I don’t want to come back directly to Amira Elghawaby. Everything has been said and written.
I want to come back to the why of such a media cataclysm, of the epidermal reaction of the whole nation with a capital N.
The words revolt, of course. It’s the equivalent of throwing gasoline at a burning trash can. It is hurtful to see oneself denied – or ridiculed – part of one’s history, of the suffering recounted. It hurts our collective memory.
But hey, the words are not new, or out of a hat. They represent well what a part of the Canadian elites say without embarrassment about Quebec. Yves-François Blanchet had experienced it well at the leaders’ debate in 2021.
Nothing really new under the sunny ways.
But then, why such a climb to the barricades?
Hypothesis: Quebec is always defined by the no. There is an energy of refusal in our half-country. We always assert ourselves in opposition to something or someone. And this week, he said a clear no to this indictment of the frog…
A mirror thought
Part of the support for Bill 21 comes precisely from there. From fierce opposition – and misunderstanding – from English Canada. Secularism, this word that does not even exist in English.
In theory, this law has nothing to do with “identity”. Nothing to do with “values” that would be written into a charter. It is a state principle, a line in the sand drawn between the religious and the state.
But it has become identity – a Quebec value – in reaction to the verbal swelling of Canadian media influencers. In other words, the more Canada speaks of this law as the worst infamy in history, the more Quebeckers support it.
Many caquistes, previously little interested in such a law, François Legault in the lead, have become defenders by this Canadian reaction.
Identify
Even our designation “Quebecois” can be explained by the refusal.
In what constituted the French Canadian, his heart was religious. The Church governed everything: health, education, our mores, our descendants, our unions, our community life, everything, everything, everything.
The transition from “French Canadian” to “Quebecer” was marked by this rejection of religion. We said no to religion. The cassocks were pushed back. We “ate the priest”. We said no to this leaden screed over our existence. Within weeks, somewhere in 1965, the churches were empty. From ultramontanism to anti-Catholicism…
Referendums
In this “no” society that is Quebec, it is difficult not to think of referendums.
Not just the referendums of 1980 or 1995 end in a victory in the no.
The other referendums, too. If Quebec said no twice, it also said no to 57% in Canada by the forgotten referendum, that of Charlottetown, in 1992.
Our political identity is that of a schizophrenic, of a double negation: that of Quebec as a country, that of Canada as a country. No no.
And the referendum on conscription during the Second World War? A referendum clarity of 72% for the no, against a clear yes from English Canada.
Do you know the only referendum that was a winner in our history? The one against the prohibition of alcohol in 1919…
One of the best slogans in Quebec political history is that of the no side of 1980.
My “no is Quebecois”. There, all is said.