Ugly nationalism
Whatever the government tells us, nationalism is necessarily about honoring the state and imposing the majority's values on the minority.
Pierre Lemieux - June 30, 2008
At this time of the year, Quebecers are cursed with two national holidays: the Fête nationale du Québec (“Québec’s National Day”) on June 24th and Canada Day on July 1st. If you want to drown in flags, come here and watch a sea of blue against a sea of red, like the old story of the French army against the English. Some even paint nationalistic symbols on their faces, or use their children as flags (see the image above reproduced from the website of the National Movement of Quebecers).
This year’s nationalist orgy follows by just a few weeks the rejection by the Irish electorate of the Treaty of Lisbon, which would have strengthened central power in the European Union. Wasn’t this a productive use of nationalism against empire building and imposed uniformity? Beware! Nationalism is a fearsome master and a dangerous servant.
Some try to distinguish patriotism from nationalism. Patriotism would be a mere celebration of shared values and common culture. However, patriotism slides easily into nationalism, that is, the use of the Nation State to impose on everybody values shared by only part of the population. If the shared values were values of liberty — live and let live — this drift would not be dangerous. Imposing a general context of liberty allows people who don’t like certain forms of autonomy to make private arrangements to escape them — private arrangements like marriage, religious groups, sects, corporate bodies, and miscellaneous contractual agreements. When the values imposed are not libertarian, however, the Nation State needs many laws and cops to impose the majority’s (or a minority’s) values and lifestyles on others.
What exactly are we celebrating? One is hard-pressed to find an answer on the federal government’s site. “[A]ll we have in common”, answers the Department of Canadian Heritage. The blurb adds, “our achievements, which were born in the audacious vision and shared values of our ancestors”. Not much of a definition.
A similar fuzziness is observable on the Québec front. There is not much meat in the June 24th “patriotic speeches” that are available. The official website of the Fête nationale mentions the “francophone culture”, courage, perseverance, openness, and — we are getting closer to the Beast — solidarity.
Nationalism is necessarily a statist affair, the liberticidal imposition of some people’s values on other people. This may be why the process is not openly advertised and the values more or less unspeakable. The CRTC’s “Canadian values” revolve around the conception of the good life held by the intelligentsia and the censorship necessary to maintain their dominion. Québec solidarity means forced solidarity. What is the nation if not coerced solidarity, mainly in favour of the rulers?
To its credit, federal Big Brother seems to use the ugly term “national” less than Québec Little Brother in these annual celebrations. Yet, there is a “national capital” in Ottawa, as well as one in Québec City. The words “Canada” and “Québec” are stuck on everything in the two bureaucracies as if they were Hare Krishnas. And both governments want us to believe that their flag is ours.
Except perhaps when they are challenged. In 2002, the federal government ordered the Canadian branch of an international pro-smoking group, FORCES, to remove an image of the Canadian flag from its website. As a federal bureaucrat then explained, it “could confuse some people into thinking it was a government agency” (National Post, January 30, 2002).
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