Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Will Nationalism in Quebec Ever Succeed?

I just found this curious post attempting to explain why Quebec nationalism will never be successful:
Quebec nationalism, though providing important moments of revolutionary struggle (i.e. the Front de Libération du Québec), was by-and-large a false revolutionary nationalism.  While it is true that the francophone sovereigntist struggle emerged in response to anglo-chauvinism, it was still the product of a nation of losing colonizers.  The French arrived to settle, enslave, and genocide this hemisphere's indigenous population––just like the English––they just happened to lose a colonial war and become a nation of subjugated colonizers.  Even when they were under the economic domination of the Anglophones, they remained a parasitic settler-colonial nation: they would send their police to smash indigenous resistance, their sovereigntism was most often a denial of anti-colonial struggle because the only national struggle it recognized was a struggle of settlers.  And this nationalism is, to paraphrase Fanon and Cesaire, ultimately nothing more than "a war amongst brothers." . . . Hopefully the Bloc's humiliating defeat in these recent federal elections will finally exorcise the ghost of that predatory nationalism that has lingered over the mass graves of indigenous peoples since its emergence.
We are used to nationalism being glorified by Conservatives of every ilk. Jingoism is one of the favorite Conservative pastimes, as we all know. You want to get people to die enthusiastically and for free? Nothing achieves that goal better than waving around a piece of painted fabric.

Here, however, we see a leftist blogger provide an extremely romanticized vision of nationalism. The right to nationalism, according to this blogger, has to be deserved. There are "pure" nationalisms based on the "legitimate" possession of the lands the nation claims as its own. Such nations have to be able to lay claim to struggles, persecutions and exploitations because without them they will never be pure enough to merit their own nationalism. These nationalisms that have cleansed themselves in the purifying ritual of true persecution can be applauded and supported in their nationalists struggles. This pure ideal, however, can be sullied easily by illegitimate nationalisms who take the sacred name of the nation in vain. Their claim to the lands and to the history attached to these lands is illegitimate. Their record of suffering is not nearly strong enough to put them on the same level with the kinds of nationalism that have proven their worth.

Of course, this is all bunk. There is no dichotomy of "legitimate" versus "illegitimate" nationalisms. A nation is always an "invented community," a myth. No amount of research will be able to prove definitively who was where first and whose possession of which lands is "rightful." A nationalism will either win or lose not on the basis of whether its claims are "righteous", but, rather, based on whether it will be able to make its myth attractive enough to a significant number of people. How much truth goes into the myth of a nation is completely immaterial.

It is curious how people of seemingly different political persuasions use the same rhetoric to decry the evils of "false" nationalisms and exalt the redeeming features of the "true" ones. In the above-mentioned quote, the author attempts to disqualify Quebecois nationalism by mentioning the mass graves left by the French colonizers on the territories that the Francophones of today see as their homeland. It is self-evident, of course, that nowhere in the world will you be able to find a nationalism without its own share of mass graves and genocides. As Zygmunt Bauman pointed out in Liquid Modernity, a community cannot be constituted without an act of violence that would lie in its origins.

It might seem very progressive and even revolutionary to range nationalisms by the order of their presumed legitimacy. However, all such efforts achieve is a reaffirmation of nationalism as a pure and romantic ideal. A critique of nationalism as an ideological construct would be a truly subversive act. However, it would knock one of the most useful tools of manipulation out of the hands of both Conservatives and Liberals.

26 comments:

JMP said...

The argument I made was not about "purity" but about an understanding of the national question and whether Quebec constitutes and oppressed nation. It does not: in fact it is an oppressor nation. The PCR-RCP's analysis (and we must remember that they supported the FLQ) has to do with whether or not the national project of Quebec has been completed: it has. Moreover, its existence is still predatory and that is an important point for those of us who are anticolonialist.

