The author is a 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 book collective led by R. Antonius and N. Baillargeon, Identity, “race”, freedom of expressionwhich has just been published by PUL.
Coup sur coup appeared in the “Free opinion” section of the To have totwo texts, respectively signed by Manijeh Ali and Alexander Hackett, who put forward this worn-out and simplistic argument of age, in order to oppose Bill 96 which aims to strengthen Bill 101 by imposing in particular a few additional French lessons to students attending English CEGEPs.
Basically, their argument was as follows: this bill comes from old, “baby boomers”, wrote Alexander Hackett, ” [h]heirs to an obsolete idea, fixed in the heads of older generations, who are mistaken about who we [les jeunes anglophones] are really”; in other words, these old people do not understand anything, neither about youth nor about the present world, which they only interpret, as they should, through “good old stereotypes”.
Manijeh Ali goes further by speaking, about the same bill, of a “vision” that “represents the past” and of the “ideology of a bygone era” that she opposes to an idealistic and justice-loving youth. , the fruit of “a resolutely digital era”, focusing “on communication and not on language”, shaping “from different visions of the world” speeches “so beautiful, so innocent! And she ends with this injunction issued to the Minister of Education: “Let our young generation build a generous world in its own way and in its own likeness. We see that there is no shortage of lyricism to evoke this beautiful youth who would fortunately keep themselves well away from the political whims of their elders!
Yet, while they have every right to express their opinion about this bill passed on Tuesday, it may seem a little adventurous on the part of these two people to claim to speak on behalf of “youth”. The youth in question has no authorized representatives. Manijeh Ali, like Alexander Hackett, does not hesitate, when talking about young people, to use a “we” that we guess, in their minds, is all that is most exclusive…
A multifaceted youth
I do not know what authorizes Alexander Hackett to set himself up as a spokesperson for young people, but, as far as Manijeh Ali is concerned, this same claim seems rather misguided. According to her profile on the John-Abbott College website, she must be about the same age as me. However, at the age of fifty, I will be careful not to make myself the ambassador of “young Quebecers”. Especially since being brought like her to see them daily on the benches of a Montreal CEGEP, it seems obvious to me that this youth is very diverse and that it is imprudent to claim to speak in its name.
Some of these young people are extremely religious, others are not. Many are aware of the ecological problems, even would classify themselves among the eco-anxious, others run their engines for hours on winter mornings, in order to keep the passenger compartment of their car warm, when they could cross, at a few meters away, the doors of the cégep to be warm. Many are Anglophiles, to the point of talking to each other in the language of Shakespeare, or rather that of 50 Cent, in the corridors of a supposedly French-speaking school, but others are proud to speak French and are worried about the future of their language. It is right and left: some who are driven by a concern for social equality, while others think only in terms of money, career and individual advancement. Many are apolitical, protesters, conformists, liberals, solidarity, caquists. There are even some who are sovereignists (yes, there are still young nationalist Quebecers!).
In short, given my age and especially this diversity that characterizes young people, like any age group, I will not venture, as far as I am concerned, to present a uniform youth, even less to use the ” us” to make her talk like a ventriloquist.
Besides, what would I make them say? That Bill 96 interferes with their individual freedom to anglicize and that it will have a devastating effect on SMEs, which the minister responsible for it, Simon Jolin-Barrette, cannot realize, because he has ” never worked in the private sector. It seems that such arguments, which are those of Alexander Hackett, are not very young. They were already invoked against Law 101 in 1977. Like what, you can be young and have old ideas!
As for Manijeh Ali, after having also invoked the individual freedoms that are odiously oppressed by wanting to make French the common language of Quebec, she has this strange sentence: “The vision of a Quebec in French is the product of a time when English was the language of imperialism in North America. This English imperialism is therefore in his eyes a thing of the past.
It is when, in other words, the soft-power American triumph. In particular through the action of GAFAM (companies which are all made in USA, need we remind you?) who, in addition to English by default, also impose their moral and censorial standards, their political and ideological preferences, their societal choices (think of the business model of Uber, for example). It is then that we should live in denial and pretend not to see imperialism where it is, on the pretext that it is becoming invisible.
For my part, I hope that Quebec youth remain capable of demonstrating a little more lucidity.