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Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Responding to the Anglophone Nationalists

I have gotten a heap of comments from a variety of folks who I would consider members of the Anglophone nationalist community in Quebec.  Perhaps that is not an entirely accurate label, but let's debate that in another post (or in the comments to this one).

Is it ever acceptable, Tony asks, to infringe rights?  To be clear, my specialty in Political Science is not about rights--I have no expertise on the should questions and questions of rights.  I am a specialist on the whys of International Relations--why countries intervene or not, why countries delegate or not to their soldiers on the ground, why institutions might or might not foster ethnic outbidding.  So, I am an amateur on this kind of question.  But that has never stopped me before.  So, the answer is, um, yeah.  A gun rights advocate from Texas would find living in Canada to be oppressive since one cannot buy semi-automatic handguns at the local Walmart here.  Taxes can be seen as oppressive.  What is a right is often hotly debated.  Which is more important:  individual rights vs rights of the community?  I, as an American, focus much, much more on individual rights rather than collective ones, but that does not mean that collective rights are inherently undemocratic (I leave that to the political philosophers).





I know that I am a "victim" of Bill 101 (heaps of previous posts on this), but what differentiates me from the folks commenting on my recent threads is that I moved here in 2002--after Bill 101 and after two referenda.  Sure, I engaged in wishful thinking (because I so much wanted to leave west Texas) and so I perhaps did not fully realize exactly what was going on in Quebec or that there always be another referendum.  But I was fully aware that my kid would not be eligible for the English public school system.  As an immigrant, I knew what I was getting into and could not expect the system to conform to my desires (I was being reasonable in not expecting radical accommodation of my cultural needs).  So, I have had a very status quo mindset--I don't want to have my situation eroded with new rules applied to CEGEP or my daughter getting kicked out of her private school due to a revised Bill 103.  I do understand why others who lived here before Bill 101 would have more frustration and desire a reversal.

Even though I have referred to the various rules of Canadian politics as fostering tyranny of the majority (notwithstanding clause, the weakness of the Supreme Court), I do not believe that Quebec is a tyranny.  There are degrees of oppressiveness, and Quebec certainly does limit the freedoms of Anglophones and Francophones alike by restricting choices when it comes to education.  But that pales by comparison to the problems of minorities elsewhere that I have studied.  That does not make what Quebec does right, but it does mean that this is not the same kind of life or death issue that the Egyptians, Libyans, Syrians and others have been confronting. 

So, this comes back to the question of whether one should seek reversal of Bill 101.  As someone who wants to live in a Quebec that remains in Canada (indeed, when moving here, my thought process focused on moving to Canada and to Montreal, not about moving to Quebec), it is not just a question of Bill 101 or not Bill 101, but what happens as a result of a real challenge to Bill 101 and what happens if it were to disappear.  I try to take seriously the tradeoffs of any policy change (I am far more conservative than one would think--in terms of avoiding change unless a case can be made that the new situation would better than the status quo).  So, what would happen if Bill 101 would disappear?  Would the PQ and other separatist parties just wave their hands and walk away?  No, it would energize the soft sovereigntists and probably lead to another referendum, which would either lead to independence or just another period of economic decline and instability.  I think the focus should be on softening the hard edges of Bill 101 rather than trying to get rid of it, although it does reek of discrimination and all the rest.  But that is up to individuals.  If the Anglophone nationalists want to protest Bill 101, that is their right.  And they still have that right.

And, I do, quite clearly think that national unity is something worth compromising a bit on rights.  Yes, it is a slippery slope, but we live on slippery slopes all the time.  I think the Canadian brake is more than the courts, but rather the existence of a federalist opposition and of a federal system that provides incentives for moderation.  Once independent, Quebec politicians would not have to worry much about the costs of alienating the rest of the country.  And, yes, they do worry just a bit now.  Perhaps not the PQ but the provincial Liberals (who sell out the Anglophones much but not all of the time). 

Ok, lots of text to respond to the comments.  Tony asks a much simpler question: if I opposed Bill 101 louder, would it affect my employment at McGill?  No, not at all.  I have tenure so I am mighty hard to fire.  Promotion and merit increases depend far more on publications (numbers of them, where they are placed) and department politics, not provincial or national politics.  I had a colleague who was a fan of North Korea (no kidding, really!) and opposed McGill administration all the time, and he was never at risk of being fired.  He retired when it made sense for him and not before.  And, if you ask my colleagues, they would certainly not consider me to be discreet.  This blog is evidence of that.  So, my stand here is purely my own and is not constrained by my institution, which is hardly a symbol of French nationalism, is it?