Furthermore, arguments around the national question (and the entire notion of the national question that emerged in the 3rd International) would agree that nationalism is a myth - or more accurately a construction. The question, however, is always "whose politics and for whom" and that has always been a defining feature of left analyses of the national question.

Garnel Ironheart said...

The reason Quebec nationalism will never succeed is because Quebec is a socialist province with generous handouts that is bankrolled by the Rest of Canada. Were they to secede and lose their transfer payments, they would go bankrupt without massive cuts in social programs. But if they cut those programs, what would have been the advantage of separating?

Clarissa said...

What is the point of saying things on subjects you know nothing about? Quebec is the richest and the most productive province of all in Canada. The rest of Canada is dirt poor and unproductive in comparison. Try visiting Canada at least once and you'll see that for yourself.

Why is it that people love to pontificate without try to acquire at least some knowledge first?

Clarissa said...

JMP: yes I agree on "whose politics and for whom" completely. Your position brings no relief to the oppressed indigenous peoples about whom you only vaguely know that they are oppressed and indigenous and who, I imagine, never asked you for any advocacy on their behalf. You do, however, end up perpetuating the myth of a "good" nationalism when you know very well that, in the end, it will not liberate anybody. Because that's not what it exists for.

JMP said...

Actually, I have done and still do a lot of solidarity work with indigenous struggles. And the organization I support also does a lot of that work: hence the position about french nationalism in their programme, which was greeted with much excitement by many indigenous activists. The majority of my political work, in fact, has been around anticolonial activism - so has my academic work (because I see no difference between the two).

In any case, I wrote a longer return comment on my own blog. On another note: Quebec is a socialist province? Hahahaha... ragenerally a good response to that sort of strange comment.

Clarissa said...

I'm sick to death of hearing about the presumably socialist Quebec from people who have never been to the province. It's like a weird fantasy people keep having.

I'll head over to your blog after I'm done here with work.

David Gendron said...

Maybe Québec is not "socialist" but Rest Of Canada is less socialist than Québec. The Québec's NDP surge is a patent illustration of this!

David Gendron said...

"Quebec is the richest and the most productive province of all in Canada. The rest of Canada is dirt poor and unproductive in comparison."

Could you explain more about this?

David Gendron said...

"It does not: in fact it is an oppressor nation."

WTF?

Sorry, but Canada is also an oppressor nation Canada is a terrorist state who comitts terrorist crimes in Libya and Afghanistan.

"its existence is still predatory and that is an important point for those of us who are anticolonialist."

And what about canadian colonialism. If you're really anti-colonialist, you should root for Québec secession instead of vomiting your statist bolchevist agenda!

David Gendron said...

Canada have right now the Rightest government (Art-Peur's CPC) of his history...but the fucking separatist are the oppressors!

That is fucking insane!

WTF?Fff

Clarissa said...

"Quebec is the richest and the most productive province of all in Canada. The rest of Canada is dirt poor and unproductive in comparison."

Could you explain more about this?

-All one needs to do is to take a bus from Ontario to Quebec, or Nova Scotia to Quebec, etc. Crossing the border into Quebec is like crossing the border to a different country. You can feel it immediately. The opulence just jumps out at you. One has to be blind not to see it. Every time I crossed the border (many many times, in different places), the difference was self-evident.

Clarissa said...

"Maybe Québec is not "socialist" but Rest Of Canada is less socialist than Québec. The Québec's NDP surge is a patent illustration of this!"

-Quebec has a very strong social conscience. It's a completely different culture from the Anglo-Saxon which is something that many people pretend not to see.

Clarissa said...

Didn't you hear??? The Francophones are always to blame. Didn't they crucify Jesus a while ago?

David Gendron said...

Thank you for your explanation, Clarissa! :)

JMP said...

