Dez26

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The pretension to moral superiority

The starting point of your comment is a prejudice against a cause which is as just and universal as any other cause aiming at freeing humans from the oppression of other humans. You are readily forgiven, as many people have fallen in that error before you.

There is nothing more insulting to the intelligence than the pretension to moral superiority coming from adversaries who have calumniated you, still calumniate you with more slander now than ever and who, in over two centuries of political battle, have never presented a single argument that was not founded on anti-Catholic or anti-French prejudice. And boy, did freedom fighters and defenders of the human rights of all Quebecers get calumniated in the course of history!

Many people wrote about the unjust treatment our patriots have received from our adversaries, in English-language media they often owned. One of the most eloquent defenders of our rights who have never set foot in America was John Stuart Mill who, in 1839, wrote about the events leading up to the so-called rebellion of 1837:

Let us first get rid of the language of mere abuse, which men so inflamed by passion as to be lost to all perception of the most recognised moral distinctions, have heaped upon the insurgents to render them odious.[1]

The way in which the majority of Quebecers have been calumniated remained mostly unchanged until about the 1960s when the civil rights movements in the Western World campaigned to fight prejudice against minorities. Since, more subtle and therefore more hypocritical ways have had to be used to attack our people's dignity and demonize the leaders of our liberation struggle.

It is commonplace, in certain media owned by the adversaries of those who dare defend the principles of equality among peoples in general, among Quebecers and Canadians in particular, to style these as xenophobes and conservatives and infer in the most irrational way imaginable that it would be congenital to French Quebecers to espouse illiberal political objectives. As if it was not legitimate for any people, attacked in their capacity to use their language freely in their very homeland, maintained in a state of political subjection for over two centuries, robbed of the wealth they created by the exploitation of their territory's resources, to defend themselves and finally dig themselves out of the hole their ancestors were pushed into, at first time in 1763 and again in 1841 and 1867.

Since you seem to believe that learning English somehow opens your mind to what's happening in the rest of the world, I suggest you start your journey in pursuit of the truth by first freeing yourself from your inferiority complex. As a person belonging to a human society where being oneself, as a monolingual Quebec French speaker, is often understood to be insufficient to enjoy liberty, you will enjoy reading a transcription of Andre D'Allemagne's speech entitled: Individual Bilingualism and Collective Bilingualism.

Enjoy your reading! :-) -- Mathieugp (talk) 23:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm...

Pourquoi tu m'écris en anglais, mec?

Enfin, t'inquiète, j'ai aucun sentiment d'infériorité. Et désolé si mon commentaire t'a semblé condescendant, c'était pas mon but, et en me relisant, je réalise que j'ai vraiment écrit ça tout croche. Je veux pas dire qu'apprendre l'anglais en tant que tel t'ouvre les yeux sur le monde, ce que je veux dire, c'est qu'habituellement, les Québécois les plus revendicateurs et les plus "bleus", du moins selon mes expériences personnelles, sont souvent des gens qui ne parlent que le français et qui en connaissent peu sur le reste du monde, et préfèrent se baser sur des stéréotypes locaux pour se faire une opinion. (ce que je suis visiblement en train de faire moi-même, on dirait!) "Les anglais c'est des méchants" "les choinois sont tous pareils" "les juifs sont avares" "lea palestiniens sont nos amis" et blah blah blah.

Enfin. Je vais lire ton texte. Ça me rends curieux.--Dez26 19:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I had not noticed your reply. I am seeing it just now. This is English Wikipedia. It is a question of respect for readers here to write in English. Learning English does not open up one's mind to the world: it opens up one's mind on one world. There are many more, all equally beautiful, and ours has the right to exist as much as theirs. These worlds all belong to us as humans. As individuals, however, we cannot participate to all the cultural worlds of humanity: we need to chose. Substituting one culture for another has nothing to do with opening up to others. You are best learning as much as you can about the only culture, the only society you can hope to fully comprehend one day, while not limiting yourself to it. Then you add something to your personal culture and that of your community rather than trade one for the other, impoverishing us all in the end. -- Mathieugp (talk) 18:32, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I know that english isn't the end-all solution to open oneself to the world. It is a rather sad misconception. But I know much too many Quebecois who blindly reject anything that comes from outside of our borders (usually not including France) because they see other languages and cultures, especially english, as something evil. I believe the main reason why knowing english is so important here, is to give ourselves some visibility in the rest of North America. Sure, I deplore the fact the rest of Canada is so unwilling to learn french, but there's nothing we can do about it... But you know what? I managed to make a few anglophones I met in real life curious about our history and culture after making them realize we were not as bad as they were lead to believe we were. Believe it or not, but I consider myself a proud Quebecois myself. Just not a separatist one, and I feel terribly pissed when the many Pierre Falardeau of this world give themselves the right to tell me what a real Quebecois is. I might not like Celine Dion or mes Aieux, but I'm still quite proud of my history, and I'm ready to bet I know it much more than half of those patriote-flag-waving people you always see on the Plaines d'Abraham every St-Jean. Anyway. I said it before and I'll say it again. I think you're a pretty cool guy. I always read your bits on the various Talk pages around Wikipedia, and to refer to my statements up there, I always respect fellow Quebecois who are willing to inform the world of our existence without throwing rocks at them, Falardeau-style. So keep it up! (I didn't know we had a talk page in different languages for out profiles too!)

--Dez26 15:41, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

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