Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Quebec is Always Interesting

Not always sane, but always interesting.  We have two different nationalist news stories going on right now:

First, Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois (the separatist party at the national level, as opposed to the Parti Quebecois, which is the separatist party at the provincial level) got in the news this weekend by comparing Quebec's fight for independence to the French resistance during World War II.  And now he is upset that people made the connection that he wanted everyone to make--that Canada = Nazi occupation.

As I have blogged before, one of the key problems for the sovereignty movement (that is, separatism) is that Canada is not oppressive.  Quebeckers are simply not that motivated to become independent because they have won all of the major political battles except referendums on independence.  The Canadian government does not arrest those who foment political dissent along linguistic lines.  Indeed, Duceppe and the BQ members are treated much the same as the rest of the parliament.  And they get to play the role of spoiler in the political system, preventing any party from gaining a majority lately.  Consequently, the BQ and the PQ have a significant challenge--how to remain relevant when things are going pretty well.

Which leads to the second nationalist crisis du jour--reasonable accommodation.  Yep, it is back, as there are folks who want to make it official that Quebec is a secular province and that religious displays or rights ought to take a backseat.  The sparks for this renewal are two incidents--a woman who was tossed out of a French language class because she wears a niqab and the regulation of religious private schools.  The provincial Liberal party stepped into it with the latter issue, as it was considering creating exceptions for the Jewish private schools so that they would meet various regulations.  But it is really the niqab issue that seems to be motivating the media and politicans, if not the public. 

And there is something to this--that not all demands can or should be accommodated.  But there is this dynamic where any event, such as this, is blown up into a major crisis with demands for regulated secularism.

What do these two events have in common?  Well, one of the leaders of the secularization manifesto is Bernard Landry, former leader of the PQ.  What does this manifesto call for?
On Tuesday, 100 intellectuals, including former premier Bernard Landry, sociologist Guy Rocher, writer Jacques Godbout and journalist Marie-France Bazzo, signed a manifesto in Le Devoir calling for Quebec to become a secular state where the wearing of any religious garb like a hijab, cross or yarmulke by civil servants would be banned.

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