13 comments:

  1. Fan of North Korea? Quoi? Fan of the real thing or of some idealized concept (i.e. "North Korea")?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes and yes. Really. Hard to believe but true. I never engaged him in a long conversation but that was the rep.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It is difficult to see your point of view with any credibility, when you talk out of both sides of your mouth. To bring in extraneous issues of the Middle East minorities into the equation are irrelevant distractions to the Bill 101 issue and just confounds an already complex dilemma. Because we are not dealing with life and death in Quebec, it is O.K. to oppress the minority Anglophones “just a little bit”? Ethically, do you think it is acceptable to sit on the fence and maintain this dysfunctional relationship between Quebec and Canada at the expense of our children forever despite the rapid rate of change that is occurring in our society today? Our computers and technology gadgets are outdated within 3 years, yet we feel that an oppressive outdated Bill 101 law from a 1970’s era mentality is still relevant today. Bill 101 enslaves the very individuals it is trying to protect. Francophones have no choice of education for their own children. Their heritage is the basis for the justification for this “little bit of oppression” for our children, no matter what the child’s learning capabilities are to handle this coerced French education. Is it ethical to deny Francophones choice of education for their children, when Francophones are very aware of the interconnected world around them and want the best opportunities for their children? Where will all the unilingual youth find jobs, when the insolvent Quebec no longer receives equalization payments? Sitting on the fence may keep your job for a period of time, but what about the next generation? Our children are connected to technology to the world around them. This generation will not be so easily manipulated. The old political spin of yesteryear is useless. As we witness the continual deterioration of the Quebec province, we see the world around us moving at a dizzying pace. Just look around at our infrastructure, our hospitals, our schools, our streets and see the cracks in everything deteriorating and falling apart. Yet, we pay exorbitant taxes and for what, to support an ever increasingly massive & corrupt bureaucracy? How long do you feel it is the appropriate time limit to continue to walk on egg shells to maintain the shell of Quebec and Canada unity... 50 years 100 years? The shell of unity remains hollow indeed, when we base our union on falsehoods, extortion and delusions of grandeur. While we choose to live with blinders on to avoid dealing with the reality on the horizon, we are not giving our children the communication tools they will need in the very near future to survive and thrive. It is time to get off the fence and get our head out of the sand. As a specialist in the “whys of all International Relations”, why not be an advocate for the needed change to give our youth the communication tools to improve International relations? Doing nothing is not an option. Change will slap us in the face whether we are ready for it or not. Inflexibility, resistant to change, xenophobia are not qualities that will move Quebec to the forefront of advanced western democracies.

    F.Y.I. See the link below to catch a glimpse of the future our children will face and reflect how our stagnation and inaction is jeopardizing our youth. It is the youth who will demand the needed change once they realize they are not able to get a job without the bilingual communication skills required to make it in today’s world order.

    Did You Know? Prepare for the New, Global Economy ...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8W1WuxGniE

    Uploaded by EmpowerYOUNetwork on Jan 15, 2011
    This is a great, eye-opening video on the progression of information technology, researched by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Brenman.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It is how you treat the individual rights, which benefits the whole collective.

    “A group, as such, has no rights. A man can neither acquire new rights by joining a group nor lose the rights which he does possess. The principle of individual rights is the only moral base of all groups or associations.”
    “Any group that does not recognize this principle is not an association, but a gang or a mob . . . .”
    “The notion of “collective rights” (the notion that rights belong to groups, not to individuals) means that “rights” belong to some men, but not to others—that some men have the “right” to dispose of others in any manner they please—and that the criterion of such privileged position consists of numerical superiority.”

    http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/collective_rights.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous,
    If you want to be successful in altering/revising/reversing Bill 101, you will need to consider how to revise your rhetoric to persuade enough of the Francophone majority in Quebec. There are some good points buried in your post, but you will need to consider how to play to the majority if you want to see significant political change here.

