The word “pride” does not come easily from the mouths of Quebecers when it comes to talking about themselves as a people. For many, it is a controversial, suspicious word, which can attract criticism, mocking looks or even contempt towards those who dare to say it. Talk to François Legault!
Anyone who says they are proud to be Quebecois can appear pretentious, but also come across as someone who takes pleasure in gazing at their navel, who refuses to open up to others, to difference, to the world or to this famous diversity in which, according to some, it would be so much better to all drown and disappear forever. “Long live multiculturalism”, we could finally chant in unison, all provinces combined and melted in the Canadian melting pot, “the best country in the world”, as Jean Chrétien said.
And then, proud of what exactly, might ask all those who are annoyed by this sentiment when it comes out of our mouths? To have survived despite the Conquest? To continue to stand, although bent and sometimes on knees, following the aborted rebellion of 1837-1838, the losing referendum of 1980, the imposition of a Constitution in 1982 by the federal government or even that other referendum lost – and probably stolen – in 1995? Can a people say they are proud of themselves when they have twice refused to say yes to becoming independent and responsible for their destiny? could add the adversaries of the emancipation of the Quebec people. Let’s admit here that they might be somewhat right…
“I never thought I could be as proud to be a Quebecois as I am this evening,” René Lévesque told us on November 15, 1976, the day the Parti Québécois took power for the first time. However, when he added this, in the same speech: “We are not a small people, we are perhaps something like a great people”, let us admit that his hesitations and convolutions told us a lot about the fragility of this damn pride that he had just celebrated.
And then, when we can no longer hold back in the face of the exploits or successes of one of our own on the international scene, we quickly find a way to attenuate our pride by speaking of these Quebecers as little guys or little girls from our area. Why call them “little” when they are among the greats of this world? Yes, we are perhaps something like a small, I mean like a big people…
For ten years now I have spent a few months in Greece every year. Despite the misfortunes, crises and wars that have marked its history, I find a people there who never hesitate to express their pride loud and clear, sometimes to the point of being convinced that they have invented almost everything! Would we blame them for that? For nothing in the world ! How then can we explain our hesitation to do the same? Why this embarrassment and sometimes even this shame when it comes to affirming, even lip service, our pride in being Quebecois?
Perhaps it is because we have a certain self-esteem problem, we suffer from a lack of confidence and we are too easily intimidated or influenced by the followers and descendants of Lord Durham who look down on us. , who ridicule our accent, who still and always want to see us as water carriers, less than nothing, as a people without culture, without history and above all without future.
It’s up to us to raise our heads, to stop being a two-headed creature – one head in Quebec and another in Ottawa -, to reject this bipolar attitude which makes us believe that it is possible to be one thing and its opposite, that is to say, wanting “an independent Quebec in a united Canada”, as Yvon Deschamps ironically said.
To become adults, sovereign, independent and fully proud of what we have become, we, Quebecers of all origins, will have to demonstrate courage, lucidity and introspection, qualities that are acquired so much more easily when we know our own identity. own story. Although the challenge is enormous, meeting it is still possible.