Anyone interested in sociopolitical debates in Quebec in 2022 may have the impression that a community there is the victim of internal and external enemies ganged up against it. Things are more complicated than that.
The imaginary enemies
Quebeckers gather on Saturdays to hate Lord Durham, on the pretext that this envoy of the British Crown would have liked – in the nineteenthe century — to assimilate his French-speaking subjects. They also sometimes have insomnia because of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who died in 2000, and his multiculturalism.
Others fear the invasion of Quebec’s national culture by “ethnic groups”. Among their favorite targets are Muslim Quebecers, or 3% of the province’s population, including a practicing minority.
Some, adversaries of a group which they invented from scratch under the name of “diversitaires”, do not fail to vituperate the groups which would prevent them from speaking. These are sometimes called “identities”.
When you talk to them about the linguistic situation in Montreal, these people tell you that there are two languages in this city, and only two, French and English, one too many. They want to know what your mother tongue is and what language you speak at home. They fear the short-term “Louisianization” of “native” Quebecers.
In the public sphere today in Quebec, many feel besieged. Their answer to those who don’t think like them? “That’s how we live in Quebec. »
Where are the victims?
The besieged are mostly white and of old French-Canadian stock, and they do not lack media outlets: written press, radio, television, social networks. It is very difficult to imagine as victims those who occupy such platforms, despite their daily belching.
Neither the low demographic weight of French-speaking Quebecers in North America nor the threat to their language should be minimized. Identity claims must be heard, even if not all are equally justified. That said, we should also reflect on the majority status of Francophones in Quebec. Are they, in all circumstances, victims?
A minority on their continent, French-speaking Quebecers find it difficult to consider themselves a majority in their province. This seems to prevent some from conceiving that they impose, in particular by legislative texts (“Law 21”, “Law 96”), norms, rules and values on others. Besieged, they do not seem to understand that their neighbors can consider themselves their victims.
Many are keen to say that Quebecers are less intolerant than other Canadians, that people died less in their Indian residential schools, that their racism is not systemic, that they treat their linguistic minorities better than elsewhere in the country, as if social life was a contest of virtue. Being less racist than the others may not be the most exciting social project in 2022.
It is not giving in to fear to question the power we hold over others.