Quebec Separatism - classic or dud

I am anarchist but I don't think élections= piège a cons.

anyway this thread
Quebec/Canada separation motion coming back again
pretty much represent what people here are thinking nowadays about that quebec separatism subject yes?

Speaking of politic in general, I think anarchists should vote even if voting is not a panacea , it is not nothing either:
it can help reduce some suffering right now, help to give a voice to the voiceless, make advance peace, feminism, civil
rights and liberties, social justice, syndicalism, certain ideas like equitable economy,
nationalizing industries that are too profitable, universal healthcare etc

It is not realist to want a total revolution to happen overnight, suddenly finding oneself living in a world where, like,
career counselors in highschool would have to help students figure out if they want
to take part
in capitalism or participatory economy. Not voting = callous but voting should not be the end of one's political involvement.

All that said, I think the future Québécois constitution will make life much easier for more people , including anarchists.

-- Sinister Oink Kingpin (noodle_vagu...), January 16th, 2006. (noodle vague)

I know I'm being over-objectionable, Sebastien, but in a 200 year-old liberal democracy what do the Quebecois really have to complain about?

I am in no way, shape or form sympathetic to the seperatist cause, but Gilles Duceppe said something very illuminating during this campaign. He stated that in 1982, if Ontario had rejected the constitution, that there is no way it would have been signed. He was completely, and totally correct. Deals would have been made and those involved would have bent over backwards until Ontario was satisfied with it. Furthermore, had it been signed without Ontario's assent, there would definitely be some lingering resentment and that's part of what you're seeing in Quebec nowadays. While I do think that seperatist politicians are prone to exaggeration, and outright distortions in some cases, the sense of exclusion and alienation among Quebecers is quite, and very real; and I think that's pretty sad for everyone.

disappear from my sight, redundant thread.

shit.

Democracy, and universal freedom!

If a stranger walks up to me and punches me in the face, and then I punch them back, it doesn't "justify" his original punch.

The fact that people dislike the idea of separatism provides absolutely no further justification for separatism, unless you're motivated entirely by vengeance.

Duceppe's comment, strangely enough, is a variant on this. "If Ontario hadn't signed the constitution, etc. ...", so what? Quebec didn't sign the Constitution because of the separatist movement, not the other way around -- separatism wasn't born out of any Constitutional crisis.

Also, MEECH LAKE. According to Duceppe's logic, if Ontario had held out then everyone would have bent over backwards to get them onboard, whereas if Nfld and Manitoba didn't sign it wouldn't have been as big of a deal. Uhhhhhh .......

If you want to get into who threw the first punch, we could be here a looooong time (do the words "speak white" mean anything to you?)

If some Quebecers' desire to have a country of their own = a punch in the face to you, then clearly that's your problem. I still think that at this point, the over-the-top loony hatefulness of many Canadians on this issue is doing at least as much to feed separatist desire as any past grievances I can think of.

Because the rest of the country does not agree or can not understand this point, we continue to fuel the separatist urge.

Thermo, I can't tell if you're being facetious or not, but "speak white" is what many clerks in Montreal department stores used to say to customers approaching them in French, back when Anglos had most of the economic power in Quebec.

The Chinese folks here in Vancouver can't understand my Scottish accent, so I feel your pain.

they know what they are getting into and they choose to live here, not in ontario or vancouver or whereever. Most of them and their kids learn french, get integrated, become québékers. + our anglo community is probably treated better than most minorities elsewhere in north america.

Maybe all the quebecoius should just go to the Iles de la madelline

a funny/asshole comeback would be something like "and why don't you go die away? but now that you know that most immigrants here feel integrated, can you see how you sort of implied québécois are racists?

I just think they are caught up in nostalgia.

Have you read the other thread? you'll see there are better reasons than that.

enough about that subject already, I have a better one instead!
here is my big idea: americans are more fat and stupid than the rest of the world, it helps to explain why they love right wing economic ideas so much , the neocons, republicans and elected Bush. where to start? Is it worth answering ? Is it borderline insulting if not discarded for being naive?

