Anyone who, like me, listens to and reads what is said and written in the Quebec media can quite naturally understand that Quebec is finished. Its completion is no longer in doubt, indeed this society, although imperfect, of course — and what society would not be — functions and, on a daily basis, demonstrates an obvious political coherence.
The thousand problems, challenges, ordeals, obstacles that this society faces, are, as elsewhere — this elsewhere that serves as our referent, which is embodied in those societies that share cultural, social and political norms with us — made explicit, under examination, discussed in the public space, and, in the final analysis, more or less regulated, raised, overcome. We are doing, as best we can, democratic work — useful work — the National Assembly in Quebec is home to an intense parliamentary life, to which people devote themselves, often ordinary women and men, who exercise the essential function, although too little considered, of deputies.
Everything hangs together, the idea of our completion exudes from the walls of our institutions, from the pores of our newspapers, from the innumerable surfaces of our screens. We are finished. It could be our motto, look, as brief and mysterious as the other, inscribed on the pediment of the parliament, like a call to order to people of good will. A motto like a maxim, mysterious and rich for that very reason — I am thinking of Beckett’s (No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.), or that of Bukowski, inscribed on his tombstone, his simplistic and subtle Don’t try. In both cases, these writers recall (for them, first and foremost) what their lives were like, what it means to engage in creation: don’t try, do; and fails, getting better and better.
Our motto would therefore be “We are finished” – implied, as soon as we believe we are finished.
A tyrannical navel-gazing
We have to admit that an impressive number of people in Quebec give the impression, at the very least, of sticking to the poorest version of this maxim. Their world, which is mine, which is ours, is an end in itself. This impoverished conception of our collective accomplishment denotes a tyrannical navel-gazing reminiscent of that of children.
The figure of the child comes quite naturally to me when thinking of Michel C. Auger, rereading his “bias” (sic) in The Press from October 13th. This text, “God save the Paul”, is less the testimony of consummate bad faith than an admission of disturbing immaturity for a man of his age and, above all, benefiting from such a platform.
For this journalist (he is not the only one, but he is the one who moans the loudest), the stakes are cast, Quebec is as immutable as the sovereign authority of Charles III, declared king of Canada and Quebec . That a deputy, who is moreover the head of a political formation, benefiting from an indisputable legitimacy, dares to stick to the commitment made during the electoral campaign not to swear allegiance to the king, as required by the regulations of the National Assembly, and expressly asks its secretary, the interim authority between two legislatures, to nevertheless be able to sit in due form and fulfill the high responsibility incumbent on him, that of representing those who have elected, that is what, for Michel C. Auger, is childishness. The world upside down.
It hums, it hums, it coos and it pretends to dictate to us the procedure to follow, that is to say on the beaten and hackneyed paths of completion as a principle and as an end. These people, ultimately, live in a vacuum, think accordingly and would like to keep us all under their magisterium, an authority with no other basis than that of defending the immutability of their world which, once again, is also ours. These people are finished.
Humility and generosity
In the important days to come, there will therefore be three deputies, fourteen if the elected representatives support them, to refuse to swear allegiance to the Crown, all the more so because this oath is written in a French that Miron called the “traduidu”. , incorrect in its formulation modeled on the English matrix.
Fourteen and how many others perhaps, who in the secrecy of their souls deny, in truth, any allegiance whatsoever to the English king, father of the Anglican Church which derives its authority from God?
Finally, among our elected officials, how many will have the courage to clarify things once and for all by recanting the king and then swearing true allegiance to the people of Quebec? How many will dare to declare, in their name, that our finitude does not authorize us to consider our world, our society, as an end in itself? How many show humility and generosity, sisters of democracy?
It is, in conclusion, what strikes me the most in this unexpected election of Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, how his rigorously democratic behavior offends the common sense of those who have become accustomed to getting on well with his flouting . On this centenary of the birth of René Lévesque, father of the Parti Québécois, one of his children dares to raise his hand on his legacy, which is not as brilliant as we would like to believe. Really, the separatist witness, which is basically the democratic raison d’être of an entire people, has just passed on for good.
Quebec is dead, long live Quebec!