The real question is -Who cares?
The Royals are no longer the symbol they once were, not in Britain, not in Canada and certainly not in Quebec.
Sounds a little ridiculous today.
Few of us care about the Royals, other than those predisposed to celebrity fan magazines, where one can live the glamorous life vicariously.
For many of us, the only time we pay any attention at all, is when a Royal marriage is melting down or when they act rather foolishly in public and then with a cruel sense of schadenfreude, we take perverse delight in the very public humiliation.
There are very few of us left who view the Royals as some sort of dashing symbol of British imperial power or alternately, depending on one's point of view, as a vile representation of colonialist power.
They are in reality just not that important.
Canada's relationship with the monarchy continues to fade and truthfully, we maintain the tradition more out of politeness than anything else.
Like our membership in the Commonwealth of Nations (which has officially dropped the "British Commonwealth' moniker) we can ask ourselves why on Earth we remain a member.
Membership in that organization has us rubbing elbows with tin pot dictatorships and countries that routinely advocate killing homosexuals (Uganda). The Commonwealth Games is a celebration of also-rans that is embarrassingly un-competitive. The last edition in India was an a utter flop and a considerable humiliation for the host, unable to cope with the complication of holding an international event of that magnitude.
To Canada, the monarchy and the Commonwealth are the past, a historical reminder of the way things were.
So what is it about the royal visit that has the RRQ so annoyed, other than the fact that each Canadian taxpayer (Quebeckers included,) contributes about a buck-fifty each per year for their upkeep. Hardly something to riot over, I'd imagine.
Even the radical Jeunes Patriotes du Quebec said that the royal visit was a non-issue for them.
The RRQ is a sad little collection of coffee house revolutionaries, too chickenshit to cause any real damage and this by their own admission. The fact that they have promised to keep things civilized makes them about as interesting as a bunch of civil servants conducting a protest march over job security.
Its hard for the organization to muster 100 people and so with a little forethought and planning the police could easily deflect any inconvenience the group hopes to achieve.
By picking a large venue, outdoors on Mont Royal or in the old Port, for example, with more than one entrance and exit, the effectiveness of the small demonstration could be neutralized.
Last time the police played right into the demonstrators hands by failing to block off two streets leading to the armoury where Prince Charles and Camilla visited. Ten cops, and correctly placed barricades was all it should have required but alas, the Montreal police are not known for stellar crowd control.
In the old days of the FLQ, Quebec revolutionaries sat in taverns, smoked Gitanes and drank from large brown bottles of Molson. Today our pseudo-revolutionaries sit in Van Houtte drinking $5 Lattes and munching on croissants.
The RRQ are a harmless set of twits, who huff and puff. They should be ignored.
While on the subject of pseudo-revolutionaries, a small article in the news caught my attention.
Do you remember our good friend Jean-Roch Villemaire who was convicted of crimes related to vandalization of anglophone candidates political signs because they were in English?
Read my post; Quebec Radical Admits to Crime, Then Pleads Innocent
Well after lying low after his conviciton, he re-emerged as the head of the Mouvement Nationaliste Révolutionnaire Québécois (MNRQ) a neo-fascist movement, which proposes the elimination of English from Quebec as well as an end to immigration. Thrown in for good measure is a heaping helping of anti-Zionism.
Recently his announcement that his organization would participate in the boycott of Le Marcheur freaked out the PAJU, who didn't want to be seen allied with the right-wing supremacist organization.
They issued this press release which referred to MNRQ as Nazis, and called a temporary halt to the boycott. LINK
Following virulent denunciations in the press, including that of Francoise David of Quebec solidaire, Mr. Villemaire announced that he was tired of being vilified and misjudged. In a final statement before shuttering the organization the MNRQ announced.
"We can draw the necessary conclusions from this adventure. The forces of status quo are powerful. The demonization campaign orchestrated by the Zionist lobby towards Jean-Roch Villemaire and MNRQ has unfortunately been victorious. We lost a battle but we have not lost the war! "
Good to his word, the website has been shut down and hopefully Mr. Villemaire will fade to black.
He was a dangerous little fellow.
Not so the RRQ, a harmless group of wannabee revolutionaries who are about as popular as they are dangerous. They are actually amusing casting their empty threats with mock indignation. Perhaps when they are finished with the Royals they can launch a protest against the Catholic Church, the Equality Party and other irrelevant and spent forces.
By the way, when they do protest the Prince's visit, I hope they will improve on the poor syntax displayed on the protest placards (see above) they brandished last time. Maybe they should hire someone who could advise them on the proper use of English!
He was a dangerous little fellow.
Not so the RRQ, a harmless group of wannabee revolutionaries who are about as popular as they are dangerous. They are actually amusing casting their empty threats with mock indignation. Perhaps when they are finished with the Royals they can launch a protest against the Catholic Church, the Equality Party and other irrelevant and spent forces.
By the way, when they do protest the Prince's visit, I hope they will improve on the poor syntax displayed on the protest placards (see above) they brandished last time. Maybe they should hire someone who could advise them on the proper use of English!
