Venomous Bigotry in Quebec

"The diaspora is scattered around the world, where they take economic control, provoke the hatred of local nations, whether it is in Spain, for example, with the Inquisition, or again later with Adolf Hitler."
"The diasporas are so powerful in Paris, New York, Toronto or in Ottawa or Montreal, that they can manipulate the government through their opinions, their threats, their pressure, making it a marionette."
"No need to be an expert to say that Israel could make Washington, Paris or Ottawa bend, knowing in advance that its diaspora, well established, will make any government submit!"
Gilles Proulx, Quebec media personality, newspaper columnist

Bigot: a person who strongly and unfairly dislikes other people, ideas, etc. : a bigoted person; especially : a person who hates or refuses to accept the members of a particular group (such as a racial or religious group)

"We're encouraged at times when we hear people speaking up ... and right now we're not hearing it. We're disappointed that this kind of discourse goes unchecked and unchallenged."
Eta Yudin, Quebec wing, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

"RDI [CBC's French-language news network] managers do not consider that it [phone-in-show] could be deemed anti-Semitic, even if some of the numerous comments expressed in the show were highly critical of Israel's bombing of the Gaza Strip, drawing a parallel with Nazi Germany."
"Other callers were in agreement with the Canadian government's unequivocal support of Israel's right to defend itself."
Marc Pichette, CBC spokesman

"It's a continuation of a trend that has quite a history, and not merely with Proulx but with other radio commentators in Quebec over the last several years."
"There's a sort of discourse in francophone Quebec where this sort of thing comes forth. Quebec is the kind of place where these controversial issues are discussed much more openly than in English Canada."
Ira Robinson, interim director, Institute for Canadian Jewish Studies, Concordia University

Radio-Canada   Gilles Proulx has come under fire for opinions termed by many as anti-Semitic

 

Mr. Robinson yawns nervously over the statements issued by Mr. Pichette, explaining why it is just fine and dandy, because it's more of the same, that the country's public broadcaster in the francophone version of the public interest exhibits its usual racist doggerel, and invites its listening public to ventilate their anti-Semitic views of world events they care or know little about, other than if they involve Jews, then blame must be placed where it's due, squarely with the Jews.

As for Mr. Proulx, his vexatious brand of venomous anti-Semitism is spewed in polite company, company too polite to take issue with his statements. Not that whatever he has to say can be a surprise, not with his history of such comments. During the Oka crisis his anti-aboriginal blasts incited a mob that hurled rocks at a convoy of Mohawk women, children and the elderly leaving the Kahnawake reserve for safety in the heat of ongoing violent confrontations.

His 40-year radio and television career had him addressing anglophones and immigrants with blasts of blame for non-integration into Quebec society. Presumably, to meet his standards of civil dignity, they should become self-hating and latch onto the prevailing francophone distaste for the presence within their pure laine communities of English-speakers and immigrants with their impossibly strange customs so hateful to French Quebec.

When Pauline Marois lost the premiership of Quebec to the reasonably civil and egalitarian Liberals Mr. Proulx must have spiralled down into a deep, dark depression of soul-searching and come up with the solution; make the immigrants, and especially those unspeakable Jews pay for their malign influence that brought the affable Philippe Couillard to power to undo all the wonderful strides in social harmony effected by Ms. Marois' policies.

In 2005 he referred to a fourteen-year-old sexual assault victim as a "cow, and a "slut", and one can only hope that this was the reason he was dismissed from his last regular broadcast position. Unfortunately, Mr. Proulx's excesses in hateful bigotry is not alien to Quebec society, but rather a symptom of it. Last month the phone-in-show referred to above had its host thanking callers who compared Israel to Nazi Germany. The host also read aloud emails with similar such sentiments.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is disturbed at the lack of public push-back against such incendiary commentators as Mr. Proulx. Quebec's long-time Jewish community is "disappointed and troubled", according to the CIJA, that Quebec media think nothing amiss of having such anti-Semitic rants aired. "The condemnation of anti-Semitism must not be the purview solely of the Jewish community" they stated.

Unfortunately, it is only the victims who care to express their condemnation of virulent abuse directed toward them, slander that they are all too familiar with, and hoped might some day vanish from public discourse, and they finally be permitted to live in equanimity and peace with their neighbours.