The hero does not disappear, he is transformed. The distribution of new medals to heroic citizens is an opportunity to examine the mutations of heroism in contemporary society. Last article in the series.
The celebration of the hero is not what it used to be. Of the nearly 3,500 places (streets, buildings, parks, etc.) officially named in the last ten years (between 1er April 2014 and March 31, 2024) in honor of an individual, only a very small handful explicitly recognize heroes.
There are in fact only three duly designated as such in the database of “commemorative designations recalling a person” obtained by The Duty from the Commission de toponymie du Québec. Three soldiers perpetuating the lineage of the soldier, that of the heroes among heroes since Ulysses.
The trio recalls three wars. Since last year, De Salaberry Boulevard on the island of Montreal has been paying tribute to the lieutenant-colonel, “hero of the Battle of Châteauguay” in 1812. Major J. Pearson, “hero of the Battle of Passchendaele” (1917), has had his own street in Mont-Joli since 2017. For the past three years, a small road in the national capital has been honouring Sergeant Léo Major, “one of Quebec’s greatest military heroes,” following political pressure.
In fact, the list does not distinguish hierarchically the notoriety of the people honored, being content to describe the reason for the induction. We can add to these happy few described as heroes and some other designations honoring military personnel of great value.
Maurice Marquet, recognized by a street in 2018 in Saguenay, received the George Medal for his “acts of bravery” during the Second World War. A Sherbrooke thoroughfare has been celebrating Germain Nault since 2015, a volunteer who participated in the Normandy landings and escaped after being taken prisoner. He received the French Legion of Honour in 2014, just before his death. Robert Boulanger has his own avenue in Shawinigan. He was killed in Dieppe in 1942. A town also bears his name in France.
Next in recent Quebec toponymy come rare extraordinary courageous people who have performed heroic acts, such as those celebrated on September 17 by the National Assembly for their so-called exploits of civic duty. Montreal’s Sarah-Maxwell Park, designated in 2017, recalls the memory of the former school principal who died in 1907 after saving dozens of children from her burning school.
And that’s about it if we stick to the proofs of courage sometimes to the ultimate sacrifice. The great international and transhistorical heroic figures are not more popular than the rare heroes of the grateful homeland, with a few exceptions, including Nelson Mandela, General de Gaulle and Winston Churchill.
The classic hero, the one on war memorials once erected everywhere, is now very rare in Quebec. In many other countries, schools, avenues and mountains would have long since borne the name of Léo Major (1921-2008), who would also have been the subject of a film or a television series.
Hero in a lab coat
A few streets in towns and villages therefore do not change the observation of a low symbolic and memorial appetite for the militarized male. Remarkable people, much more praised by toponymy in the last decade, belong to different categories linked to service to the community (including through politics), to solicitude (the care), to sporting or artistic exploits.
The old military service adored by societies for millennia becomes civil and electoral. The admired remarkable person fights against the forces of evil and disease. All the more so since the victim now replaces the hero in the pantheon of collective glory.
Elected officials are popular. Recent additions to the toponymic list include Honoré Mercier, Jean-Paul L’Allier, Marcel Masse, Vera Danyluk and Thérèse Lavoie-Roux. Let’s talk about a duty to remember for civil services rendered.
We come across more than 80 doctors and about twenty nurses, including the British Florence Nightingale, greeted by a path in Outaouais. So there would be one soldier for ten heroes in white coats.
The military and the humanitarian
The same fundamental tensions between the military and the humanitarian are concentrated around the competition launched in August 2019 by Ottawa for the National Memorial to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan.
More than 40,000 people, mostly military personnel but also civil servants and aid workers, took part in the campaign between 2001 and 2014. Of these, 158 members of the Armed Forces and 7 civilians lost their lives.
The five finalist concepts imagined to pay tribute to them were organized around two very distinct options, each shedding light on the way of conceiving devotion, service, commitment and heroism.
Three concepts proposed to commemorate the military and humanitarian mission as a whole by opening up to hopes for the transformation of Afghan society. The three imagined locations included perspectives on the War Museum or the Peace Tower of the parliament. The plan of the Daoust team, chosen by the jury, shows an openwork wall, imitating the grid of a burqa, a wall cut in two to symbolize a breach opened on hope.
Two other proposals instead celebrated the dead soldier. The Stimson team went all-in, reproducing a “forward operating base” with steel shield walls bearing the names of the fallen, Canadians and Afghan allies in the centre of a circle evoking an indigenous medicine wheel and four bronze flak jackets resting on crosses.
The expert jury chose the Daoust proposal in 2021. The government then reversed the decision and gave its favors to the Stimson team by citing an online survey deemed unscientific among veterans and their families.
The controversy has continued since the about-face was announced in June 2023. Artist Adrian Stimson, at the heart of the project developed with landscape architects MBTW Group, first accepted, then declined, a request for an interview about their concept and their conception of heroism.
Mr. and Mrs. Everyman
Celebrity is also popular in the list of memories. There are artists (Nicole LeBlanc, Albert Millaire, Gilles Pelletier or Jean Paul Riopelle, mentioned five times), athletes (hockey player Guy Lafleur, wrestlers Jean Rougeau and Yvon Robert). There are even more writers (from Rabelais to Marie-Claire Blais) and even journalists (Hélène Pednault, Léonise Valois, Ermanno La Riccia…).
However, overall, the toponymic list overwhelmingly inducts ordinary people whose most glorious achievement is often to have been there. Moreover, the vast majority of commemorative designations are made by municipalities.
The gentlemen and ladies of the world knighted by the thousands simply frequented local or regional places, a lake, a farm, sometimes a simple stretch of road. Let us dare to say: “To humble humans, this part of the grateful municipality…”
On the other hand, the list shows almost no effort to celebrate the humble or remarkable personalities of the First Nations, who have been present on this territory for thousands of years. It must be said that the Aboriginals rarely gave the name of a person to a place, letting themselves be inspired instead by the magic of the sites. We come across the name of Chief Tecumseh and a handful of other Aboriginal mentions among the 3,461 recent official names, and that’s it.