David Gendron: Just felt the need to say, so you don't mischaracterize what was written on my blog, that I in no place claim that Canada as a whole is not an oppressor nation. In fact, that is my general position. The argument was that Quebec, as part of the whole, is no different and so its claims for sovereignty lack the progressive content that is often attributed to them by aspects of the Canadian left. So to attribute that I am saying that the "separatists are the oppressors" is an utterly baseless attribution to my original post. In fact, much of what I have written as an activist/academic has been about Canadian colonial-capitalism as a whole. Please read what I actually wrote before making strange generalized comments about my position.

David Gendron said...

So if Canada is an oppressor nation too, should this country reunite himself to United Kingdom?

Sorry, but one of the main problems of the Bloc Québécois is that they acted like an NDP-chapter since the beginning of the Art-Peur's era...so people in Québec voted for the real centre-leftist party, the NDP.

Do you know about Québec Solidaire, a progressive separatist party in Québec?

JMP said...

I'm sorry but how does referring to a country as a settler-colonial country imply that it needs to reunite itself with the UK? The position about oppressor/oppressed nations, or the centre-periphery distinction, has nothing to do with that - nor has it ever had anything to do with that. This is anti-imperialism 101, and the sudden false syllogism you're applying to it seems more like red-baiting than anything else.

Yes I know about QS and I wouldn't say they are precisely a "separatist" organization since they have a lot of members who are not sovereigntists. And, again, I support the PCR-RCP in Canada and agree with their critique of the QS. That being said, I also have good friends who support and have done work with the QS.

Clarissa said...

How about "proletarians of the world unite!"? Has this been abandoned in favor of "legitimate" national struggles?

David Gendron said...

Okay, I see, you support Canada independence, Hamas' Palestine independence but not Québec independence. That's so fucking crazy!

I strongly agree with Clarissa when she said: "A critique of nationalism as an ideological construct would be a truly subversive act."

She is right on here!

David Gendron said...

Is Vermont an "oppressor nation"?

Clarissa said...

This is precisely where problems arise. As soon as you start ranging nationalisms as more or less deserving of support and attention, you have already entered the nationalist game and crossed over to the side of the ruling ideology.

I support the independence of everybody who wants it. I don't feel like it will be productive for me to engage in these evaluations and ratings. It is a seemingly subversive act that has no true subversive meaning.

Anonymous said...

A couple of (un)related thoughts. I still cannot make sense of what is happening in my country and offer coherent and general thoughts

Watch the video to get yet another reason why independence is still an option in Quebec, and why it is hard to get rid of "nationaisms." Of course the guy is a little freak and he had to apologize after uploading his video, but many Rocanadians may feel the same as he does, even more so now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Asp5Sd3wkI

***

Nationalism should be criticized as an ideological construct, of course, but lets not forget its powerfulness. I am tired of the post-national debate (to say, for instance, that the independence movement is dead in Quebec), or that in a global world nationalism has become irrelevant. In a global world nationalisms are stronger than ever. They should be criticized more than ever.

***

I wonder who are the critiques of Canadian nationalism? Certainly not those who kept voting for the Liberals of the Conservative in recent years. I think that Canadian nationalism is way more dangerous and way less critiziced than Québec's.

***

Can someone hopes for Quebec's independence without heralding some sort of nationalist pride? Can we propose the concept of community instead of nationhood?

Ol.

Clarissa said...

Community is just a fancy word to denote the same kind of reality. Bauman insists that there is no community without continuous acts of violence that will give birth to it and then maintain its existence. I agree with him.

I don't think, of course, that nationalism has become irrelevant (that's just silly) or that Quebec nationalism is dead.

Anonymous said...

Yes... I should read Esposito and Agamben again.

We first need to have a nation to get rid of nationalism, right? It's like having a social class to get rid of class struggle. Or a head to get rid of a bad headache:)

Ol.

Clarissa said...

I only discovered Agamben after you pointed me to him. :-)

In my culture we say that the best remedy for a headache is a guillotine. :-)

Anonymous said...

I told you several times: I love Ukrainian people!

I wish I had a nation to cut nationalism with a guillotine...

Ol.