The Quebec Divide

Odd how even after a long passage of time from historical antecedents to the living presence, things do not really change.

People remain stuck in their mindsets. Particularly people invested in a belief of their having been ill done by. Masses of a population divided by culture, geography and language. Derived from ethnicity and conceptions of exceptionality. The classic 'them' and 'us' situation where no one is a winner because there is no common cause and no will to bridge gaps of misunderstanding.

In Canada, this is classically known as the 'two solitudes'.

The French fact and the English advantage. The majority English-derived population, and the militarily-defeated French. Crestfallen that their 'side' happened to 'lose' the war of dominance, making the French subservient to the English. Yet the English side being generous in victory toward a defeated antagonist reassured the French that their language, their heritage, their customs would receive equal advantage and remain respected.

That was doubtless harder to take for a vanquished pride than facing the hard denials of equality that would more often prevail in such situations. It is far easier to hate those who demolish our myths of superiority than to accommodate ourselves to those who generously offer a semblance of equality, perhaps not as assiduously practised as promised, but there, nonetheless.

Yes, the maudit Anglais in Quebec did lord it over the Quebecois, just as the Church regulated every facet of life of the Quebecois, circumscribing that portion of society in a deadly combine of statism that stifled and insulted French-Canadian aspirations. Social-political victims love to detest their purported dictating superiors; to loathe them is to deny them undeserved respect and loyalty.

And it paves the way for social insurrection. Birthing defiance and violence. The Front de Liberation du Quebec made no secret of its vicious antipathy toward the colonialism of the Anglos who thrived on manipulating, using and victimizing the French. Their manifesto of overturning by force the the oppression of les Anglais and freeing the Quebecois to be what they would be, a proud nation independent and free of Anglo manipulation found a ripe and ready audience.

The violent hatred that consumed young French-Canadians, leading them to support a quasi-rebellion that wrought terror among the English in Quebec and throughout Canada at large culminated in a paroxysm of national soul-searching and aggrieved regret. And then order was restored. And the bitter resentment, although Quebec became a 'nation', and fairly sovereign within Confederation as an vastly entitled province, remains.

There is little-to-nothing that the rest of Canada is capable of doing to produce a Quebec that is wholly satisfied to remain within the federation as a province. One of ten such. For it is not merely a 'such'. Everything within that province is 'national' in scope and character; national referring solely to Quebec's independence.

Not, however, material, financial independence, but independence in every other conceivable way.

Like a wilful child whose middle-class parents cannot make too many sacrifices on behalf of the youngster's advanced and entitled way of life.