    Oh, and Ayn Rand is not going persuade me of anything.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Professor Saideman,
    I am very glad you have tenure, which is quite hard to obtain at McGill after the comments I have heard from two Assistant Finance Professors friends.
    There is a concept called Negative Interdependence (vis à vis the RoC) that is an indirect result of the this passive xenophobia that Bill 101 represents. I won’t get into that in detail, but I figure since you’re a Prof, that’ll be easy for you to understand why…
    We are all Canadians, so if in a territory within Canada has a belligerent government that sets up a law to discriminate between Canadians based on one of the official languages spoken in the province, an unjust law to help create conditions for separation or the creation of a FR creative/entrepreneurial class (which was restricted in the sixties and seventies, hence my statements that this law was reactionary and perhaps necessary at the time to re-assert the majority’s linguistic rights) – there are ways to promote the language now that are much more progressive than a negative segregation of society that has resulted.
    Another major flaw of the law I’d like to point out (much like the lie that Charter of the City of Montreal stating it is a unilingual city), for example, it states that FR is the only official language of QC, which is in reality totally false since there are over 70 officially bilingual communities in the province and just about all QC Govt sites are in both languages (or more). I live in one of those bilingual communities on the Island of Montreal, and it is inconceivable and disrespectful to act as if we are UnOfficial considering our linguistic minority has been here for centuries, but that sovt/separatist faction within the govt tries to project this continually to harass us and to make us feel as if this is not our home: http://intellabase.com/Govt-ArtificialPersonsLette.jpg
    As you can see in Invictus, we need to be cheering for the same thing instead of continuous division based on language/culture. Basing a law on this division is a result (and failure) of Blueneck Politics Losership- see: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/hugo/archive/2010/09/30/when-the-bloc-qu-233-b-233-cois-is-a-nuisance-for-quebeckers-interests-the-top-20-countdown.aspx
    19th Position – The Bloc Plays the Identity Card to Obtain Votes
    The 15th of October 2007, just before the return to Parliament, the Leader of the Bloc Québécois, states loudly enough to attract media attention, which party intends to play the identity card to counter the conservative vote. Such a confirmation made it crystal clear to which totally irresponsible extent the weight of playing the politics of ethnic division is to this party. In fact, it is a card the Bloc holds dearly, since playing the identity card signifies the division of Quebeckers between those deemed ‘pur laine’, and the ‘others’ (i.e Allo/Anglophone minorities). With respect to the best interests of Quebeckers of all origins, and the mutual respect that comes from such a modern politique, even concerning Quebec’s French-speaking majority, is to be represented by a party that has no interest in dividing its electorate by means of culture, language, or religion.

    As for convincing the majority in QC, I spent months doing so here, with several Francophones agreeing:
    https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=188473804513203#wall_posts That will be one of my main focuses in the near future to expose the extremists that are contributing to the path of isolation Quebec has walked since the majority and especially Gouvernemama pushed through changes at the expense of minorities and freedom: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Anglo+rights+Quebec+vulnerable+Senate+says/4412673/story.html
    I am glad that you have no risk of reprisal Professor, I wish I could say the same. A death threat was most unwanted, and certainly the assault by an RRQ member was not either. All tyranny ultimately comes to an end, we just need to grease the wheels of this occurrence in history.

    À suivre :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. How in the hell do you think I am going to persuade the Francophone majority? I can’t even persuade you and you are on the fence. I’m not going to change the Francophone majority. The global economies, the global interconnectedness, the rapid rate of change are the change agents that will influence the Francophone majority. They have the internet. They can see the changes for themselves. They can choose to remain stuck of the sludge of Quebec inertia or they can opt for change. The wild voting swings over the last few elections in the change of political affiliations from the ADQ, Bloc and NDP indicate that Quebecers are indeed searching for change. I’m not quite sure they know what they want yet. However, I know what I want and I put my 2 cents out there in cyber space for whatever it is worth. I speak for myself. I voice what kind of society I would like to live in. If I don’t put it out there and attempt to try to influence change in a direction that would allow me to be a full participating citizen in Quebec and not a second class citizen, then I cannot blame anyone other than myself for not even giving it a try. You don’t get what you don’t ask for. When it comes to rights, technically we are suppose to have basic human rights in the Canadian democracy, but they were taken away for a need to preserve the French language way back in the 70’s, but the times are changing and you have to change with the times. It is better to anticipate the changes ahead and prepare for the needed skill set required for future job demands and we are communicating at lightning speed across the globe. Quebec has an opportunity to use the multicultural language diversity to its advantage as a cyber-communication hub around the globe. You know that is a huge advantage over the unilingual U.S.A. and R.O.C. The first step to prepare for that advantage is allowing our children to learn as many languages as they want. The parents should decide what is best for their children, not the government.

