortable with people like Vic Toews and James Moore selling the Conservative agenda to French speakers, that’s his problem.
It’s important to point out that, contrary to the many elements of the United Empire Loyalist Caucus of the Conservative party who consider any requirement of bilingualism to be discrimination against unilingual Anglos (disrimination against unilingual Francos is apparently not a problem), Mr. Toews defended his right to be a unilingual in any official language:
« I should feel free to be able to speak the language of my choice, and for you to even ask that question is an insult. »
That is the point of the Official Languages Act. That is how our shared federal administration should work.
Last Monday, while answering a question that no one asked, Micheal Sabia, the newly appointed head of Québec’s Caisse de Placement et Dépôt, declared in front of a parliamentary committee: « As an allophone, I consider that I have deep roots here, in Québec. »
This is a very strange statement in quite a few ways. First of all, the answer had nothing to do with the question that was asked by the Parti québécois MNA Jean-Martin Aussant. The MNA questioned Mr. Sabia’s commitment to the idea that the Caisse’s role should include protecting companies headquartered in Québec since, as the big boss at Bell Canada Entreprise, Mr. Sabia was involved in a failed attempt to sell the company to an Ontario pension fund.
Mr. Sabia’s reply was an emotional defence of his personal attachement to Québec, his grand-parents and Québec as an open society.
That’s swell and all, but that was not what M. Aussant asked. His answer, once again, raises questions about Mr. Sabia’s command of the French language.
Stranger still is Mr. Sabia’s claim to be an allophone. In fact, Micheal Sabia is not, by any definition of the term, an allophone. He is an anglophone. His mother tongue is English. He speak English, some French, and according to the Caisse’s press officer, « rudiments of Italian ». Well if « rudiments » Italian makes one an italophone, then I am an hispanophone, a classic greekophone and a japanesophone.
With his nomination already on slippery terrain because of questions about his business culture, his knowledge of the financial world and his ability to speak French, Mr. Sabia apparently decided it would be easier to defend himself if he positioned himself as an « ethnic » instead of a big bad Anglo.
When did Mr. Sabia’s italian roots become an issue? What do they have to do with the philosophical questions that are being debated about the CDPQ’s role in the Québec economy or his personal approach to managing public funds?
As reported by Le Devoir, Mr. Sabia’s attachment to ethnicity puts him in complete contradiction with the opinion of his immigrant mother, a staunch opponent of Canada’s multiculturalism and bilingualism policy: « We will never be a great nation until we forget ethnicity and become Canadians. Multiculturalism divided us and maybe assimilation will have to unite us », once said Laura Sabia, who’s first canadian language was French, in a speech to the Empire Club in Toronto. « Why not a French Québec? Why should the rest of Canada not be English? Why can’t we build a nation on this basis. »
Because if race baiting does not help build nations, it has been a very successful way of winning elections. Mr. Sabia’s answer was straight out of the Liberal (Mr. Sabia is a known contributor) playbook which says that every issue must be spined into a question of ethnicity.
How do you call a regular generic Canadian? You know, a white guy called Rob or Bill with a last name that starts with W and ends with ON?
Or what about an American (see description above)?
You just call him a Canadian or an American, right? If need be you could call him an Anglo or a white guy or a WASP, but unless race or ethnicity is an issue, you just use the standard issue label, right?
That’s the way it was supposed to work in Québec too. In French the label Québécois was taken up PRECISELY to shed the baggage of the old French-Canadian label that implied that you were White, Catholic and had way to many siblings. A Québécois would be someone who lives in Québec. Period.
Sadly, it seems that even Them, the Franco-French-North Americans of French Expression, have picked up the very sad and even dangerous English-language concept of using the word Québécois to define not anyone who lives in Québec, but specifically one group of people, the white French-speaking men an women who have at least one uncle in either Gaspésie or Saguenay.
