From: schamber@watserv1.waterloo.edu (CHAMBERLAND S - BIOLOGY)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: O Canada, O Quebec  - reaction
Date: 16 Apr 92 06:44:14 GMT
Organization: University of Waterloo

In article <1992Apr15.220630.20843@bmerh2.bnr.ca> robinc@bnr.ca (Robin Collins) writes:
>In article <1992Apr13.194127.14902@watserv1.waterloo.edu> schamber@watserv1.waterloo.edu (CHAMBERLAND S - BIOLOGY) writes:

(These sentences were not necessarly written by Robin/Frank or me)
>>>>>Being one of the few people who has apparently bothered to
>>>>>read the book, I have difficulty understanding how ANYBODY
>>>>>can claim that this book is hate literature or really so
>>>>>offensive. 
>>>>>
>>>>>I read it, enjoyed it and recommend it.
>>>>>Richler doesn't play footsie with the chauvinists outside of
>>>>>Quebec either. He craps equally on the APEC dinosaurs as he
>>>>>does their equivalent in Quebec, his own province.
>>>>
>>>>Precisely. But newspapers talk only about the bad parts of Quebec.
>>>>We just see "the head of the coin".
>>>>
>>>>Richler is only guilty of bad timing. He should never have written
>>>>such a book in the middle of a constitution crisis...    :)
>>>
>>>The time to engage in a debate is while the issue is still unsettled...
>>>the timing of the book is most appropriate.  
>>>
>>>>The book may be used against Quebec by chauvinists...
>>>
>>>How...Quebec nationalists claim this...but how can a book which
>>>comdemns intolerance and stupid unilingualist policies be used by
>>>bigots?  
>>
>>In proving that Quebec is fundamentally bad, racist, antisemite, antidemo-
>>cratic...

OK Frank, look: I did NOT say that it was what Richler was doing in his
book. I just said that PIECES of the book COULD BE USED IN ORDER to
prove the above.

Read the further message.

>>
>>Quebec has many ("defauts" in French????), but it's not THAT bad.
>>Quebec is not only bad.
>>
>>Even Richler acknowledges that: he's still in Quebec, isn't he?
>>
>>Newspapers and chauvinists only use what suits them in such a book,
>>to convey a biased image of Quebec.
>>
>>About the timing of the book, publishing it at such a time does not
>>open the eyes of faulty Quebeckers: it only serves to get them angry,
>>because right now, Quebec is "le point de mire". There is a lot
>>of Quebec-bashing right now. This book is seen as the drop which
>>makes the cup overflow, as we say in French...
>>
>>At a more peaceful time, maybe people would have seen some truth in it
>>and be more prepared to change the faulty attitudes...
>
>
>Sylvain, you are wrong.
>READ THE DAMN BOOK and see for yourself.
>This book is not an insult to Quebec.

Frank, YOU are wrong. I never said the book was an insult to Quebec.
What I am saying, is that little parts of the book could be taken out
of context and so used to "prove that Quebec is only bad".
Richler is not only talking of Quebec in this book. But media only
speak of Quebec's horrors right now.

I perfectly know there is some truths in this book. But I am
sure there is some untruths also (for example, Richler talking about
Levesque's honesty: he has nothing to back up, I saw from the exerpt
in MacLean's). I think that taken as a whole, this is a valid
"exercise" of "psychanalyse".

But It's the same thing than the APEC dinosaurs or the brain-damaged Quebec
separatists in Sherbrooke: if you speak only of such events, you will
spread a biased view of the other.
So I think the book has a bad timing.

>READ IT and make up your OWN mind. Don't let others tell you what this
>book is about.

I read the exerpt from MacLean's and one in the Toronto Star.
I don't need more. See above.

>Richler says he would not want to live anywhere else but in Quebec,

I just said that myself in my messages. Are you sure you were
following the conversation?

>I can't believe you would say the same things after you read it.

WHAT things?  What was I saying????

Read the whole thread, "bordel de merde"!!!!
The quotes in this message are not enough!!!!!

Sylvain Chamberland
schamber@watserv1.waterloo.edu