    P.S. My name is Francine. I clicked on anonymous because the google option wouldn’t work for whatever reason. The anonymous button works flawlessly. So it is just easier to be anonymous. I read your blog. It is pretty good....most of the time, except those parts that I don’t agree with. I’ll try not to bother you too often. You are a tough cookie to influence, but I always enjoy a challenge!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Professor Saideman,
    I am very glad you have tenure, which is quite hard to obtain at McGill after the comments I have heard from two Assistant Finance Professors friends.
    There is a concept called Negative Interdependence (vis à vis the RoC) that is an indirect result of the this passive xenophobia that Bill 101 represents. I won’t get into that in detail, but I figure since you’re a Prof, that’ll be easy for you to understand why…
    We are all Canadians, so if in a territory within Canada has a belligerent government that sets up a law to discriminate between Canadians based on one of the official languages spoken in the province, an unjust law to help create conditions for separation or the creation of a FR creative/entrepreneurial class (which was restricted in the sixties and seventies, hence my statements that this law was reactionary and perhaps necessary at the time to re-assert the majority’s linguistic rights) – there are ways to promote the language now that are much more progressive than a negative segregation of society that has resulted.
    Another major flaw of the law I’d like to point out (much like the lie that Charter of the City of Montreal stating it is a unilingual city), for example, it states that FR is the only official language of QC, which is in reality totally false since there are over 70 officially bilingual communities in the province and just about all QC Govt sites are in both languages (or more). I live in one of those bilingual communities on the Island of Montreal, and it is inconceivable and disrespectful to act as if we are UnOfficial considering our linguistic minority has been here for centuries, but that sovt/separatist faction within the govt tries to project this continually to harass us and to make us feel as if this is not our home: http://intellabase.com/Govt-ArtificialPersonsLette.jpg
    As you can see in Invictus, we need to be cheering for the same thing instead of continuous division based on language/culture. Basing a law on this division is a result (and failure) of Blueneck Politics Losership- see: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/hugo/archive/2010/09/30/when-the-bloc-qu-233-b-233-cois-is-a-nuisance-for-quebeckers-interests-the-top-20-countdown.aspx
    19th Position – The Bloc Plays the Identity Card to Obtain Votes
    The 15th of October 2007, just before the return to Parliament, the Leader of the Bloc Québécois, states loudly enough to attract media attention, which party intends to play the identity card to counter the conservative vote. Such a confirmation made it crystal clear to which totally irresponsible extent the weight of playing the politics of ethnic division is to this party. In fact, it is a card the Bloc holds dearly, since playing the identity card signifies the division of Quebeckers between those deemed ‘pur laine’, and the ‘others’ (i.e Allo/Anglophone minorities). With respect to the best interests of Quebeckers of all origins, and the mutual respect that comes from such a modern politique, even concerning Quebec’s French-speaking majority, is to be represented by a party that has no interest in dividing its electorate by means of culture, language, or religion.

    As for convincing the majority in QC, I spent months doing so here, with several Francophones agreeing:
    https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=188473804513203#wall_posts That will be one of my main focuses in the near future to expose the extremists that are contributing to the path of isolation Quebec has walked since the majority and especially Gouvernemama pushed through changes at the expense of minorities and freedom: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Anglo+rights+Quebec+vulnerable+Senate+says/4412673/story.html
    I am glad that you have no risk of reprisal Professor, I wish I could say the same. A death threat was most unwanted, and certainly the assault by an RRQ member was not either. All tyranny ultimately comes to an end, we just need to grease the wheels of this occurrence in history.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Professor Saideman, (please stop the censorship of comments)
    I am very glad you have tenure, which is quite hard to obtain at McGill after the comments I have heard from two Assistant Finance Professors friends.
    There is a concept called Negative Interdependence (vis à vis the RoC) that is an indirect result of the this passive xenophobia that Bill 101 represents. I won’t get into that in detail, but I figure since you’re a Prof, that’ll be easy for you to understand why…
    We are all Canadians, so if in a territory within Canada has a belligerent government that sets up a law to discriminate between Canadians based on one of the official languages spoken in the province, an unjust law to help create conditions for separation or the creation of a FR creative/entrepreneurial class (which was restricted in the sixties and seventies, hence my statements that this law was reactionary and perhaps necessary at the time to re-assert the majority’s linguistic rights) – there are ways to promote the language now that are much more progressive than a negative segregation of society that has resulted.
    Another major flaw of the law I’d like to point out (much like the lie that Charter of the City of Montreal stating it is a unilingual city), for example, it states that FR is the only official language of QC, which is in reality totally false since there are over 70 officially bilingual communities in the province and just about all QC Govt sites are in both languages (or more). I live in one of those bilingual communities on the Island of Montreal, and it is inconceivable and disrespectful to act as if we are ‘UnOfficial’ considering our linguistic minority has been here for centuries, but that sovt/separatist faction within the govt tries to project this continually to harass us and to make us feel as if this is not our home: http://intellabase.com/Govt-ArtificialPersonsLette.jpg
    As you can see in Invictus, we need to be cheering for the same thing instead of continuous division based on language/culture. Basing a law on this division is a result (and failure) of Blueneck Politics Losership- see: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/hugo/archive/2010/09/30/when-the-bloc-qu-233-b-233-cois-is-a-nuisance-for-quebeckers-interests-the-top-20-countdown.aspx
    19th Position – The Bloc Plays the Identity Card to Obtain Votes
    The 15th of October 2007, just before the return to Parliament, the Leader of the Bloc Québécois, states loudly enough to attract media attention, which party intends to play the identity card to counter the conservative vote. Such a confirmation made it crystal clear to which totally irresponsible extent the weight of playing the politics of ethnic division is to this party. In fact, it is a card the Bloc holds dearly, since playing the identity card signifies the division of Quebeckers between those deemed ‘pur laine’, and the ‘others’ (i.e Allo/Anglophone minorities). With respect to the best interests of Quebeckers of all origins, and the mutual respect that comes from such a modern politique, even concerning Quebec’s French-speaking majority, is to be represented by a party that has no interest in dividing its electorate by means of culture, language, or religion.

