Hands Up, Bigots and Racists!

Um, a tad harsh, naming those among us desirous of retaining harmony among peoples by insisting on immediate conformance with Canadian norms - particularly the French-Canadian language, as racist. Can't you see it coming, though? It's a universal human fear, that all that they hold dear, all that is treasured and familiar, that resounds with the love of tradition and culture, may be held in low esteem by onlookers, and ultimately diminished by their presence.

These fears do bring out the worst in us. It's human nature to believe implicitly that what we treasure, our vaunted way of life, our values and our traditions are second to none. That all those who enter the sacred precincts of our inner sanctorums should be prepared to shift from allegiance to their own cultures and traditions, to immediate acceptance of ours. Since, of course, they are so superior.

Fact is, sometimes they are superior. Fact is, it takes people some little time to acclimate to new surroundings, to familiarize themselves with the new cultural, societal norms, and to make the attempt to fit themselves into those new paradigms. During which process a generation may pass.

But even before then, immigrants, valuing the freedoms and sureties that their new country offers them will invariably seek to incorporate those treasured norms of the newly-adopted country into their value system. All the while retaining vestiges of their original traditions and cultures.

In a country like Canada, whose population really is built upon a long process of immigration absorption, it has been proven that a long, slow integration does take place, with the result that one-time emigrants from diverse countries and backgrounds do become Canadian, accepting of Canadian values and imperatives. It's what multiculturalism has been built upon; the recognition of a multitude of cultures imprinting themselves casually upon the broader Canadian perspective.

It's when later waves of immigrants have swarmed into Canada's welcoming arms, rigidly wishing to impose their views of cultural norms upon the accepting culture that we have run into problems. Earlier waves of immigrants were absorbed into the population through their own strenuous efforts, while later floods of immigrants were officially welcomed with taxpayer-funded programmes fashioned to assist them in finding their place in the larger community.

Peculiar that; those who came here penniless and had to struggle against all odds to make a life for themselves and their families through this new opportunity granted them managed to integrate and enrich the greater society by their presence. While those for whom the transition from original country to adopted one has been aided and assisted by the welcoming country appear to feel entitled, rather than fortunate for the opportunity.

Still, nothing exceeds like excess, and it is excessive in the extreme for a large segment of the Quebecois population to anticipate problems before they even surface. In rejecting presumably untoward accommodation to newcomers by insisting that all outer vestiges of their original culture, religion, tradition, be eschewed in favour of immediate assimilation. Simply not possible.

For human beings cleave to the dear and the familiar. And for so many the outer symptoms of their religious regard reflects their inner absorption.