Quebec is one part of the Occident that has had some chance of developing as an ethno-state at least since the 1970s when separation from the rest of Canada became a realistic possibility. Quebecers would have done this by now had the multi-cultis and federalists not intimidated them. Another round of that struggle is going on now and the intimidation seems to be holding up.
A renewed enthusiasm among Quebec nationalists for defending their language and identity (cf. “Notes from Quebec”, Oct. 16) was manifested in the bills recently proposed by the Parti Québécois (currently in opposition). If passed, they would promote respect for Quebecers’ ancestral cultural traditions, the French language, equality of men and women and keeping the public sphere secular. They would restrict certain political rights to those with a minimum command of the French language to be allowed to contribute to political parties or stand for an election. They also would establish a Constitution for Quebec in an attempt to over-ride the Canadian Constitution (which Quebec never signed on to anyway when it was “repatriated” from Britain by the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau — considered a traitor to the French nation by nationalists).
BLAM! The enemies of French nationalism, led by the National Post, the Montreal Gazette (both owned by the Asper family) and B’nai Brith, struck with their usual anti-“racist” invective. (The Asper family, which is Jewish, owns CanWest, the largest newspaper company in Canada. The family actively uses its media empire to advance Jewish causes, such as support for Israel. ) The proposed bills regarding identity, language and citizenship were seen as setting up two categories of citizenship within Canada and to be part of an outpouring of intolerance toward non-French Anglophones and immigrants, all linked to the on-going Bouchard-Taylor (BT) Commission hearings on “reasonable accommodation” to minority religious/cultural demands.
These hearings have exposed widespread suspicion of, and at times virulent hostility to, the idea of Quebec cultural ways being steam-rollered by unappreciative newcomers. E.g., the little town of Hérouxville, well north of Montreal, recently decided to “make a statement” by passing a town regulation forbidding the stoning of women, female circumcision and a few other objectionable customs associated with some immigrant groups. They were immediately made fun of on the grounds of total lack of contact with demographic reality, but nationalists realized full well the symbolic nature of such a protest. Sadly, there has nevertheless been a new wave of expressions of ultra-openness to foreign cultures by not only anti-Quebecers but also by French nationalists embarrassed by what they see as the ruination of their reputation for “inclusiveness” by outpourings at the BT Commission. Naturally, the multi-cultis have organized a movement to combat any free expression about less than idealized ethnic relations.
This is all reminiscent of the “Yves Michaud” affair a few years ago when one of Quebec’s well-known political figures was unanimously and formally condemned by the Quebec National Assembly for having suggested that Quebec nationalism was just as legitimate as Jewish nationalist support of Israel and that Jews weren’t the only people in the world to have suffered.
Clearly, Quebec nationalists will have to find an antidote or “neutralizer” for accusations of racism” and “anti-Semitism” before seeing their way clear to an ethno-state. One tiny contribution to that end may turn out to be a dust-up in the Outremont borough of Montreal where Hasidic Jews have been accused of finagling various special dispensations from municipal regulations on zoning, parking, and the like, from elected officials. The Hasids talked a YMCA into allowing them (at Hasids’ expense) to install frosted windows to keep the Hasidic youths in the next-door synagogue from seeing skimpily dressed women doing their exercises. But the members of the Y later voted to revert back to regular panes of glass (at the Y’s expense). Charges of anti-Semitism filled the air, of course, but to little avail; on these matters the local non-Jewish population seems not to be knuckling under. The struggle is on-going and is similar to struggles in Israel between secular and Hasidic/Ultra-Orthodox/Haridi Jews (described in a Swiss film, “Les hommes en noir”, circulating as a DVD in Montreal).
Another possible neutralizer is the growing unrest in Quebec regarding “kosher food”, thanks to a Quebec TV station’s program in May, replayed this month. Apparently food producers cannot obtain access to major super-markets if they haven’t been “kosherized” — at some obvious expense, which cost is passed on to the consumer.
When this matter was broached at the BT hearings, the intervener was forced to shut up by Bouchard who said that such accusations were anti-Semitic. The Jews of course point to market demand, claiming that not just Jews want kosher food.
Hence the necessity of having up to 70% of food sold in at least one Quebec supermarket certified as kosher according to the reporter for TVA. He also said that in Europe food producers will close their factory, kosherize it for the time required to produce enough Kosher food for Jews for the year, and then restart regular production. In N. America, however, the whole chain of production is said to be kept kosherized so that the costs can be spread across the population at large. Thus one might not necessarily get to see a price differential between kosher and non-kosher food.
Not sure how that would work, but that at least is the story. It will be interesting to see how this matter develops, given the enormous pressures that will be brought to bear on freedom of inquiry and the disinterest some firms have in being open about their own relative costs of kosherizing. Meanwhile, to avoid kosher food for, say, your own religious reasons, just look for the little symbols printed on cans—for example, a star or circle with a K or U inside. Kosher certification sites show many such symbols since different kosherizing outfits vary in their methods. One can always ask a store manager if he carries a non-kosher version of a food. They often still exist.
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