It may well be called since 1977 the national holiday of Quebecers, how to prevent everyone from still calling it Saint-Jean or Saint-Jean-Baptiste? Custom is custom. Moreover, the religious evocation was lost in passing. So many generations are unaware that a curly little boy dressed as a cousin of Jesus, flanked by a very docile lamb, was once the highlight of allegorical floats under the marching band. Modern catwalks are more splintered and more colorful than those of yesterday. Something to recall the pagan festivities, honoring the light at the summer solstice long before Catholicism recovered them for its own account.
Beautiful allegory for a people, to celebrate the light at the same time as its national holiday. Even in dark years. Because on the banks of the St. Lawrence, the language withers. Pride wavers. Neighbors look at each other like dog and cat. Who are we ? Where are we going ? The great existential questions are launched at the moon in a sonorous howl. We try to mute them on June 24th. If possible…
Since 1636, in New France, the tradition of large bonfires on Saint John’s Day has remained alive here. But who today really wants to watch the flames crackle? This year, in Quebec, rain or shine, no one can take out a lighter to light them. Even the fireworks are canceled. The blazes send us back to the burning forests, to the evacuated communities, to the foreign firefighters who came to lend a hand to put out these historic fires, to the smog filled with threatening particles. Bonfires, no. Hazard lights, rather. And fear of the future which gives many the taste of having fun rather than grinding black carbonized.
We celebrate, we celebrate, and that’s good for the rest. Well and truly gone, the constraints of the pandemic. People turn off their cell phones and look at each other. They listen to singers of yesterday throwing out words of hope whose scope has weakened, raps inspired or not, rising stars and orchestras that make you dance. Some chords of folklore unloved throughout the year emerge from their wooden box, native drums resound like calls to save nature. It is through music that the great impulses of communion are born. In 1975, Vigneault launched People of the country à la Saint-Jean, future unofficial anthem of Quebec. For many, June 23 and 24 awaken nostalgia for the great sovereignist shows of past decades.
Non-partisan since 1977, when it was sacred feast of all Quebecers, Saint-Jean? Hum! It remains de facto that of the French-speakers, above all nationalists. With openness to other similar communities: First Nations and a few allophone islands. The Anglophones of the territory, even through their often bilingual new generations, have never adopted it nor were they really invited to it.
It was to impose its colors that the PQ criticized the Mouvement national des Québécois, at the wheel of the celebrations, for having lacked judgment in hiring Émile Bilodeau to host the June 23 show on the Plains of Abraham. This French-speaking pro-Quebec solidarity artist had mocked his training and attacked Law 21 on the secularism of the State, exercising his right to speak. It plays hard between the parties, but there is a way to be sovereigntist without attacking a political adversary or crying wolf in the sheepfold of a show where he will not deliver a speech. The PQ, whose more elegant leader has been known, will boycott the official ceremony. If the host had been an active member of his party, who would have raised eyebrows? No one asks him to leave, but it breaks the climate. Celebration of all Quebecers? Not in the spirit.
Its celebrations over its cuvées have always had religious, identity or Francophone political contours. A fact understood by the majority of Quebecers, which guarantees of non-partisanship cannot shake. Its historical memory resounds with cries of liberation during the revolt of the patriots in the XIXe century. It carries images of the 1968 riot in Montreal against the presence of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau among the dignitaries facing the parade. It speaks of submissions, evolutions, crises, doubts or hope as well as the persistence of national struggles. Burying the hatchet during these frenzied 24 hours is not a collective project, it must be believed. You might as well admit it with a sigh or not: the national holiday remains a forum for fractures in Quebec. All united, when we can afford to fight steeples at the aptly named Saint-Jean? It’s too much to ask of a broken society.