I have friends, born here, French-speaking, not especially fervent Canadian patriots, who will say things like: « Mon boss est Québécois », as if, because of their Viet Namese or African Roots, they weren’t Québécois themselves.
People, for a variety of reason, need a word to identify THEM. Whether it is to express solidarity, denounce exclusion or spew out racist prejudice for profit in Canada’s daily newspapers, people need a word that points to THEM. Since we need to protect the use of Québécois as a generic label that includes all the members of our civil society, even those we don’t like, it is time we pick an official label for THEM.
Many are already in use. Pick one, people:
Pur (Pure) Laine: The most commonly used word in the English language to designate the Them. The notion of purity is part of the Lord of the Rings or Star Wars inspired vision of Canadian multiculturalism that celebrates a motley crew of men and women in easily identifiable folkloric costumes who fight evil separatists before returning to ethnically segregated ghettos. This is what John Porter called the Vertical Mosaic in 1965. Jews get +3 business ability points and Them get +5 in goaltending. Just as in the Lord of the Ring, English-speaking white males with no special skills have all the command jobs.
De Souche: Literally « of the stump », as in a tree stump. This is the more common word used in French to designate Them. The tree is indeed a nice image to describe a people, any people. Out of innumerable and invisible roots a common trunk emerges before, once again dividing up into hundreds of branches that reach to the sky (take that poet-laureate!) Sadly the Québec version of the image carries the weight of it’s terminal loser syndrome, the stump symbolising where the tree was cut down to make way for a Tim Horton’s parking lot.
French-Canadians: French-Canadian has a quaint old fashioned feel that evokes horse-drawn sleds and midnight mass. Although still commonly used by Them when travelling abroad to avoid the whole « What’s a kweebeekwa? » conversation, most don’t use it at home. Federalists feel they are full patch Canadians and indépendantistes don’t feel they are Canadian at all.
Paleo-Québécois: As opposed to Néo-Québécois. A commenter on this forum came up with that one. It is the AngryFrenchFavorite.
Way back in the day, after a young, ambitious and afro-ed young politician called Jean Charest was recruited by federalist headhunters to take the leadership of the Liberal Party of Québec and save Canada, a snoopy reporter dug up his birth certificate and discovered that – scandal! – his true name was not Jean has he had claimed, but John James!
Jean/John was coming to Québec months after the 1995 referendum, just as the emerging scandal about the illegal funding of the federalist campaign by secretive occult organizations was coming to light and amidst (still persistent) rumours that a ‘golden bridge’ was built for him by Canada’s business community, including a (confirmed) salary and Westmount home.
Already suspected of not being completely transparent about his financial supporters, the fact that he did not use the name his mother gave him only confirmed (at least in sovereingtist eyes) the duplicitous character of Jean Charest.
The Anglo-Canadian media’s interpretation? « Poor Jean Charest. He just isn’t pure laine enough for some Quebecers. »
It’s not that at all.
Jean/John James problem is that his birth certificate made him look like one of Québec’s most ridiculed archetypes, the Michel Gauvin/Mike Gauvin.
Michel Gauvin/Mike Gauvin is the hilarious character in the just as funny movie Québec/Montréal who completely changes the way he pronounces his name depending whether he is speaking French or English.
In some small circles, this is considered the ultimate in Canadian bicultural cosmopolitan cool. Justin Trudeau lives in that world. So does Robert Guy Scully/Robert Scully (said in a bad european accent in French).
This said, some people are able to pull off the Michel Gauvin/Mike Gauvin. Brian Mulroney could be both French and English, although, to his credit, he didn’t change the way he pronounced his name. To this day many francophones Québécois are convinced he is one of them, while many Anglos in Canada would be surprised to learn he speaks French at all! Of course, Pierre Elliot Trudeau also played that game. As did Paul Martin, with considerably less success.
Despite the appeal of this 21st century meta-Canadian who is both French AND English (and soon to be a little bit ethnic too) to nationalist Canadians, it is generally considered very uncool by the Québécois, both sovereigntists and federalists, to try to have two identities, depending on your audience.
