Socialism, nationalism and the case of Quebec.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Author: Nielsen, Kai
• Date: 22 December 1999

Introduction

In this article I wish to consider four distinct clusters of points related to self-definition, liberal nationalism, socialist nationalism and Quebec nationalism. Self-definition, I shall argue, is essential for the flourishing of human beings and involves having a sense of cultural membership and the group identity that goes with it, national identity being the form it takes in conditions of modernity. (1) While marxism has tended to be blind to its importance, self-definition is nonetheless not in conflict with marxism.

While nationalism, with its accompanying sense of national identity, is often barbarous and, if not barbarous, at least xenophobic and atavistic, liberal nationalism suffers from none of these ills. Moreover, liberal nationalism has both clear conceptual articulations and some stable exemplifications in the life of some nations. It is not merely a theoretician's dream. I shall argue that, under certain circumstances, this is a form of nationalism to be welcomed by both socialists and liberals.

Socialist nationalism is a form of liberal nationalism. While it builds on the features of liberal nationalism, its own distinctive features carry nationalism in certain respects beyond liberal nationalism.

Finally, I want to suggest that Quebec nationalism is a paradigmatic form of liberal nationalism that should be welcomed by progressive forces, including socialist forces, though it should certainly not be thought of as a panacea for all Quebec's ills. Moreover, or so I shall conjecture, there is, given the cultural climate of Quebec, a fighting chance that the nationalist project of Quebec could take a socialist form in a reasonably short time-span after sovereignty. I shall also argue that Quebec sovereignty would be a good, though not historically inevitable, thing.

I

I shall begin by exploring some aspects of Quebec nationalism. French is the official language of Quebec. Over eighty per cent of the Quebec population is Francophone. On the Island of Montreal, however, there is a certain amount of de facto bilingualism. Indeed, many Allophones--those whose mother tongue is neither French nor English--are trilingual. Nevertheless, there remains, though not quite as forcefully as in earlier times, 'the two solitudes', in the words of an old Quebec-Canada phrase. The Francophone and non-Francophone communities (Anglophones and Allophones) remain politically divided and, to a considerable extent, culturally apart. Allophones, though generally functional in French, are still for the most part, overwhelmingly oriented towards the English-speaking community. While the Anglophones, particularly those under thirty, are frequently functional in French, they are oriented towards English-speaking Canada and its political and cultural institutions, or sometimes to English-speaking North America more generally.

These divisions are territorially based. The east of Montreal is mostly Francophone and traditionally working class--currently with many unemployed on welfare--with a few Allophone enclaves, while the west of Montreal is mostly Anglophone and Allophone and generally less impoverished. The voting patterns in the 1995 referendum clearly reflected this territorial patterning. The west of the Island of Montreal voted overwhelmingly 'No' to secession while the Francophone regions in the east of Montreal voted heavily 'Yes'.

The distinct identities of non-Francophone Quebeckers and English-speaking Canadians, on the one hand, and Francophone Quebeckers, on the other, run so deep that their very conceptions of nationality are significantly different. (2) Francophone Quebeckers, both sovereigntist and often federalist as well, think of Canada as consisting of two founding nations, one principally Francophone and the other principally Anglophone, both with their distinct national identities and cultural attunements. Where they are more progressive, they will think of Canada as consisting of three founding nations: Quebec, English-speaking Canada and the Aboriginal peoples--the latter being the First Nations of North America, the rest being settler nations.

Most Anglophone Canadians, including many Anglophone Quebeckers, tend to have a very different conception of a nation, and of what they take to be their nation, from most Francophone Quebeckers. They do not think of themselves as members of a distinct English-speaking Canadian nation, and have no sense of a distinct English-speaking Canadian identity or of a distinct English-speaking nation. (3) They reject the very notion of two or three founding nations and any substantive conception of Quebec as a unique society with distinct powers asymmetrical to those of the other provinces of Canada. For the Anglophones, then, there is no more such a thing as the Quebec nation than there is the Saskatchewan or British Colombian nation. The Anglophone conception of nation is of a single nation with a strong federal authority. The different provinces and different linguistic, ethnic and cultural groups are all seen as part of the unified federal state of a pan-Canadian nation, which Anglophones see as the same nation, and the sole nation, for all the different individuals (resident aliens aside) resident in the territory of Canada. The notion of distinct peoples constituting different nations is utterly foreign to them and, for them, the very distinction, stressed by Francophone Quebeckers, between state and nation, is blurred.

This yields two very different conceptions for Quebeckers and Canadians of who they are, and it is difficult to see how people with such different views could be harmoniously or fruitfully unified into a single nation-state, particularly when the effect of it, whatever the intentions of the players, strongly favours the hegemony of the English-speaking political society and weakens Francophone culture.

To think, as some do, of Quebeckers as bilingual or trilingual peoples who, because of their mastery of two or three different languages, harbour in their breasts different and often conflicting identities, simply flies in the face of the sociological and sociopsychological realities of Quebec. The sixty-five per cent of present day Quebeckers who, according to polls, feel themselves to be both Quebeckers and Canadians, have dual and sometimes conflicting identities and loyalties not because they are bilingual or trilingual but because of the historical and political realities of Quebec society. The bulk of the population of Quebec, whether bilingual or not, divide in their sense of nationality along the lines of which language is their dominant language. (4) Language is thus a marker of how they will conceptualize things, but it is not the causal power driving these distinct conceptualizations of nationality. Bilinguality or trilinguality is not a source of conflictual identity.

The repeated denial on the part of English-speaking Canada and, since the Trudeau era, the federal government, of the two founding nations conception has for a long time fuelled Quebec nationalist projects. This situation was accelerated by Trudeau's project of nation-building which asserted a pan-Canadian identity significantly different from the conception of, as a nation within a nation of this liberal predecessor Lester Pearson. With the Trudeau project, whatever Trudeau's intentions, Francophone Quebeckers were in effect treated like another ethnic group. While officially there was a federal bilingual policy, its effect (New Brunswick aside) was to reinforce the hegemony of English in provinces other than Quebec. As the de facto lingua franca across Canada, it also strengthened the use of English at the expense of French in Quebec, particularly on the Island of Montreal.

Seeing their language and culture increasingly threatened, Francophone Quebeckers understandably responded with sovereigntist and nationalist projects, but it is important to see that, in the mainstream of Quebec political thought and activist orientation, this is a liberal nationalist project. Access to the Quebec nation is open. It is not at all rooted in blood and soil--in ancestry--but in cultural attunement and a readiness to live in Quebec as Quebeckers obeying its laws. Quebec society is a liberal society enriched by a plurality of ethnic groups and a distinct Anglophone national minority. This diversity gives the society a dynamic vibrancy. Generally, there is a mutual acceptance of, and often a pride and pleasure in, this very diversity: the hybrid vigour of Quebec, and particularly of Montreal, society. There is also a willingness on the part of the vast majority of Quebeckers to accept the results of majority decisions. This remains so even with a full realization of the deep significance of the issues for their lives.

There is, neverthless, a fear on the part of some Anglophones and Allophones, and perhaps even a few Francophones as well, that a sovereign Quebec would reverse this tolerant pluralistic orientation or at least weaken it. This is, however, an unfounded fear. The contemporary Francophone population is committed to liberal values; the Parti Quebecois is firmly committed to a liberal state policy that protects the historic rights of the Anglophone minority. For example, education in English for the English-speaking minority is guaranteed...