Today Scotland votes in a referendum on its future membership in the United Kingdom. Right now, the vote appears to be split 50/50. I don't have any strong feelings one way or the other on possible outcomes. Though my mother was born and raised in Scotland, emigrating to Canada at 17 with her parents as the Second World War darkened the skies, and I feel some sentimental attachment, I have never visited Scotland and known very few Scottish folks. I do love the bagpipes though and proudly display the Mackenzie tartan (in the form of a necktie) when appropriate.
But, during the 30 years I lived in Québec I went through the trauma of two similar referendums. When I first ventured out into the world of adults after university graduation, I was still naive. I joined the fledgling Parti Québécois and worked as a scrutineer during a provincial election. The fact that I was probably the only party member who was not fluent in French seemed to me to be irrelevant. The parti then was one of optimism and social justice. They were trounced in that election. A few years later when they did form a government I was appalled that the first thing they did was introduce a bill to limit the rights of les Anglais. I was deeply offended by what I saw as racist underpinnings. No government, I argued, had the right to tell its citizens what languages they can and cannot use on public signs. If I were a Greek immigrant who opened a small shop on rue St. Laurent in Montréal and all of my customers were Greek, who was the government to tell me I could not post a sign exclusively in the language that I and my customers understood? I resigned from the parti, much to the bewilderment of local organizers who could not seem to grasp the principle I was standing on. This was something that clouded my relationships with neighbours for years to come: they could not understand my position and I could not understand how they could be so blind to the unspoken racism that underscored "Bill 101," as it came to be known.
I dated a woman for a few months who could barely speak a word of English, and whenever the subject of language and laws came up we both wound up frustrated, sputtering and gesticulating in broken French and garbled English completely unable to understand each other. It usually ended with her demanding that I call her a taxi and me driving her back to her apartment as she simmered in silent anger.
The first referendum on Québec independence in 1980 did not make much of an impression. It was clear from the beginning that the Québec government was confused and uncertain during its campaign. No one I knew was surprised when the separatistes were soundly defeated. Not so with the second referendum in 1995. The "yes" campaign was masterfully handled, having learned its lessons the first time round. The Sunday before the vote we attended the small Anglican church in Wakefield. About half the congregation was in tears, and anxiety and fear were clearly etched in almost every face. The "Yes" side was winning and it looked inevitable that Jacques Parizeau was soon to be crowned king, premier, president, whatever, of a new country where the losers, les Anglais, would be stripped of whatever small influence and position they held. People were convinced that they would lose their businesses and their properties confiscated; that they would become political refugees arriving in Ontario and New Brunswick with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
I described this scene to a French Canadian friend a few years later and he was thunderstuck. "But why would they think that?" he wanted to know. "That would never happen." I tried to explain how frightened people were and he didn't get it. "But why?" he kept wanting to know. I could not explain what many Anglo-Québécois sensed under all the rhetoric and reassurances that they were not wanted and would not be welcomed in an independent Québec. I myself had been threatened by punks when they heard me speaking English in a remote location in Québec, but they were punks and not representative. Still, they had felt empowered to attack those they somehow figured were their enemies and probably felt that their actions would be approved of, even if silently.
And that message was clearly there in Jacques Parizeau's concession speech. I was appalled as he began by speaking about "we" and "they." It was clear that in his mind there were two groups in Québec: his supporters, the true blue Québécois, and the "others" the outsiders, the ones not included. I was not nearly as upset by his reference to his defeat by "money and the ethnic vote" as I was by his use of "nous." Clearly in his Québec there was no place for les Anglais.
The message was also there in the days following the referendum when news of wide-spread election fraud started leaking out. Ballots of English-speaking Québécois had been routinely rejected and discounted. It was significant enough that the count could easily have gone the other way--and then what? Even if his plurality had been by one disputed vote I am certain that Parizeau would have announced Québec's succession from Canada. No consultation; no attempt at reconciliation or negotiation. His use of the word "nous" would not suddenly expand to include all of Québec's citizens. The exodus from Québec would have been enormous. Yes, a few romantics from other parts of the country and the world would have flocked to Québec to begin building their new dream society, but entire suburbs of Montréal would have emptied overnight; western Québec would have become a wasteland of abandoned towns and villages and the economy of the province would have collapsed as uncertainty, fear, and instinctive survivalism took hold.
It was an ugly time; a divisive time; and an instructive time. Nationalism can be a force for positive community-building and a coming together; but it can also be an ugly and destructive force, tearing communities apart, turning neighbour against neighbour, and used to justify atrocities. I hope that whatever the outcome in Scotland today that we will see the positive side of nationalism and not the negative.
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