The fact that the Michel Gauvin/Mike Gauvin is generally associated with politicians involved with shady financial conspiracies (Robert (Guy) Scully was never in politics but in 2000 he had to publicly and shamefully renouce the title of journalist after it was established he was involved in secretly government-financed federalist propaganda on CBC/Radio-Canada) doesn’t exactly help to project the image of name-switchers as stand-up honorable people.
The purity of the roots of these modern-day Januses is not what worries the Québécois. Gilles Duceppe will repeat to anyone who will listen that his grand-father was British and, yet, it didn’t prevent him from kicking federalist ass in Québec for two decades. The PQ had a Prime Minister called Pierre-Marc Johnson. The Curzi’s, Rebello’s, Khadir’s and Kotto’s and McKay’s of the sovereignty movement have no problem being elected despite the fact they can’t hide their non-pure laine-ness.
The problem is not purity. It’s a little bit about duplicity. And a lot about just plain silly.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another’s profit,
And work another’s gain.
-Rudyard Kipling
Iqaluit, year of grace 2009
My fellow Canadians,
It is my pleasure to report that my long and perilous voyage has ended without any serious mishap and that I have now reached the desolate camp that, I am told, is the capital of our newest colony. I write this letter from my frugal apartments overlooking a few hundred rooftops and the barren no man’s land beyond. There is not much here in terms of civilised comfort- except for hard liquor which is plentiful – but a gentleman does not travel to a foreign country 2500 kilometers from his loving wife and family for frivolous entertainment.
Barely had I set foot on this land that I was served an effusive greeting by an Eskimo, not a word of which I understood. Mercifully one of his fellow people, who spoke English, came to my rescue and helped me locate transportation to my offices. For some strange reason it seems that the first chap had come to believe that my position as a senior administrator of the colony somehow meant I was required to speak their language!
On the topic of language, I am extremely pleased to report that we are making tremendous progress and that the local people are abandoning their tongue and learning English at a faster rate than achieved anywhere else in the Empire. In a single decade the number of Inuit who speak their own language at home has gone from 76% to 64%! With 24 of the 25 schools in the colony giving out education in the English tongue, the adoption of our language by the local youth should only accelerate.
In the immortal words of Toronto’s Reverend James George, the « rich freightage with which this Argosy is so majestically sailing down the stream of time’ could be borne to all people, and as a means of combating the evils the Lord had brought on humans after the building of the Tower of Babel. »
It’s amusing to note that because of the great constitution of Canada and the Charter of Human Rights – that brilliant piece of law-making- we were obligated to build a French school, but not to build any for the Inuit!
What were we going to do? Teach the children in the vernacular and treat English speaking people like a vulgar minority? Oh my, what a dreadful thought. No, the French school was expensive but it keeps them quiet. In the end the French are just like the Scots: let them play “nation” with their costumes, flags, schools, foul national dishes and bogus “resolutions” in the House of Commons and they’ll become the fiercest defenders of our country and of the English language you’ll ever find.
Today they’re the one forcing the Inuit to speak English in the restaurants an shops about town! That good Dr. Laurin must be spinning in his grave.
Speaking of Dr. Laurin, I know there was worry back home after the Native council passed that legislation suspiciously similar to Québec’s Bill 101 that purposed to make the local tongue the language of education, administration and business. Mercifully our great leader Stephen Harper has made it clear that the Empire is not bound by the laws of the colonies. Since the 700 million dollar budget of Nunavut comes almost exclusively from the Federal coffers, we probably won’t have to start chewing eel fat with the elders just as yet!