French and English are the two official languages of Canada, with the exception of Quebec. Considering that the Anglo community has been deprived of the language rights provided to every other Canadian, I'd say your argument is dead in the water. (and that's before we even get to matters of cultural integration)

"americans are more fat and stupid than the rest of the world, it helps to explain why they love right wing economic ideas so much , the neocons, republicans and elected Bush. where to start? Is it worth answering ? Is it borderline insulting if not discarded for being naive?"

true enough!but not all Americans. there are plenty of thin, clever, liberals who hate Bush. WHich was my point about Quebec - 50% want to stay, 50% want to go, not all of them want to leave Canada. ( I know, 50% of america is not thin.)

joke: what's wrong with blacks not wanting to sit in the back of the bus in the first place? the coolest seats are there amiright. I should sell this one to like triumph the insult dog puppet.

ps NoTimeBeforeTime you can't really get services in french in canada outside of québec vs you can get by very well in québec only speaking english.

And yes, sure there is some problems of cultural integration but it's like everywhere else. not everything is perfect and people are working on it. if you want to talk about our problems please don't forget, like, asian youths shooting eachother in the streets of toronto.

Badmouthing separatists /= badmouthing French Canadians, no matter how much you'd like it to.

How does one get by well in Quebec with English only when you can get fined for having an English business card or have the French gestapo tear down your store signs because the English letters are too big? I can't even imagine the uproar if the whole of Ontario let alone Toronto enforced English only signs.
I know some dink towns like The Soo did exactly that, but I still can't believe that it didn't have more to do with the FLS Act and Meech Lake.

You never see this happen? Anyway, and I said this on the other separatism thread, what it boils down to is this: the ONE AND ONLY difference between Evil Separatist French Quebecer Guy and Good Federalist French Quebecer Guy is that one primarily identifies with Quebec and the other with Canada. That's it. (well, I suppose there's also some Quebec-identifying folks who want to stay within Canada - it's all good). So when some (sometimes well-meaning, usually not) asshole comes along and tries to draw a line in the sand with Good on one side and Evil in the other based on federalist vs separatist, at best it raises the suspicion that said jerk might have had very limited contact with actual French Quebecers, and at worst there is the implication that Francophone Person is appreciated to the extent that he/she obeys the wishes of Anglo Person, who BTW really would rather not have all those French words on their cereal box (FWIW, I don't think any ILXers are of the cereal-box moron type).

I'm not implying that she is typical in any way, but that was just a strange moment. I often wonder if Quebec Anglos just assume that friendly Francophones who speak decent English must be federalists (and ill-tempered unilingual ones must be separatists).

Point: disagreeing with separatism = fine, no problem, dynamite, we're not exactly hoping to convert Regina or Calgary or Beaconsfield to the cause. But the overly nasty, sometimes willfully ignorant tone of much anti-separatism commenting really makes you wonder what's hiding behind it.

I just read the souverainete.info page (and now your comments). Yeah, I got that separatists feel a sense of national pride + desire for self-determination etc. in general terms, with which, as I said, I even agree. I know that an independent country would obv make its own laws, collect its own taxes, and represent itself internationally. What I'm asking is whether there are any specific items of policy that you would like to introduce that you're not currently able to. Like, do you currently have a major issue with the way the Canadian govt is handling resources or something in Quebec that you would do differently? Are there e.g. cultural policies you would want to introduce to promote French that you can't currently introduce? At the end of the day, nationhood is mostly about a bunch of administrative and bureaucratic logistics, right? It's a lot of trouble to take without some clear idea wrt these kinds of questions. I would definitely understand and probably even support the movement if it was a matter of lobbying for greater provincial jurisdiction in some areas or for greater funding for certain provincial programmes (cultural or otherwise).

