Scanning my newsfeed this morning, I see our provincial government is again getting ready to put measures into place "to protect French language". The measures are aimed at newcomers to Canada, but they'll affect all of us.
My immediate reaction: "Personne n'attaque la langue française. / No one is attacking the French language."
Sigh.
When I was in university a few years ago, I wrote a paper about Ukraine and its nation-building process. I remember learning that you can't build an identity without defining an "Other". Ukraine had often been intermingled with Russia, and if Ukraine wanted to have a strong national identity, that identity needed to include "not Russian".
Four years ago this week, we moved to Québec. We love it here.
Love. It.
But ... one of the things that surprised me was learning how often the rest of Canada ("ROC") seemed to be "Othered" in Québec. There seemed to be a stream of news headlines frequently suggesting that Québec's identity was under attack from the ROC.
I remember trying to respond to new friends, a little bewildered ... "I don't ... we hardly ever ... in Ontario, we just didn't talk much about Québec at all. Like ... the rest of Canada is not spending its time in coffeeshops, talking trash about Québec. We're ... we're not talking about Québec at all."
(Politics excluded, bien sûr.)
But it's part of protecting identity here, and not just in politics. In all of life.
And I get it, I guess. Identity must be intentionally maintained; and you need an Other to do so. The rest of Canada uses the US as its Other. How many times have you heard, have you said, Canadian identity is "not American"?
I'm just sad that the Other is within our own nation. I spent most of my life living outside of Québec, I was one of the "my Canada includes Québec" people. I thought Québec was pretty cool. I didn't know that Québec thought I was out to destroy their identity.
I love being Canadian. And I love being a Québecer.
But it's a weird vibe, sometimes. I'm a minority here - and that's probably good for me, learning how that feels. I'm settled in, feeling like I belong, and then the government releases another statement that makes it clear I don't, not quite.
When we moved here, we were told, "The people are wonderful. The politics are just awful. But the people are wonderful."
And that about sums it up.