The Native youth is learning English but still seems to be struggling with some of our more modern knowledge. The drop-out rate is quite high, with but a quarter of them finishing secondary education. My personal opinion is that it is all the better as the tasks for which they are destined do not require to be well versed in science and literature. To paraphrase Macaulay who served on the Supreme Council of India in Calcutta in 1835: « It is impossible for us with our limited means to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be the interpreters between us and the thousands whom we govern – a class of persons Inuit in blood and colour, but Canadian in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. »
The many gold, iron and diamond mine projects in the area are moving along nicely and we’ve set aside a quarter of the jobs for the locals. Now that their English skills are improving we are able to train them to drive trucks and work for the skilled labourers who will come from the South to operate the mines.
In any case, they’ve been living a purposeless life of government handouts ever since we killed their hunting dogs and relocated them all over the territory in the 1950’s, so they are ripe and ready to begin working for the mining companies. It’s not like there is a « traditional lifestyle » left to save.
We’ve also begun training and arming many of them to serve as Rangers and patrol the colony. As you know, some rival countries like the United States, Denmark and Russia don’t fully recognize our sovereignty over these lands on the pretext that we never bothered to build any infrastructure whatsoever over here until the last few years! (Some Inuit are actually suing us over this! Don’t they understand how much more urgent it was that we distribute Canadian flags all over Québec?)
Well let them try to take our land from us now that we’ve taught a few hundred natives to speak English and parade around with the Maple Leaf flag held up high!
Amusing anecdote: A ranger I was talking to asked me why the maple leaf on the flag (which he thought was a snowflake) was red. It turns out the closest maple tree is at least 1,500 km away!
Isn’t it just glorious? The Inuit are giving up their native language and culture for English, a Maple Leaf and a badly translated version of a an old French-Canadian resistance song while the emblem of this once proud arctic people, the Inukshuk, now symbolises Vancouver, a city 3500 km away where a snowstorm is an aberration!
So you think you know a better way of protecting the French language in Québec? You’ve figured out how to balance the rights of 7 million French-speakers gasping for air in a sea of more than 300 million English-speakers while respecting the rights of a historical English-speaking minority, natives and newly arrived immigrants? You’ve figured out the precise spot where one person’s right end and another’s freedom begins?
Do it!
Today AngryFrenchGuy introduces Make Your Own Bill 101, a fully public Wiki where Purzédurzs and Angryphones can work together, hand in hand, to create a better language law for Québec.
If my past attempts at fixing bill 101 are any indication, you bitches only enjoy whining and you don’t have many actual alternatives offer. But I’m giving it another shot anyway.
MYOB101 begins with the Charter of the French Language as it stands on March 31st 2009. In the spirit of Wikipedia, Make your Own Bill 101 makes the French Language Charter Open Source. Anyone can change it, tweak it, fix it, add rules and remove rules. It was inspired by wikideddfu.com, a make-your-own-language-law wiki created by Hywel Williams, member of the British House of Commons to design a language law for Wales.
To get things started, I’ve already made a few changes to the law myself.
1. From now on, a minimum of three complaints against a business or commerce will be required before the Office Québécois de la Langue Française can begin an investigation and potentially issue a fine.
2. To discourage vigilantes, persons filing complaints with the OQLF shall provide proof that they live, work or own property in the same postal code, or in a postal code adjacent, to the business against which the complaint has been filed.
3. Businesses will no longer be required to have a French name. That is silly and useless. (English-only names are cheesy, tacky, and unimaginative. But we can’t start having laws against that…)
At a very precise moment in 1966, the Québécois just stopped going to Church. Everyone understands that the Church had become moribund when the provincial government took over its education, health care and social service missions, but to this day it remains a sociological mystery as to why it happened so fast. In a few months Québec went from the most actively religious place in North America to the least.
The recent decision of a Brazilian catholic bishop to excommunicate the mother of a 9 year old rape victim and of the doctors who got her an abortion while letting the rapist keep his membership card convinced many people in Québec that ignoring the Church just wasn’t enough. People are getting paperwork done. According to Le Devoir, about 50 people have asked the Québec City diocese for their certificate of excommunication last month. There is usually about 20 such requests every year. The Montreal and Sherbrooke dioceses confirm they’re getting the same order of requests.