    As for convincing the majority in QC, I spent months doing so here, with several Francophones agreeing:
    https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=188473804513203#wall_posts That will be one of my main focuses in the near future to expose the extremists that are contributing to the path of isolation Quebec has walked since the majority and especially Gouvernemama pushed through changes at the expense of minorities and freedom: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Anglo+rights+Quebec+vulnerable+Senate+says/4412673/story.html
    I am glad that you have no risk of reprisal Professor, I wish I could say the same. A death threat was most unwanted, and certainly the assault by an RRQ member was not either. All tyranny ultimately comes to an end; we just need to grease the wheels of this occurrence in history.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I am not censoring. Blogger has been putting some of the comments in this conversation into a spam folder automatically. I have to keep checking it to un-spam. Which is what I have been doing.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thank you, and yeah, I use blogger too, can be annoying at times :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. When collective rights come from a decision by the majority of a population, then it is not undemocratic. Unfortunately that is not how laws are made today. In American and, because of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canadian societies, individuals can lead a supreme court to let them have "rights" they've made up out of nowhere. The community is forgotten about and no one cares so long as they feel comforted.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Steve:

    Thanks for your comments...and for answering my questions.

    You wrote: "But I was fully aware that my kid would not be eligible for the English public school system. As an immigrant, I knew what I was getting into and could not expect the system to conform to my desires (I was being reasonable in not expecting radical accommodation of my cultural needs). "

    Yes, Steve, you were well aware of the law before coming to Quebec; you were aware of Bill 101's provisions as it pertained to your family situation vis a vis your child.

    But Bill 101 is not the ONLY law in Quebec; human rights legislation -- domestic provincially, domestic federally, and various international covenants signed by Ottawa (with Quebec's explicit approval) -- ALSO rule the roost. And I contend that you have the right to choose to send your child to English school pursuant to any/all of the above jurisdictions.

    Now, the Supreme Court of Canada, so far, disagrees with such an assessment. But that doesn't make it right, does it? I mean, one only has to invoke the name "Dred Scott" to get that point across. Yes, we have to respect Supreme Court decisions because we respect the rule of law but wrong supreme court decisions doesn't and shouldn't mean that we stop speaking out about injustices and your non-right to choose in this area IS both an injustice AND a violation of your equal rights. Indeed, it is such an injustice that you yourself have contemplated relocating to neighbouring provinces or countries in order to be able to send your child to an English school.

    This is, simply, outrageous.

    You go on to write:

    "...I do not believe that Quebec is a tyranny."

    Maybe, maybe not.

    But some say that as much as 500,000 anglos have left Quebec over the past 40 years because of that tyranny...and that's 500,000 out of a million, give or take a few hundred thousand.

    Now, I've heard other figures -- bigger and smaller -- and am not sure which one is accurate, but when, in your opinion, does such a mass exodus and disappearance of a community justify the labelling of "tyranny by the majority"?

    You also invoke "degrees of oppressiveness"? Sure, but race laws -- not matter how much of a human right that they violate -- surely are wrong at all times?

    The Indian Act has been adjudicated as a race law by the Supreme Court of Canada on down. The language of education provisions of Bill 101 use pretty much the same procedure...yet we are afraid to, in polite company and in politically correct company, label it as such.

    Do you feel it is acceptable in free and democratic societies to segregate individuals based upon who their parents are, what their parents' classification is, and that this right be handed down from one generation to the next, ad infinitum, like a peerage title of yore?

    ReplyDelete