From: evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada,can.general
Subject: Re: French/English status after independence
Date: 23 Jul 92 01:59:49 GMT
Organization: Somewhere just far enough out of Toronto

In article <1992Jul21.164810.23056@pandora.matrox.com>
	thood@corvus.matrox.com (Thomas Hood) writes:

>Nationalists say that they had to use government institutions to
>fight English control of economic institutions.

I see. That must explain the renaimgs of cities and streets, the
schooling prohibitions, the exhaulting of bigots, and other such
cultutal correctness.

>The English see Parliament and the Law as sacred institutions
>and Corporations as profane and amoral.  Hence Bill 101 passed
>by the National Assembly is worse than the de-facto unilingualism
>imposed by English businessmen.
>
>The French regard them all as players in a power game.  The
>game (which most anglos didn't realize they were playing) is
>recounted in nationalist literature, featuring the anglo bully
>and the innocent Quebecois weakling.

To keep the analogy going, a dozen or so years ago the weakling found
out he was entitled to buy a gun. Since then, he hasn't been able to
re-load fast enough, even though the bully's body now contains more lead
than flesh. The weakling's still firing because he thinks he still sees
a pinky twitching...

There are many ways in which a poltically mature Quebecois can promote
the use of French, and reduce both the fact and the appearance of
English domination, without making them feel so humiliated and unwelcome.

After all, you said that the English didn't even know they were playing
that power game.  The same cannot be said for the Quebec elite of today;
what they are doing is calculated, deliberate, and malicious.

>>>This is one target of language laws : to
>>>clear the complex we may have had
>>The province has broken its own laws (Quebec Charter of Rights), and now
>>you're pleading insanity. How convenient.
>
>Not insanity: insecurity!  Insecurity is a valid justification
>in a society that values the mythical over the factual, the
>emotional over the logical.

Absolutely right. There is no other conclusion to be reached after hearing
the proponents of Quebec nationalism here, that the current policies
Quebec has instituted, and the direction is has mapped out for itself on
the Canadian scene, are intellectually bankrupt and morally repulsive. I'd
rather let the Quebecois have their own country, than be part of a Canada
that condones 178. But then, since there's so much emotion fueling it, I
guess logic or morals don't need to count for much.

What the English have systematically done to the French over the last
few centuries has been repugnant. That francophones have not learned
in that time the value of equality of cultures, rather than forced
superiority, is even worse.

It seems that the only lesson learned by Quebec nationalists from their
experiences at the hand of English oppression is "screw them before they
screw you". Well, congratulations, they've learned that one well.
-- 
 Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd., located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
         evan@telly.on.ca / uunet!utzoo!telly!evan / (416) 452-0504
   Said Captain Jean-Luc Picard to the tailor at his machine: "Make it sew!"