In the words of 26 signers of a formal apostasy request published in Le Devoir: « We want to liberate ourselves from the shame we feel when the catholic Church, often against our will, considers us members of this this institution. »
I don’t believe in God. Let’s make that very clear. But I do believe in the sacred, in sacraments, in rituals and in the importance of non-commercial institutions.
That is why I will be keeping my membership card.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m as disgusted as anyone by the Church’s behaviour in this affair. Actually, I’m disgusted by the Church’s position on most issues. But I’m disgusted catholic. And I’m keeping my right to speak out as a catholic.
When I was a kid, our NDG parish was run by Dominicans, also know as the Order of Preachers. The Dominicans are a highly intellectual order who don’t usually do mundane priest duties like celebrate Sunday mass. Every time we went to church they would openly and explicitly invite divorces and homosexuals to take communion, it direct violation of official doctrine. At my father’s funeral they invited Jewish and Protestant members of our family to receive benediction with the catholics who came up for communion.
Most non-catholics think the catholic Church is monolithic, centralized and dogmatic, but you have to understand that in reality, the central command of the Church has no more actual power than the Académie Française or the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
They make rules and tell us what good and bad. We listen, disagree and ignore.
The catholic Church is actually one of the more synchretic religions in the world, with the possible exception of Hinduism. Anyone who’s taken the time to try to untangle it’s diverse roots has found a dizzying mash-up of Judaïsm, Roman Mystery Cults, Celtic paganism and Zoroastrianism. It even made the Budhha a saint. As the very word catholic implies, its aim is to be universal. And universality means embracing contradiction.
The Church is, to use a fashionable image, a Team or Rivals. On the right you’ve got the Opus Dei and the Congregation for the doctrine of the faith, on the left you’ve got the Order of Dominicans. On one side you’ve got roman bishops sleeping in gold-laced satin sheets, on the other you’ve got the carthusian monks living in isolation and poverty.
The catholic Church condemns homosexuality but in just about every city you will find a catholic church that flies the diversity flag. The catholic Church condemns abortion, but former Bloc Québécois MP and priest Raymond Gravel could stand up in the House of Commons to defend a woman’s right to choose. When he was eventually asked to choose between politics and the priesthood, it was not because of opposition from his parishioners or even his bosses. Until conservative (Conservative?) western catholics demanded his head, Monseigneur Turcotte was happy to look the other way.
There is a Québec way of being a catholic. Québec as a country was founded by missionary catholic orders and it is men of cloth like Curé Labelle that opened the roads to the hinterland in the name of occupying God’s country. But this was not a always a Church controlled by Rome. In fact, the first four or five bishops that administered the Church after the British took over New-France were appointed not by the Pope, but by the protestant King of England!
Cut off from the rest of the Church and living in a society where there really wasn’t any other option except Catholicism, many Québécois developed an extremely loose attitude toward dogma. When my grand-mother watched the mass on television on Sunday morning, she would mute the sermon because she didn’t think a 50 year old virgin should be telling her how to live her life.
That’s the Catholic Church I belong to. My Grand-mother’s Church. And if the Pope doesn’t like our Church, he’s free to leave.
Montréal Mayor Gérald Tremblay believes the next municipal election will be won or lost in the city’s diverse cultural communities. Hoping to secure that vote, members of his Union Montréal Party have launched a pre-emptive strike against possible challenger Louise Harel.
Louise Harel is a former Parti Québécois Minister of Cultural Communities, Immigration and Municipal Affairs who has steadily been moving closer to City Hall’s fledgling opposition party, Vision Montréal. She is scheduled to speak at a Vision Montréal convention next week.
Last week a coalition of cultural community leaders closely associated to mayor Tremblay’s Union Montréal party accused Madame Harel of making racist remarks and encouraging xenophobia.
One week before the eruption the controversy, incumbent mayor Gérald Tremblay had identified the cultural communities’ vote as the key to his reelection.