5xpost

I'm not "blaming" anything on schooling laws, I'm using it as merely one example of the effects of Bill 101. I'm not claiming that a kid from Petawawa would or wouldn't identify with Ontario purely because of his or her schooling. His or her cultural identity would come from being completely immersed in Ontario culture for a large portion of their life (particularly their childhood). Why should people from other provinces or US States feel any less attached to their province or state of origin as Quebecers do to Quebec? As Thermo (and many others on this thread) have written, virutally all of these separatist arguments look every bit as sensible if you replace the word "Quebec" with "Ontario". Should Ontario become its own country too?

I'm not going to play chicken and egg with Bill 101 and Quebec nationalism. What I have been saying (and you have been ignoring), is this:

1) Bill 101 enforces language and cultural distinctions between Quebec and the rest of Canada. No other province has done anything remotely like this.
2) Separatist sentiment is increasing in Quebec.

Can anybody claim that there is no correlation between these two statements? Can anybody claim that Bill 101 (to name but one aspect of Quebec life and culture) is not doing its part to fuel separatism in a manner that would not have arisen otherwise?

because the differences between quebec and the rest of north america are greater than the differences between any two other provinces/states?

I do strongly feel that the quality of French education even in Ontario needs to be significantly improved.

xpost Not sure I agree if you bring states into it.

Bill 101 and separatism both arise from a common impulse, rather than one being an outcome of the other. Language laws did not appear in a vacuum.

All we did was ask you to explain what those differences (outside of language) would be. Specifically what I asked you was what objectives a separate Quebec would peruse that cannot be achieved within Canada. Something that goes beyond self rule just for the sake of it.

If Quebec separated, however, I might probably prefer to be part of an independent Ontario than a "rest of Canada"

Same here. Rest assured that similar sentiments already exist in Alberta irrespective of whether Quebec stays or goes. It's not impossible that Quebec's departure could set off a chain reaction which would radically alter the political and geographical nature of "the rest of Canada". There's also the issue of Quebec's native population who generally don't want to separate and have raised the notion that they might separate from an independent Quebec. It's not meant as Federalist scaremongering, but things could get very messy quite quickly.

what a country this Quebec will be.

I may have brought up poutine in a lighthearted manner, but my point is serious - what is so different about Quebec culture, other than a different language and poutine?

i love how this issue brings out the asshole in canadians. is this movement dormant at the moment?

When Quebec secedes, the rest of what was Canada will join the USA, then everyone will be happy.

Who was being an asshole? Everyone knows noodle vague isn't Canadian, right?

(And separatists were relegated to third-party status in Quebec's last provincial election so I guess the movement is dormant?)

The FLQ was making anglo-parts-of-Montreal bomb threats a few months ago.

i love the quixotic quebecois quest for independence. i can totally understand why theyre sick of hanging out w/the rest of boring ol canada.

Everyone knows noodle vague isn't Canadian, right?

Actually I wonder if everyone at the top of the thread knew this and whether the thread might have gone differently if they had.

just remembered an item i forgot to include in the "help me hate your people" thread: people get offended /give too much media space at some lousy barely known shock jock that said something like "no tough guy syndicalist will ever vote for a fag" and then proceed to not vote for the fag. yeah yeah, lol.

So when did Quebec's sovereign spirit became such blatant xenophobia?

Turbans, hijabs, kippas face restrictions in Quebec; identity debate heats up

Maybe they get it from the mère patrie...

Tabarnac ! Je nécessite pratiquer mon français.

Charter of Quebec values on collision course with Constitution?

This is getting worse everyday.

Yeah, some people at work (mostly francophones) cynically thinking that the PQ is mostly doing this to start a fight with the rest of Canada, which I guess they think might increase support for Quebec sovereignty.

Pretty much everyone I know (admittedly almost exclusively people in the Montreal area, but several of them are people who have voted for the PQ in the past) are very much against this thing.

Yeah there is a massive divide between people in Montreal (who are firmly against it) and people from outside of Montreal who are in favor, because they have never seen a jew or a muslim I guess. Point is, the PQ is steering the province into a full collision with the canadian constitution and it could get very ugly.

