 |
 |
||||
 |
|||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
||
|
|
|
|
Chapter 21 | Guy Mercier 7. the case of canada and québec My second observation concerns the Canada and Québec question, which I do not usually talk about without some wariness. My position could be to hide myself behind the general principles I have just enunciated. But this would be a gross mistake as, in this case as in any other, the principles must be used to take into account the circumstances and motivations of different peoples and their perceptions of one another. This does not imply that reason should give ground to whim, atavism and preconception. But it is always advantageous to be aware of these matters, if we want to avoid unproductive clashes and put on the table the conditions of a miscarriage. So, what about the question of the handing down of culture in Canada? Can we hope that authentic cultures can blossom over there? Are there particular conditions which are obstacles to that? The question is highly complex and I am conscious of not having grasped all its components. But I would like to say that I am very sensitive to Michael Dorland’s analysis of the incompleteness of the great Canadian narrative. Canada has not yet completed its great narrative, as it is still missing what Dorland calls a lawful speaker, a great speaker who would unify the public sphere a mari usque ad mare. There is of course a pro-Canadian rhetoric which, since the first days of Confederation, has tried to legitimize Canadian nationalism and federal institutions. This exercise has not been without success — after all Canada is still here — but there is also, as Michel de la Durantaye suggested, the fact that pro-Canadian rhetoric appears constantly as a counterpoint and a counterweight to opposed rhetorics. This creates an impossible unison, a flavour of unachievement. To repeat John Meisel, this is how Canada and Québec constitute another true America; another America, less certain of itself, which would be a counterweight to the confidence of the United States, which is often seen as the essence of its soul. ... The great Canadian narrative has found its unachievement, at least in part, thanks to another great narrative, that of French Canada and Québec. This narrative is in its turn unachieved as Canadian sovereignty and the attachment of residents of Québec to that sovereignty have prevented Québec from completing its own political and territorial agenda. Two unachieved great narratives have been competing with one another for a long time, at a time when, like many others, they are shaken by globalization. They then feel doubly threatened, as a new danger is added to an old frustration. And this is without taking into account that, in this stream, also asserting themselves, are communities which put forward great narratives and, on that basis, claim political and territorial rights: the First Nations, the Francophones living outside the borders of Québec, the Acadians, the Anglophones of Québec, and perhaps others. The new circumstances could give birth, it seems to me, to mutual resentment and a game of dupes. Resentment diverting into irony or indifference is not new. It is the consequence of unachievement and the competition between great narratives of Canada and Québec. Today, this is exacerbated by two factors. First, as already mentioned, there are other great narratives, each a competitor, that one hears more and more. Second, as elsewhere, the legitimacy of those great narratives is compromised simultaneously by the internal forces of individual rights and by the external forces of free trade. As a result, there is a danger of reinforcing the prejudices that haunt the perceptions of communities living within the Canadian territory. A game of dupes is the situation of possibly invading the front scene, if everyone is focusing on his own self image and, in that of the other, those that flatter resentment. Paradoxically, at the same time that Canada moves resolutely toward cultural diversity, it is in danger of sinking into fictions where everyone’s culture descends to simplistic and pejorative stereotypes. I think there is a major difficulty for the handing down of culture in Canada. Those two paths are not compatible; it is important to avoid the latter, without necessarily thinking that any criticism is to be condemned. Criticism, on the contrary, is essential, but it must not be confused with anything else. Developing an authentic culture, which respects legitimate individual and collective rights, cannot accept phantasms where the self is an overblown and petty figure, and where the other is reified and provides only an opportunity for psychological release. It is of course hard to believe that this option is now the choice of the majority. But, when reading certain newspapers, in French or English, I fear that these ways of seeing the other still reach large audiences. This is why it is so important that we should all be vigilant, so that the phantasms do not gain ground. I hope my children will be part of this vigilence. references
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