On the 25th of February, the mayor’s party, Union Montreal, held a cocktail party for leaders of the said cultural communities at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Montreal. In the accompanying press release Mayor Tremblay is quoted as saying: « Union Montréal embodies what the New Montreal is: a mosaic of peace, that unites people of diverse talent, origins, aspirations and dreams. »
« It is clear that Montreal’s cultural communities want more and more to get involved at the level of municipal politics, and our party Union Montréal understood that need. »
On the 10th of March controversy erupted over a comment made by Louise Harel in an interview on cable news channel RDI. Speaking about the possibility of reducing the number of Montreal boroughs, Madame Harel said: « If we go from 19 to 10 boroughs, but these boroughs remain quasi-municipalities as they are now, we will end up in the worst of situations because we’ll have cities … an Italian city, a Haitian city, an anglophone city, an Arab city – Ville St. Laurent, a Jewish city, etc. We will no longer have this sense of one big city with boroughs that speaks with one voice. »
The Montreal Gazette printed a series of editorials and articles in which leaders of different cultural community groups spoke out against Madame Harel’s characterization of some Montreal boroughs as «Arab cit[ies] » and « Haitian Cit[ies] ».
Robert Libman, he former mayor of Côte-Saint-Luc, leader of the Equality Party and member of mayor Tremblay’s executive committee said Harel was « sowing the seeds of xenophobia by pointing to identifiable communities. » And that « It’s as if she sees bogeymen in everything that is not white and francophone. »
The Montreal Gazette published four articles on the issue. None included Madame Harel’s response to the accusations, taken here from free daily Metro: « This debate only serves to distract attention from the real debate, which is about whether we still have a great city in Montreal. We have to reclaim this idea that we are all Montrealers and not only citizens of boroughs that have become quasi-municipalities. »
More than half of the people quoted in the Montreal Gazette article are current or former members of Gérald Tremblay’s Union Montreal party: Marcel Trembay is a member of the city’s executive committee and the brother of Mayor Tremblay. Alan DeSousa is also a member of the executive comitee and mayor of the Ville-Saint-Laurent borough. Keder Hyppolite is a member of Union Montréal, as was Robert Libman. (A former member of Gérald Tremblay’s executive committee, Libman resigned from the party after his municipality, Côte-St-Luc, demergered from Montreal. )
On march 15th, a press conference was held by a dozen cultural community leaders to condemn Madame Harel’s comments. Speaking on behalf of the leaders was Marvin Rotrand, another member of Mayor Tremblay’s Union Montreal party and deputy leader of union Montreal at City Hall.
When contacted by the AngryFrenchInvestigativeJournalismUnit, community leaders quoted in the Montreal Gazette story all maintained that they found the quote offensive but that they did not believe Louise Harel is racist or was expressing a racist sentiment. In fact, they had only praise for Madame Harel’s record when it came to relations with minorities or immigrants.
« It was a mistake », said Tony Sciascia, president of the Québec section of the Congress of Italian Canadians. « I know Mrs Harel quite well, I think it was more of a lapsus rather than using those terms.»
Mr. Sciascia, who was the organiser of the March 15th press conference and demonstration against Madame Harel’s statement, denied his involvement in this controversy is politically motivated. « I’m not interested in politics my friend. »
Hear more of what Tony Sciascia’s had to say:
Kéder Hippolyte of the National Council of Citizens of Haitian Origin and himself a member of Union Montréal did not participate in the March 15th demonstration. «I’m not going going to take part in that demonstration. This is political demonstration. »
Mr. Hippolyte says he was surprised by Madame Harel’s comment and wishes she would clarify her thoughts. «She is one of the persons who always talks on behalf of immigrants, she was a former Minister of immigration, she created structures to help immigrants integrate society, and now she is telling me she is afraid of an Haitian city, an Italian city… it is up to her to explain. »
Hear more of Kéder Hippolyte’s thoughts:
« I reacted to the journalist’s question who said it might be possible that there would be Haitian cities, Italian cities and Arab cities in Montreal. That’s not what we aspire to in Montreal », said Ninette Piou, also of the National Council of Citizens of Haitian Origin.
