The advent of a National Museum of Quebec History reveals many things about our relationship to the past. More precisely, it tells us about the interested relationship that statesmen have with history and memory.
François Legault says it with very personal frankness: he wants this museum to make Quebecers “proud” of themselves. Pride, why not… But proud of what, exactly? Proud of crossbreeding or of its ban by the State? Proud of the fights of trade unionist Michel Chartrand or of the judges who ordered his incarceration several dozen times? Proud of Hydro-Québec or of the despoiled lands on which its successes are based? Proud of the fascist sympathies of the elite of the 1930s or of the communist activists who went to Spain to defend the Republic against Franco? Proud of the violent revolt against conscription of 1917-1918 or of Henri Bourassa who condemned them?
The nation without question
Analogous to the biography of a growing individual, this story is inevitably unified and simplified. It becomes the story of the long winters of survival courageously overcome by our ancestors before the spring of the contemporary nation finally blooms. It is also not a museum on the history of “Quebec”, Mathieu Lacombe, Minister of Culture, tells us, but a museum on the history of the “nation”. He speaks the truth. Driven by a slight additional dose of rigor or frankness, he could however have added that it will be a “nationalist” museum of the Quebec nation.
The nation is not outside of history. It is a modern construction. It was nationalism that made the nation, not the other way around.
According to Éric Bédard, appointed by Quebec to the “scientific” committee responsible for establishing the content of the museum, this story begins in 1608. At that time, however, European states and nations were not yet constituted in their modern sense. Kings colonize in their own name and that of their kingdom, not that of the nation. They are “subjects” of the king and not “citizens” who attempt to conquer indigenous territories; these subjects do not, moreover, possess any “national” consciousness.
Within the walls of the museum, however, national history will have a strange past that precedes the nation itself. It is easy to see why this approach is useful to politicians, but it is certainly not a “scientific” concept. This view supposes that the present (formerly the future) was necessarily germinating in the past. To write history in this way is to write it backwards.
In order to “celebrate this unique journey”, as Legault says, this story must therefore guide our journey to the past based on today’s landmarks. This story even alters geography. While North America will remain until the end of the 18th centurye century inhabited by several dozen indigenous peoples bringing together hundreds of thousands of individuals, this story will inevitably focus on small fortified villages of a few hundred inhabitants.
The construction of a journey that is as “unique” as it is enchanted makes this anachronism imperative. To write this national novel, we must discard what is considered superfluous or “incoherent”. We wonder how the museum will treat not only Indigenous people, but also Franco-Americans and Acadians, Métis… And what to do with French Canadians outside Quebec? So many identities populating our past, but which it will be difficult to flatten under the somewhat theological concept of the eternal nation.
The narcissistic elite
This story is also written “from above”. Legault and Bédard say it with uninhibited frankness: this story is that of “great” characters and “great” events. A novel needs heroes, enemies and traitors, right? This story is interested in the ideas and actions of the dominant classes or those who have the capacity to influence them. It traces the genesis of the “victorious” ideas which have influenced the course of history, and which continue to influence it.
The ideas and actions of the subaltern, the working classes and the excluded are not treated at the same level as those of the elite. As the philosopher Walter Benjamin points out, this great journey denies abortive revolts and utopias, the vanquished and the nameless. It is nothing more than the quest for legitimacy of the current elite, in search of its reflection in the elite of the past.
In truth, an objective look at history refuses to seek comfort or pride in it. He captures the past with all that it contains that is irreducible, tragic and strange. The past should not be called upon to make us “proud”. It is the place of hatred, conflicts, wars, misery and inequalities as well as that of friendships, alliances, loves and bravery.
Our ancestors suffered too often. They do not deserve to be objectified like this, once again, within the walls of a museum serving the State. The past owes us nothing. The opposite is true.