Lament for a nation
Wherein the Phronetic Man rants about politics.
Well, it seems like everybody and his dog is joining the "Quebec is a nation" camp.
I'm shocked. I've completely miscalculated the reasons why Stephen Harper is dangerous. It's not his secretive and authoritarian leadership; that just makes him a danger to cabinet ministers and the news media. It's not his woeful indifference to climate change; that'll only begin to destroy this country in a century or two. Today he's proposing something that could destroy this country right now.
And for what? To fiddle with the outcome of the Liberal leadership race? To do an end-run on the Bloc? To win over soft-nationalist Quebec voters?
Or is it so that, as Ignatieff says, Quebeckers can now say "Quebec is my nation, but Canada is my country"? Sorry, Steve, but people don't need a parliamentary resolution to say whatever they want. Calling Quebec a nation in the House of Commons is totally different. You're willing to stand up, in the building where all the people of Canada come together, and say that in a fundamental sense some Canadians will always be apart. There is a whole circle of political hell for people like you, right next to Rene Levesque, Lucien Bouchard and all the "deux nations" Tories who kept your party in opposition for decades.
Say it with me, people: Quebec is not a nation. Quebeckers don't have a common culture, they have dozens. They don't have a common language, just a different dominant one from the rest of Canada. They may have some unique political values -- social programs good, war bad -- but that's just part of the normal spectrum of political values within Canada. It's not enough to make a nation; if it were, wouldn't red-state and blue-state America qualify as separate nations? Would George W. Bush push for a constitutional amendment to recognize Texas as a distinct society? Can you imagine what a ridiculous waste of time that would be? That's how ridiculous you look now, Steve.
I'm sick of the word "nation." Its definition alone divides English and French Canadians, because it means different things in each language -- in English it's virtually interchangeable with "state," in French it just means a culture or a community. The word is a vague abstraction, the tool of sophists like Ignatieff who want to quibble their way into the prime minister's chair. This isn't an academic exercise, Michael. It's a country.
And for what it's worth, it's not a nation. That's good news to me. Nations are more trouble than they're worth. Many of the immigrants who built this country came here to escape the nationalist manias of Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, epic convulsions in which millions died in the name of distinct societies. We're really lucky. We have all the ingredients for a pluralistic, postnational state here, and now we're going to throw it all away.
I think that's a shame. I just wanted to say that.
Well, it seems like everybody and his dog is joining the "Quebec is a nation" camp.
I'm shocked. I've completely miscalculated the reasons why Stephen Harper is dangerous. It's not his secretive and authoritarian leadership; that just makes him a danger to cabinet ministers and the news media. It's not his woeful indifference to climate change; that'll only begin to destroy this country in a century or two. Today he's proposing something that could destroy this country right now.
And for what? To fiddle with the outcome of the Liberal leadership race? To do an end-run on the Bloc? To win over soft-nationalist Quebec voters?
Or is it so that, as Ignatieff says, Quebeckers can now say "Quebec is my nation, but Canada is my country"? Sorry, Steve, but people don't need a parliamentary resolution to say whatever they want. Calling Quebec a nation in the House of Commons is totally different. You're willing to stand up, in the building where all the people of Canada come together, and say that in a fundamental sense some Canadians will always be apart. There is a whole circle of political hell for people like you, right next to Rene Levesque, Lucien Bouchard and all the "deux nations" Tories who kept your party in opposition for decades.
Say it with me, people: Quebec is not a nation. Quebeckers don't have a common culture, they have dozens. They don't have a common language, just a different dominant one from the rest of Canada. They may have some unique political values -- social programs good, war bad -- but that's just part of the normal spectrum of political values within Canada. It's not enough to make a nation; if it were, wouldn't red-state and blue-state America qualify as separate nations? Would George W. Bush push for a constitutional amendment to recognize Texas as a distinct society? Can you imagine what a ridiculous waste of time that would be? That's how ridiculous you look now, Steve.
I'm sick of the word "nation." Its definition alone divides English and French Canadians, because it means different things in each language -- in English it's virtually interchangeable with "state," in French it just means a culture or a community. The word is a vague abstraction, the tool of sophists like Ignatieff who want to quibble their way into the prime minister's chair. This isn't an academic exercise, Michael. It's a country.
And for what it's worth, it's not a nation. That's good news to me. Nations are more trouble than they're worth. Many of the immigrants who built this country came here to escape the nationalist manias of Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, epic convulsions in which millions died in the name of distinct societies. We're really lucky. We have all the ingredients for a pluralistic, postnational state here, and now we're going to throw it all away.
I think that's a shame. I just wanted to say that.