Quebecers experience the ambivalence of being and not being. If they are federalists by reason, they are also separatists by heart. As a people, they are afraid of dying and, paradoxically, they are also afraid of existing fully. They therefore become fertile ground for undergoing an invasion of their history, their language, their culture, their sexual orientation and the place of religion in their lives. Faced with these attempts at destabilization, they are pushed to feel guilty for resisting the actions of certain people who try to shake the foundation of their identity.
Indeed, as soon as the National Museum of the History of Quebec project was announced, discordant voices were heard to denounce the egocentrism of this approach which would risk excluding Indigenous people or other groups from the narrative, such as if the Quebec people did not have the right to be at the center of their own history. In this same vein, Desjardins funds, our Quebec flagships, recently promoted Victoria Day instead of National Patriots Day, showing that some prefer to celebrate the history of others.
Likewise, when it comes to defending the French language and making its promotion and protection a vehicle of culture and a foundation of the nation, accusations of intolerance arise among some, for whom French is a sub-language doomed to disappear in favor of triumphant English.
Furthermore, the exaggerated importance given to phenomena affecting the variation of minority tendencies linked to sexual orientation and gender identity should not “marginalize” the majority, who find themselves in a situation of exclusive binary man- so-called traditional woman.
Furthermore, Quebecers are made to feel guilty for choosing a secular society which distances the State from religion, which eliminates all forms of proselytism by prohibiting the wearing of ostentatious religious symbols in certain public institutions. They are accused of ostracism against certain religions.
Thus, a certain form of insecurity affects Quebec society, which would benefit from puffing out its chest rather than bowing down in the face of these destabilizing guilt-inducing attitudes.