All the while, Quebec's economy is sinking.

oy vey

I thought this was a good article on the subject of the Charter, basically backing silverfish's co-workers' thoughts: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/the-pqs-not-racist-just-running-scared/article14224364

Argh, I'm not subscribed to the Globe.

There are ways around their paywall. Turn off cookies, etc. Or there's a fancy approach here: http://www.thealbatross.ca/24185/how-to-get-around-the-globe-and-mail-paywall.

Easiest way should be to go to google.com, and paste the URL into the search field. Click on article. Not failproof, though.

Obama should bomb the Quebec regime in solidarity with the separatists .

I sometimes jokingly tell my American friends that Quebec is the Texas of Canada, but I was not aware of this:

https://twitter.com/decolonialatlas/status/1361871581795020800/photo/1

(in fact, I was under the impression that Hydro sells surplus energy to the US, so I must be misunderstanding something here?)

hm

This might be a good time to mention that while power grids regularly cross state and even international borders, Texas has its own grid to avoid federal regulations, and it's now one of the most unregulated energy systems in the world.

Map: @sasha_trub pic.twitter.com/VNUjZmQLaY

— The Decolonial Atlas (@decolonialatlas) February 17, 2021

Isn’t Alberta the Texas of Canada?

I mean, being serious, there is no part of the US that accurately compares with Quebec. But most Americans of my acquaintance expect QC to be Euro-sophisticated and sexy, while the thread topic and associated "heritage"-worship reminds me of living in the South (not that I've ever lived in Texas).

Then there's shit like this: https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/montreal-newspaper-apologizes-for-n-word-answer-to-crossword-clue

lol wtf

One thing that’s worth pointing out though is that the French n-word, while still really fucking offensive and totally uncalled for in this context, is not quite as offensive as it is in English, so instead of this being a 10/10 on the aggressively racist blunder scale, it’s more of an 8/10. Historically, said word was closer to ‘Negro’ – hence literary and theoretical movements such as ‘Négritude’, which is a pillar of 20th century francophone literature (think of, say, Langston Hughes in the US). There is quite a bit of incomprehension on both sides of the linguistic divide as a result of this (mis)translation (see also: the Lieutenant-Duval scandal at U of Ottawa). I assume similar issues arise in Spanish.

Yeah I kind of figured that was the case without having the native-speaker experience to make sense of the differences, thanks! Good call on Cesaire/négritude, I hadn't made that connection. One thing I'm unclear on is whether the French word has been reclaimed like the English, or if it's the English word that has instead.

And speaking of QC special-ness, I thought it bizarre that the Gazette translated all the language rather than presenting the original plus a translation -- even their translation of the clue makes me wonder what the original wording was. Tbc, I know why they do that, but the politicized antipathy to bilingualism even when stubborn monolingualism causes confusion & ambiguity is super annoying.

i've forgotten most of what i ever knew about power grids, but iirc quebec has dc connections to main eastern grid, so power can be transferred but they aren't on the same ac cycles.

To my knowledge, beyond Césaire and Senghor’s literary/critical reconfiguration, it hasn’t been reclaimed as slang by black francophones to the same extent as its African American counterpart. That said, ‘négro’ is the closest thing to the non-hard ‘r’ version of the English n-word in that there’s a clear in-group vs out-group distinction as to who may or may not use it affectionately. The one ‘loophole’ for the unaltered French word is when it’s used to mean… ‘ghostwriter’, of all things, but that has also stirred up some (admittedly muted) controversy in recent years. And then, of course – since I assume this is what the crossword troll was obliquely addressing given all the media coverage it’s gotten of late – there’s the question of the word’s presence in archival and/or literary texts that are routinely studied in academic spaces (spoiler: I think the instructor’s job is to explain and contextualize and reckon with the legacy of racist language rather than to outright filter it; in some ways, this quarrel reminds me of Adorno’s quip that poetry after Auschwitz is ‘barbaric’).

And yeah, the tendency to translate everything and pretend that you’ve got a perfect one-to-one match drives me up the fucking wall as well. It also happens the other way around.

xp