The author is professor of literature in Montreal, editor-in-chief of the journal Argument and essayist. He notably published These words that think for us (Liber, 2017) and contributed to the collective work edited by R. Antonius and N. Baillargeon, Identity, “race”, freedom of expression, which has just been published in PUL
During the Crimean War (which opposed, from 1853 to 1856, the Ottomans, the English, the French and the Piedmontese to the Russians), French officers were sent to make contact with the Circassian tribes, or Circassians, of the Black Sea coast. who for decades had resisted the conquering advance of the Russian Empire in the Caucasus. The interview between these emissaries and the Circassian chefs went well, until the French decided to grill in front of their hosts and devour frogs’ legs with gusto. Shocked that we could consume such little halal food, the Circassian warriors left their potential allies there after giving them a scornful look and returned to their mountains.
“Difference” is a nice word and “accept difference” a most honorable ethical program, but as a rule we tolerate only differences which do not bother us, which are, in other words, indifferent to us.
This is what this historical anecdote reveals; this is also shown by the attitude of English Canada towards Quebec. Canadians like to imagine themselves as examples of openness, multiculturalism, tolerance, respect for minorities, but they only tolerate, encourage and generously subsidize the expression of differences which, to them, seem insignificant. . It is easy for them to flaunt their openness to ethnoreligious minorities who fit so easily into the mold of Anglo-Saxon liberalism, who quite naturally and without the slightest reluctance adopt English as their own. language of communication and which mask their sometimes real differences (as regards, for example, the status of women) by modeling their discourse claiming on that of individual rights when it is to their advantage.
The inconvenient difference
It should be remembered in this regard that the “ secularism ”Canadian (the English ignores the concept of“ secularism ”) is the fruit of the religious revolutions as much as political which occurred in England in the XVIe and XVIIe centuries; These had the effect of establishing a broad tolerance with regard to all the churches and beliefs resulting from the Reformation, while making an exception for Catholics and atheists, who were bullied and legally discriminated against (until the 19th century).e century for the former and, in some respects, until today for the latter: whether we think of the prayer solemnly pronounced at the opening of each parliamentary session in Ottawa or of the tax exemptions reserved exclusively for groups religious). In conclusion of his Aeropagitica (1644), a daring plea in favor of “the freedom to print without authorization or censorship”, John Milton thus takes care to specify that he “does not speak of tolerating popery” or “what is absolutely impious”, but only “indifferent differences”.
English Canadians, who love to take pride in their liberalism and greatness of soul, find themselves in the same situation as the British poet of old when they ride, from coast to coast and as one man, the great horses, which are never kept far away, from the Quebec bashing. It is rather amusing to see them give free rein to the most obvious intolerance and ethnocentrism when Quebecers – whom they do not hesitate to treat in passing with all kinds of names of birds (or frogs … ) – show the slightest inclination to deviate from the ideological conformity that prevails in the rest of Canada; in other words, as soon as Quebec and its inhabitants dare to show their difference …
The cult of difference, however, should not stop at religious symbols, gender or sex, no more than skin color, differences, basically, rather superficial. It is their ideas and their visions of the world that more profoundly differentiate human beings, and these are rooted in particular in the soil of the history of peoples and individuals, in their own culture and language. Therein lies the challenge of accepting differences.
There are therefore two kinds of differences: those, on the one hand, which are perfectly harmless, indifferent and which are content to flatter our good conscience; and those, on the other hand, much more problematic, which confront us and which sometimes force us to revise our convictions, even to question them. The latter, failing to accept them (which cannot be done blindly), we can at least discuss them with a minimum of respect.
Thus, we have every right, of course, to be opposed to Law 21, but to claim that secularism, which is the daughter of Enlightenment rationalism and universalism, is liberticidal and anti-democratic (while the a ban on the wearing of religious symbols for public servants and teachers exists in several countries which have no lessons in democracy to be learned from Canada) seems to be the work of self-righteous, ethnocentric, intolerant and obtuse minds.
In Canada, Quebec embodies the only real difference; and it is clear that this is as intolerable in the eyes of the majority of Canadians as cooking and eating frogs’ legs could be in the 19th century.e century, to those of the Circassian mountain dwellers.