Quebec nationalism in the francophone press
Richard Martineau says Le Devoir is no longer Le Devoir since its editor refuses to regard Quebec’s francophone culture as the only one of value.
He must be joking: Le Devoir has just taken J‑F Lisée on as a regular columnist, and is still running pieces like Michel David’s Montreal sans accent complaining about city hall’s tacit acceptance that not everyone living here is a francophone.
How much Quebec nationalism is enough?
No, this blog is not about being an angryphone. My beef with strident Quebec nationalism is the damage it does to Montreal – the real Montreal that people live in, not the perfect francophone metropolis of nationalist imaginings.
CharlesQ 18:43 on 2020-10-17 Permalink
I stopped reading after “Richard Martineau says…”. He has nothing of value to say. Just read the decisions against him on the Conseil de presse du Québec (I probably mentionned it before, see https://conseildepresse.qc.ca/decisions/?date=&media=richard+martineau&categorie=), he makes up quotes, his “reasoning” is often flawed and he’s shameless. It would fit right in on Fox News.
DeWolf 12:04 on 2020-10-18 Permalink
24 Heures recently had an article about a new group called Montréal Accent that is run by three young women whose main point of contention seems to be that anglophones exist. Period. One of the founders, who is 18 years old, told 24 Heures how much she hates hearing people speak English when she walks down the street. It makes her feel like a “stranger in her own country.”
That’s just bigotry, pure and simple. It has less to do with protecting and promoting the French language than it does with fighting against the natural diversity that comes with being a big city. It’s parochial and small-minded and I’m honestly surprised to hear it coming from people who are so young.
Kate 13:14 on 2020-10-18 Permalink
I would gently suggest those young women go live in the regions where their ears won’t often be sullied by hearing languages other than French.
Michael Black 13:24 on 2020-10-18 Permalink
But maybe they have lived there all their lives, which then explains why they are so shocked by a “foreign” language.
Kate 13:33 on 2020-10-18 Permalink
It’s possible. But even if they weren’t hearing English in Montreal, they’d hear Arabic, Chinese, Yiddish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Spanish, Italian – depending where they went and where they shopped or ate. (At least in normal times.) It’s a globalized city and English is one of the big global languages, along with a handful of others – Mandarin, Spanish, Russian, Hindi. Yes, colonialism, but there’s nothing to be done about this now.
Blork 13:49 on 2020-10-18 Permalink
Unlike DeWolf, I’m not surprised that the three women behind Montréal Accent are young. After all, the kind of blinkered thinking that fuels that kind of sideways view of the world is generally more pronounced in young people who don’t have much experience in the world. In particular, young people who spent their earlier years not thinking at all (and not exposed to much) and then suddenly run amok with a single drumbeat pounding in their hearts when something offends them — or someone recruits them as cannon fodder.
Ant6n 15:36 on 2020-10-18 Permalink
The ageism is strong in this thread.
Blork 16:39 on 2020-10-18 Permalink
Not ageism, just an acknowledgement that people start out ignorant and hopefully learn as they grow. The vast majority of the hot-headed revolutionaries of the past 100 years were in their 20s at best. (I’m not saying all revolutionaries, I mean the hot-headed ones whose big ideas come largely from inexperience and ignorance.)
Uatu 17:42 on 2020-10-18 Permalink
They probably secretly like English and foreigners and hate themselves for it.
Blork 20:55 on 2020-10-18 Permalink
Oh, that’s Freudian!
Hervé 05:40 on 2020-10-19 Permalink
Entièrement d’accord avec vous Kate. Une des choses qui m’a toujours le plus fait aimer Montréal c’est d’entendre 10 langues en 10 minutes dans un autobus bondé, ou d’écouter des ados qui passent de l’anglais au français 5 fois dans une conversation. C’est une richesse unique. C’est le genre de chose qui fascine les visiteurs étrangers, qui sont ensuite bien déçus d’apprendre que la majorité francophone est en guerre contre le multilinguisme.
Daniel 08:42 on 2020-10-19 Permalink
Completely agree, Hervé. Well said. (And that was a particularly beautiful comment to read in French.)
Kevin 13:17 on 2020-10-19 Permalink
@DeWolf
I read the article this morning. At the end is an ad for a school that teaches English.