Madame Ninette Piou objects to a quote she never heard:
Madame Piou said she still had not read or heard for herself the controversial quote by Madame Harel and was unsure of what was actually said. « Knowing madame Harel, because I had not heard the declaration, I was surprised she would say such a thing. If she said it I am offended. »
« If we go from 19 to 10 boroughs, but these boroughs remain quasi-municipalities as they are now, we will end up in the worst of situations because we’ll have cities … an Italian city, a Haitian city, an anglophone city, an Arab city – Ville St. Laurent, a Jewish city, etc. We will no longer have this sense of one big city with boroughs that speaks with one voice. »
Louise Harel
I don’t care if you agree or not with the characterization of Ville-Saint-Laurent as an « Arab City » or if you feel that describing other Montreal boroughs as Haitian, Italian and Jewish is a bit of an oversimplification. There is no way you or anyone in good faith that thinks former municipal affairs minister Louise Harel meant anything offensive when she said the above on RDI last week.
Everyone very well understood that she was speaking out against ghettos and division and for a more diverse, multicultural and united city.
To imply anything else is bullshit. It is another example of the ignoble character assassination The Montreal Gazette and Québec federalists are willing to perform on anyone who has ever been associated with the Parti québécois. It is spreading lies, it is sewing the seeds of hate, it is one more desperate attempt to create ethnic division for political purposes.
To find the appropriately outraged quotes to give credibility to its malicious interpretation of Louise Harel’s quote, the Gazette turned to a Montreal imam who favours the implementation of Charia Law in Québec and one, two, three members of Mayor Gérald Tremblay’s Union Montréal party.
Oh yeah, Madame Harel is rumoured to be thinking about running for mayor in the next municipal election. Do you think this has anything to do with it?
Robert Libman, a former mayor of Côte-Saint-Luc, leader of the Equality Party and member of Mayor Tremblay’s party accused Louise Harel of « sowing the seeds of xenophobia by pointing to identifiable communities. It’s as if she sees bogeymen in everything that is not white and francophone. »
Hey Robert? Wanna know how your own electors identify your city? And by the way, for those who don’t know, Robert Libman is the former president of the Québec chapter of B’nai Brith, an organization so open to non whites and francophones that it actively campaigned for a separate network of publicly financed Jewish Schools in Québec.
Tony Sciascia, president of the Italian Canadian Congress, Quebec region, was also offended by Harel’s characterization of some boroughs as Italian. Wanna know how the kids of St.Leonard see their own city?
How far up their asses are these people’s heads?
After reading that Harel called his borough, Ville Saint-Laurent an « Arab City », Alan DaSousa said: « I don’t think it’s appropriate for our community to be dissed in such a cavalier fashion »
Care to explain how being called an Arab is a diss, Alan? Really? I understand you are not an Arab and that Ville Saint-Laurent is more diverse that Harel implied. But what do you mean when you say being called Arab is a diss?
Montréal municipal politics have always been an upside down mirror of provincial politics: those associated with sovereignty movement usually in favour of a strong centralized metropolis and the federalist are the ones pleading for a very loose confederation of independent municipalities.
The only thing that doesn’t change is the willingness of the latter to use hate, lies and slander in their pathetic attempts to drive a wedge between francophones and other communities.
For the life of me I can’t figure out how the Anglo-Canadian media missed this one. There is everything they love in this story: Québec, antisemitism, racism, the French, Jean-Marie Le Pen and a very easy way to throw in Pauline Marois and the Separatists.
Somebody fell asleep at the switch.
Here’s what’s going on. Last week the Superior Court of Québec sentenced French stand-up comic Dieudonné to pay 75 000$ to French crooner Patrick Bruel for attacking the French signers reputation. In a 2006 interview Dieudonné had called Bruel « a pure product of this ultrasionnist political system » who had « the superiority complex of some Israelis. » He also called Bruel a liar and said the signer thought the bombing of children in Lebanon was « normal ».
