Vive le Québec Libre?

Québecois independence has once again taken on a sense of urgency with the election of Pauline Marois as Premier of Québec, the first member of the secessionist Parti Québecois to hold the office.  But we, as New Englanders, are surprisingly ignorant of the struggle of our provincial neighbor to the north.  The issue certainly carries little weight in my French Canadian family.  I’ve always wondered why.

The answer developed somewhat subconsciously as I came to realize the lack of publicity the secessionist movement was receiving, especially in social media and other free-sharing pockets of the Internet.  I felt removed from the issue; the outcries of the Parti Québecois seemed to be buried beneath other diverse, open, and rebellious social discussions and demonstrations that spread all over the Internet in the form of “memes.”  In fact, in this Internet connected generation that values individualism, it is even trendy to be on the side of the oppressed minority.  Where was the Parti Québecois in all this?

And then it dawned on me:  the Québec secessionist movement represents a society of people who feel that their identity is threatened by the integration and development of ideas that the Internet represents.  Put simply, the Québecois cling to old-fashioned and conservative ideas of nationalism.  Everything suddenly made perfect sense.

The Parti Québecois was founded in 1957, at the beginning of an age of unprecedented globalization, and, for the diverse United States, an expansion of influence in the West.  These two features of the mid-century world rattled the foundation of the distinct culture of Québec, a society that had been, for hundreds of years, preserved in its isolation, content in its uniqueness, and even proud of its standing as a special part of Canada.

Now, only when they feel their preciousness is being suffocated by the global community growing around them do the Québecois suggest secession.  Instead of embracing a new identity in a diverse and connected world, they intensify their long existing difference of cultural and language and retreat behind them as justification for separation.  In reality, the Québecois are scared.   

I used to love to piece together clues about my French Canadian ancestor’s motives for immigration from the attitudes they imprinted on their children, my grandmother and her siblings.  It didn’t take much mumbling of now mixed sarcastic French Canadian and shrill Bostonian accents for me to realize that my ancestors loved the Unites States, its diversity, and cultural stew.  It’s the reason they emigrated here.

The reason Americans, and New Englanders in particular, are so removed from the movement for an independent Québec is because it represents an alternative to the inclusive and global community we have created. 

--Thomas MacDonald