Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Royals Protest by Quebec Miltitants a Crashing Bore

Once more the self-important, paper tigers of RRQ has threatened to disrupt a royal visit, this time that of Prince William and his soon to be wife Kate Middleton, this summer.

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.

Fifty-two years ago as a young lad, my mom dragged me off to greet young Queen Elizabeth, who was in the midst of the greatest Royal tour of Canada ever, a 45 day coast to coast visit that brought her to Montreal and a stop at the St. Justine Childrens Hospital on busy Cote St. Catherine Boulevard. The well-wishers were lined six-deep for kilometres in each direction and as her motorcade passed by ever so slowly, I was prompted to furiously wave my paper red ensign. Interestingly, the visit by young Queen Elizabeth went extremely well in Quebec, where she was actually praised in the press and referred to as 'sympathique' by the Montreal Matin newspaper.

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?

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!

12 comments:

  1. Howard Galganov entitled his late 1990s book Bastards for a reason.

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  2. OK, in addition to plugging Galganov's out-of-print relic, I actually have become a republican for a Canada independent of the monarchy. I am not of British descent and neither is most of Canada today.

    I actually didn't know for sure we contribute towards the monarchy, and I'm not impressed that we do. At the most, what you say we give the monarchy should, at most, be our equalization payments to Quebec!

    Mind you, there is far more government waste than what we fork over to the Palace, but that's not the point. The idea we'll have royals honeymooning here does not impress me one iota. They're welcome to do so, more as tourists than anything else, but of course we'll be forking over millions for protection and the fancy shmancy dinners we'll have to pay for. Far be it from my government to feed me one of their fancy shmancy dinners!

    Actually, with an election coming up, maybe we should attach a referendum to the ballot as to whether or not we want the monarchy. Then again, it would probably be done in Aussie style, i.e., holding the referendum during some high stakes sports event like the Stanley Cup playoffs, World Series or Superbowl week.

    The turnout for that referendum in Australia was lousy for that very reason; besides, a separate referendum would be a huge waste of taxpayer money costing 7-8 times what we fork over to the royals.

    As for the Van Houtte Revolutionaries, like Buddy Holly sang over a half century ago: Rave on! Gives these welfare bums something to expend some energy on.

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  3. Lol it's hilarious how some people still delusionally believe that Canada is part of some still aspiring colonial British empire that is hell-bent on finishing Quebec off. It's Prince William for God's sake. He's about as threatening as Winnie the Pooh in Tweety Bird slippers holding a Babar plushie and a box of chocolates.

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  4. I know I'm going to feel dumd when I get the answer, but what exactly is wrong with the syntax on the signs?

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  5. It amuses me to no end that Quebecers can always get wound up about a potential visit from a member of the royal family, but don't make a peep when convicted child killer Karla Homolka is out there living among them. No wonder Quebec is the preferred landing place for accomplices of former despots: they feel more welcome and can fit in better with the corruption.

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  6. I am still wonder why some Canadians love the monarchy in the first place.....nostalgia?

    Because given them money with our tax((and they dont need it, they are already very rich)) and watched peoples like Micheal Jean acting like the queen of Canada.....its make me sick. WE, the people, we elected people at the parlement to take decision for the majority, we are in a democracy goddam it! Why we still tolerate none elect folks at the top of the power structure ? ((the senate is a good exemple here))

    Did am i alone to be sicked about this???

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  7. To Anon. at 1:44 PM,

    "Because given them money with our tax...
    Did am i alone to be sicked about this???"


    As the Editor said, Canadians only contribute a small amount of money for the upkeep of the Royals. This is a miniscule amount compared to the billions of tax dollars poured into Quebec every year by the wealthy English-speaking provinces. Ironically, this money is going to a province(QC)that systematically discriminates against its English-speaking minority. THAT REALLY MAKES ME SICK!!!

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  8. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  9. FREE SPEECH IS BLOCKED WHEN YOU ARE AGAINST
    THE BRIT MONARCHY< HEY!!!!

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  10. ON ne doit rien au monarche britannique qui s'impose aux Français du Québec. QU'ils aillent au balai !

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  11. "FREE SPEECH IS BLOCKED WHEN YOU ARE AGAINST
    THE BRIT MONARCHY< HEY!!!!"

    You can say whatever you want about the British monarchy. The tabloid newspapers certainly do. The only place in North America where freedom of speech is blocked is in fascist Quebec with its language laws and tongue troopers.

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  12. Only English Canadians are like " les gens sont moutons" like Hygrade sausages. They can't speak up their mind. They don't accept other people's opinion and they can't stand it on this site. They are blocked like a diarrhea or insulted like one.
    THAT IS ENGLISH SEPARATIST /NAZISM / PERSECUTION/XENOPHOBIA/ RACISM

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