This was far from Dieudonné’s first controversial declaration or even his first time his opinions had landed him in court. In fact, from a man who has called Jews « a sect, a swindle » and a people that « sold the holocaust, sold suffering to build a country and make money », you could even say that his comments about Patrick Bruel were quite tame.
So how did Québec get involved? It started when Patrick Bruel, who was a guest on the Radio-Canada TV show Tout le Monde en Parle, objected to the complacent attitude of the Québec media toward Dieudonné compared to France, where he is a pariah. Dieudonné replied with his infamous attacks on another Québec TV show, Les Francs-Tireurs, with Richard Martineau.
In another interview, Dieudonné was asked why the controversy that surrounds him did not seem to follow him across the Atlantic: « There is a freedom of speech and tone, here, that is quite anchored in the culture of this country. After getting rid of religion, I’m under the impression that there is a quite strong critical sense that developed. I feel comfortable in the general state of mind and culture of Québec. »
In the same interview Dieudonné praised Pauline Marois, the Parti québécois’ leader, whom he claims he has met and found to be « very serene ».
Oh the headlines they could’ve cooked up with that one…
Well Ok, then. The church ladies and hall monitors of McGill and the Globe and Mail must be busy telling some other nation how to run their country, so let’s take this opportunity to discuss as adults. For once.
The question is: Has the Québec media been complacent with Dieudonné?
The answer is yes.
It must be understood that Dieudonné is an extremely smart man, a complex artist and an equal opportunity offender. At the beginning of his 2008 show J’ai fais le Con which I saw in Montreal, he talks about the Pygmies who steel the garbage behind his father’s house in Cameroon: « Pygmies are a nuisance, kind of like your Indians ».
I don’t know how many people in the audience understood the joke was on them. Dieudonné is actually a defender of the rights of Cameroon’s Pygmies and outspoken about the deforestation that condemns them to a life of beggars on the streets of Yaoundé. When you know that, the parallel he makes between Pygmies and canadian natives on the streets of Montreal or Winnipeg takes on a whole other meaning.
Dieudonné delights in the ambiguity and loves exposing our double standards. Which is, after all, a comedian’s job. He is also very good at forcing the media to pay attention to him. Last year, he made far right Front National leader Jean-Marie Le Pen the godfather of his child and in December 2008 he invited holocaust denier Robert Faurisson on stage with him to give him a Free Speech award.
Which brings us to Dieudonné’s most controversial topic: is his claim that there is a « hierarchy of suffering » in society, notably expressed in the way that Jewish suffering and the Holocaust is considered a worse crime than the slave trade.
He did not come up with that himself. This is a fairly common discourse, notably in some radical parts of the African-american community.
It is a heavy question. Certainly one worthy of public discussion.
Another question that should be discussed publicly is why people like Dieudonné who are preoccupied with this « hierarchy of suffering » are obsessed with Jews? Why not the fact that the condition of African-Americans receives more attention than that of Mexican natives? Or that the world takes to the street for Tibet and Palestine and could care less about the Kurds? Or that the world knows a whole lot more about the « plight » of Anglo-Quebecers than they do about the struggle of Franco-Manitobans?
Is this focus on Jews not a « hierarchy of the scapegoats »?
The fact that the Québec media merely labelled Dieudonné a « controversial » comedian when he is in fact, and of his own admission, a radical provocateur raises questions. The fact that the Québec public is indifferent to his comments about Jews while it is offended by similar statements about black people by pop psychologists and TV comics exposes our own double standards.
That is why the Québec media and public failed. Not because they gave him a soapbox – he knows how to get those on his own – but because they just smiled and nodded to Dieudonné’s provocations, falsely pretended not to understand, just so they wouldn’t be dragged into the debate.
