Are Anglos Ready to Push Back?

They say that every man has a breaking point and I'm wondering if Anglos in Quebec are getting ready to push back against the rising tide of intolerance.

The naked ethnocentric attack on Anglos in L'acualite magizine has anglos finally asking themselves if there is anything they can do, short of suicide, that would satisfy the language racists who are now demanding that not only must we speak French, but embrace and promote French culture as well.

For the very first time, the Montreal Gazette is publishing articles that would have been considered heretical and dangerous, a short while ago.

Don McPherson's Op-Ed piece was so defiant, you'd think his piece was a product of this blog, instead of the Montreal Gazette, better known for appeasement than defiance.

“I call them “the new angryphones.” I’ve heard from quite a few of them in the past couple of months, since I wrote what some of them call “that column,” about the social acceptability of anglo-bashing in Quebec.

This new genus of angryphone is younger than the ones who attended partitionist meetings after the sovereignists’ near-victory in the 1995 referendum. Many of them are baby boomers who heard John F. Kennedy tell Americans to ask themselves what they could do for their country, and the answer Pierre Trudeau gave English Canadians for theirs: learn French.

So, out of the idealism of the 1960s, long before Bill 101, they did what speakers of the world’s dominant language normally don’t do: they began to learn another language, and to have it taught to their children. And when others fled the first Parti Québécois government, they stayed; they bet their futures, and those of their children, on Quebec.

So they’re still here to read and hear what’s said about them by Québécois politicians, media commentators and entertainers, and they’re fluent enough in French to understand it. They can read L’actualité’s “dossier” on them on the magazine’s website and decide for themselves whether it’s journalism or something closer to high-class hate literature on the glossy paper of a quality magazine.

With age and experience, the idealism of their youth has given way to realism. They know they have been left politically voiceless, not by a lack of the right leadership or representation, but by fear of political separation.

So they – we – realize that conditions for our community are not likely to improve....” Read the rest of the story

Less than a week later, the Montreal Gazette printed this Op-Ed piece by Robert Libman, a gentleman and one of the calmest and most level-headed politicians I ever dealt with.

“Unfortunately, the L’actualité package has turned up the heat under a linguistic pot that has been reheated in recent months by some French-language media outlets. Snippets of language-related information based on false assumptions are being sewn together to give the impression of an irreversible trend unfavourable to French. The conclusion that L’actualité draws is that the French language is in grave danger in Montreal – and that the anglophone community is gleefully unsupportive of efforts to stem this irreversible tide of anglicization.

Not only is this not true, but it is like blaming someone who has just been kicked and beaten by a bully for not empathizing with the bully because he dented his steel-toe boots.

We don’t have to apologize for anything. On the contrary, the impact of Quebec’s French Language Charter (Bill 101) on the anglophone community of Quebec has been unjustly severe.” Read the rest of the story

Language paranoia is setting new heights, with the latest action, a Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste attack on stores displaying the tiniest of hand-painted English signs.
TVA proudly dubbed the operation " Chasse aux commerces déliquants" (Hunting down delinquent businesses")

Two young language punks set upon a bunch of small businesses in the very English and ethnic neighborhoods of NDG and Cote-de-Neiges in Montreal, scaring one fruit store into taking down a copy of an advertisement from a local English newspaper that it had placed in its windows.

And so the latest proud gambit of these intolerants, is the terrorizing of small micro businesses that cater to an English or ethnic clientele, run by first generation immigrants who are trying to make a living cutting hair, selling fruits and vegetables or small electronics.
All of these merchants have a couple of things in common, most importantly...working, instead of being on the dole.

Many of theses immigrants, come from countries where repression was real and danger a way of life.
Being cornered and denounced by a couple of  punks may not be a big deal to you or me, but to them it is a frightening affair.

I was sad to see that one of the vigilantes was a young Black man, who somehow felt it necessary to roam the neighborhood of Cote-de-Neiges, (where many Blacks live) not unlike a Kapo, denouncing stores owned by fellow Blacks.
Such is the brainwashing that youngsters receive in school where ethnics can actually be fooled into believing that they are considered equals by ethnocentrics.

