Notes from Québec

Québec Nationalists Confused?

October 16, 2007

The Quebec government’s Bouchard-Taylor Commission is supposed to be assessing the public’s feelings about so-called "reasonable accommodation" to religious and ethnic minorities. An example of this is the permission given to Sikh students by the courts to carry a “kirpan” (a knife) to school (provided it is in an arguably secure scabbard). Orthodox Jews recently obtained the right to set up “eruvs” in Montreal.

 “Accommodation” triggers outrage here when it indicates cultural incompatibility, an absence of a desire to acculturate and assimilate or special privilege. I considered presenting a “mémoire” to the commission suggesting that Quebecers ought to be concerned not just with the loss of their cultural ways and language, for which “reasonable accommodation” was a proxy: They should also be concerned with the loss of their biological heritage.

By this I meant not only the genetic uniqueness of their ethny, but in particular the kinship which French Québécois “de souche” share. (De souche refers to the French Québécois ethny as opposed to Quebecers in the citizenship sense.) There is little doubt that their sense of Québécois de souche has contributed to their social cohesion and their identity.

But I backed off on the mémoire. What I had written seemed to strike terror into all the Québécois I showed it to even though I was trying, naively but as a good "universal nationalist", to help out in their cause. The reason, I suspect, was as follows.

The Québécois have undergone a long trajectory over the last century from farmers and loggers to a modern society and a very mixed economy. This is in large part due to the "Quiet Revolution" of the late Premier Jean Lesage that occurred in the mid-20th century. The Québécois got out from under the thumb of the Catholic Church, built proper schools and universities and became well educated. They entered into all manner of commercial and professional careers very successfully.

HOWEVER, the Jews and Anglophones generally, but especially the Jews, resented any Québécois nationalism. So they used any excuse to accuse them of "racism" or any other label they felt conferred illegitimacy on this movement. Since Quebec’s economic progress depended a great deal on a mutually beneficial reciprocity with all the other ethnies in Quebec, Canada and N. America, they were essentially threatened with the loss of much of their economic progress unless they cooled their nationalism.

For example, the insurance company, Sun Life (a WASP outfit), moved its head office from Montreal to Toronto as soon as the nationalist Parti Québécois (PQ) began getting strong. After Quebec separatists lost their referendum on Quebec sovereignty in 1995 and nationalism quieted down, the economy picked up. Jacques Parizeau, the then PQ Prime Minister, blamed the referendum loss on “money and the ethnic vote”, provoking shrieks from Anglos. But Americans here wondered why the fuss, since in the US, voting is routinely analyzed by race and ethnicity.  

Recently there have been noises out of the PQ that have sounded more nationalistic, a return to emphasizing "nous" [meaning, "we", but also a code word meaning "we" in the ethnic sense]. Soft-hearted nationalists decried this usage on the grounds that it made the PQ seem un-inclusive of all citizens and they were afraid of alienating other ethnic voters (but which would make the PQ a contradiction in terms). 

Yet when anyone elaborated on the "nous", they only talked about language and culture. I suggested that if they were really concerned about defending their people, they ought to think twice about, say, racially mixed marriages. I called attention to a letter to Le Devoir (the one independent newspaper of Quebec, read by intellectuals and politicians) by a guy totally enamored of the multi-cultural/multi-racial part of Montreal that he recently had moved to and whose daughter had just married a Haitian. 

Well, they simply do not want to discuss anything biological, whatsoever, particularly any suggestion that they ought to be anything other than wide open to immigrants of all races and ethnies who want to learn French and immerse themselves in Québécois culture. The only problem, of course, is that many of these immigrant groups couldn’t care less about French or Québécois culture and just want to benefit economically from the Canadian economy. They then set about trying to adjust their environment to their own cultural taste and to demand exemption from any laws, rules or regulations that impede their takeover of whatever territory they are trying to make themselves at home in. 

The Québécois know intuitively that they really have a maximally pleasant life with their own kind. Yet they've been brainwashed into thinking that they can have their cake (social cohesion) and eat it (various ethnic restaurants, exotic music, etc.).  

The very left-wing background of so many Québécois likely laid the foundation for such profound denial of the importance of biology. My suggestion was that if they kept all this up, they would lose forever their own ethny (even if producing a new one that might indeed include another Michaëlle Jean (a mulatto Haitian woman, generally regarded as gorgeous, that multi-cultis put in as the Governor General of Canada (figurehead rep of the Queen).  

But the common view was that while such a change/loss might occur, it would only be a very local phenomenon and not affect "les Québécois" province-wide, and that any serious threat was too far off to worry about. Obviously, they aren’t fully aware of Mexifornia.  

It is a point of immense pride for Quebec’s leading lights to consider themselves totally open to other races and ethnies, perhaps even more "progressive" or avant-garde than other cultures. The nationalists don’t seem to see a paradox in loving their within-territory “diversity” at the same time that they encourage trends that, if continued, will ultimately destroy their own people as they know them. 

Meanwhile, Parti Québécois nationalists are hoping for a party renewal with a new leader, Pauline Marois, and a return to the source ("nous") while at the same time trying to stay under the radar of the B’nai B'rith types by sticking to the culture and language thread. If they continue to put up with massive immigration, their days look numbered.

The permanent link for this article is: Quebec-Confused