I
visited your web site even though I had a lot of trouble typing the address! Its a great
site! Possible the best I have seen of the genre. You have the opportunity to change
things! I mean really make a difference. Read this "stuff" I'm sending, think on
it, then drop the anglo and insert the k and Voila! Quebecker!! That's US!My
intent is to create a debate! That's all. Who knows, I MAY be wrong! Show me where I am
wrong and I will be eternally grateful! But let me forewarn you, I have had
literally hundreds, if not a thousand discussions on this particular subject, and NOBODY,
but nobody has yet convinced me that I am wrong. In any democratic nation as soon as it
can be proven that the law does discriminate in substantitive ways, it must be repealed or
amended or something! Because democracy as understood by all modern western
democratic people cannot be discriminatory. All that is required is for US, the
non-separatist people of Quebec, is to refuse to be labeled or stigmatized in this way!!!!
We are Quebeckers!! Point final!
Remember always that:Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs,even
though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy
much nor suffer much: because they live in that grey twilight of mediocrity that knows
neither victory nor defeat. The battle begins with terminolgy and language, and we can't
afford to ignore it. However, I think that I prefer the french version of
"Quebecker" i.e. "Quebecoeur" for its obvious connotations
Ok Ok !! My stuff. Get comfy. A drink and a cig. And let it happen!!! Pleasssse!!!
Let me recount a short story about an observation I made some twenty years ago, when I
first confronted the term "anglophone," printed in that stalwart defender of
"anglophone rights," the Montreal Gazette! (The English Language Daily?) Amused,
I commented to some friends that the separatist "project" was, at last,
finished. They had just made a really big mistake! I believed that the term
"anglophone" like the loathsome, derogatory, discriminator term nigger, used by
ignorants to describe people of colour in the U.S.A.,and which was just then becoming
"discriminatory language" in the U.S.A., would be judged much the same way by
the majority of enlightened people in North America. The similarities in the terms are
obvious. Both are labels imposed by one culture on another without consultation or
consent.
Both labels led to a "caste system" in allegedly democratic nations.
Both labels were actually voluntarily employed in self-identification by the disadvantaged
group. Actually the term anglophone meets the criteria for discriminatory language
established by democratic societies around the world.
The media fallout from such a story (i.e. anglo=ethnic slur) would no doubt
reveal to the world just what separatists really were, and the "culture" they
represent! The ensuing debate would educate all Canadians as to exactly what these labels
meant! All would be well. I was wrong!
It never happened! There was no debate in the media!. The damage done to
individuals, in Quebec, will become more and more apparent, as people on all sides have
less and less to lose. I am sure the Gazette will continue with its own 'angle on anglos'
and continue winning awards of excellence!
Forget the Gazette, I said, and patiently waited.. No doubt someone would eventually
point out the fact that stigmatizing of this sort is not acceptable! I knew that
people were to be "asked" what their names were, not told!
If Albertans belong in Alberta, and Nova Scotians in Nova Scotia, where do
"Anglos" belong? Why do the same media people who refer to us here as
"Anglos" call us "ex-Quebecker, the moment we hit the 401, and not
"ex-Anglos"? Why is it the only time we hear our own names and the province we
live in, in the same breath, are when we leave? Albeit, reconditioned, i.e.,
"EX-Quebecker."
Why were anglophones further subdivided into anglos' and allos'? The term
"Anglophone," as used currently by the media, to describe the English -speaking
people of Quebec, I find repugnant and insulting, ignorant and insensitive! Neither
my father, my family, my friends, nor my community ever told me I was an
"anglophone". To them I was, what I remain today, an English - speaking
-Quebecker, and we, Quebeckers, are Canadians. I am not an "anglophone." I am
not a Québécois. I am a Quebecker. Or, if you want a "media friendly" French
term, a "Quebeckeur." (Quebecoeur)
Up until very recently, the English in Quebec, or English people anywhere for that
matter, did not use this term "anglophone" to describe themselves, because the
word simply did not exist in the English language. This term "anglophone,"
a political word, comes into our language, not from the common people of Quebec, where, as
is usual in civilized societies, through social interactions and mutual acceptance, such
terms "find" their way into common parlance, but "springs" from a
political body, which coined and applied, via discriminatory laws, to a community of
hundreds of thousands of Quebeckers, without their consultation or consent, the stigma
"Anglo."
The subsequent acceptance and usage of this "political label" by a
basically ignorant and cowardly English media, and consequently, a shocked English -
speaking community, set in motion events which would irreparably damage and/or destroy the
lives of some half million people, living in Quebec, Canada.
The term "anglophone" denies English - speaking Quebeckers: Legitimacy as
Quebeckers: For thirty years the mind-set of "Anglos" has been one of an
enfeebled, abandoned, betrayed, humiliated, fearful community of appeasers, thanks mostly
to the efforts of the Quebec Liberal Party and the Montreal Gazette, along with the
national press and lets not forget successive federal governments.
But a new understanding of our misery is rapidly coalescing. We have seen the enemy
and he is us. As long as we are anglophones, we can never be Quebeckers! There are
those who say that Anglos are paranoid. That there is no real threat to the Anglo
community. To them I say"Three Hundred Thousand Gone!" And still counting. No,
we are not "paranoid" in Quebec, the fear is real, the reasons for the fear are
real. We are not "paranoid" in Quebec. We are "annoyed" in Quebec, and
that new found emotion is in a very rapid state of flux.
Convincing a "majority" of "Anglophones" (Fifty per cent plus
one, sounds right) that they are, in actual fact, "Quebeckers," seems to
me, to be a reasonably obtainable, social/political objective. We "must"
take back our "IDENTITY" We are Canadians in the world. We are Quebeckers in
Canada.
As the term anglophone, to best describe "English-Quebeckers," was
conceived in the Franco-culture, and introduced into the English language by
French-speaking separatists, just what are the more involved, subtle meanings of
anglophone? Do "Les Peuples" collectively think anglophones are
benevolent, friendly, warm, compassionate, helpful, equal-status citizens in Quebec?
Are we the "give you the shirt off their backs" kind of folks? Are anglophones
part of "nous" in the minds of its Quebecois? Do francophones "like
and respect" anglophones?
No matter what they think of anglophones, or choose to call us, if we as
English-Quebeckers adopt and use their term we have tacitly agreed with their definition,
their understanding of us. If we accept and use their term we must, from their point of
view, and rightly so, both understand and concur with them in their perceptions and
evaluations of us, anglophones.
When I am referred to as an anglo you tell me that I am no longer an
English-speaking Quebecker living in Canada! I am now an anglophone, a minority. I am now
a part of a "labeled group" belonging in no specific Canadian province, but
lucky enough to speak English and thus;free' to live, work, love, laugh, and be happy;
anywhere across this great, expansive land of ours, from coast to coast. North to South.
Anywhere. Anywhere at all. Anywhere but home. Anywhere but Quebec.