Perhaps when Master Virtue applies for his first job in Herouxville, he'll find out exactly what ethnocentrism means.

And before I get a slew of comments telling me how open and embracing Quebec society is towards ethnics, especially Blacks, read about another case of police brutality against a Black couple for the crime of 'driving while Black.'

All these stories have a common thread, Black people stopped in the street or in their car on the flimsiest excuse. When they object and refuse to cooperate, they are hammered with thousands of dollars in fines. For every case like the one here, there must be twenty that go unreported.

Please read the story and watch the video report, it is a must.  HERE 

Now if Master Virtue thinks that his biggest problem in life is the fact that  there are English signs up in Anglo neighborhoods, he should read this.
It's a story about how Blacks and minorities are treated in the Montreal offices of the Public Service.

"An anonymous letter shattered what had started as a normal Monday morning at the office for “Joel,” a union organizer at the Montreal office of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

“SPEAK NEGER BLACK,” it started.

Copies of the racist screed – obtained by The Montreal  Gazette – were placed in the mail slots of the office’s only two black employees on Feb. 21." Link

"Luc said no one in the office said anything when a union member who frequently visited the office remarked that he got his job because he is black.
When staff dine out together, black employees are often not included in the conversation, he said.
"You come to realize that you're not part of the gang and you never will be," Luc said.
Other employees frequently badmouth anglophones and other minorities at work, Luc said. They say: "Those têtes carrées. Why should we have to follow their directives?"
Luc said that colleagues often criticize employment equity programs for favouring minorities. "They say, 'Why give jobs to blacks?'"
Luc said one staff member called Arab union members "dogs" and said of the executive of a union: "I'm going to kick out those damn Arabs!"   Link

I hope young Master Virtue learns the facts of life sooner than later.

At any rate, a while back, sovereigntists rightfully mocked the meager turnout at Hugo Shebbeare's  anti-Bill 101 rally.
Truthfully it wasn't much of a success, other than the fact of the wildly out of proportion reaction by militant sovereigntists.
It was a good effort on Hugo's behalf, but truthfully Anglos are too comfortable in their ghetto to care.
We have our own hospitals, our own schools, our own television and media, our own cities run by Anglos in English and most of these assets are as good or better than what is on the other side.

Until now, we've been too comfortable to rock the boat.

I think Hugo was a bit ahead of the times, that's all. There is a shifting of the sands.

Once again, I watched that great rant by a fictional newsman Howard Beal, fed up with life in that great movie, 'Network.' I posted the video last Sunday. Watch it here

In the video, the newscaster rants that the world is going crazy, but as long as it stays out of his own living room, he'd be fine.

But when the craziness of the world enters his living room, he rants that it's time to get 'Mad as Hell"

Are Anglos finally realizing that the racist language rhetoric that has always been part of the militant French first movement is now entering their living room and that there is no use cooperating?

Readers, I want to be clear.
I have no problem with measures protecting French and promoting its use.
But nobody has ever made a cogent argument that has convinced me that an English sign in a predominantly English neighborhood is a threat.
Nobody has ever convinced me that the English minority of Quebec, celebrating their language and culture is a threat as well.

Those who wish to wipe out English in the public domain are ethnocentrics, nothing less than racist haters who should be denounced.

When language cops start making the rounds with a ticket book in hand, I think that there'll be a reaction..

Woe is to the language inspector who wanders into an Anglo enclave unescorted by the police. I'm not calling for violence, but readers should be reminded of the 'Shawville' experience;

"In 1999, a posse of militant Shawville English-speakers chased a provincial “language police” inspector out of town during a showdown over French on business signs."  Link

I think that French language militants are pushing for this.  Confrontation with 'les maudits anglais' is what they want.
Their plan is to prod and poke anglos until there is a violent reaction.
I think they are going to get it.

When a full scale language war breaks out, they believe it will pave the way for independence as Quebecers are forced to choose sides.

They might be right.