ET TU, MARIA?

"Et tu, Brute?"  [(et tooh brooh -tay)]

A Latin sentence meaning “Even you, Brutus?” from the play Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare. Caesar utters these words as he is being stabbed to death, having recognized his friend Brutus among the assassins. 

For we on the anglophone/federalist/anti side of the Charter of Values debate, the reaction of Maria Mourani in changing sides was a nice boost to the morale, a vindication of the principle that Ethnic Quebecers have nothing to gain and everything to lose from embracing the sovereignty movement or the Charter or Values, for that matter.

While not quite as miraculous as the Conversion of Paul the Apostle, who embraced Jesus after a life of persecuting Christians, the reversal of Mourani was a lot more significant than just one politician, jumping ship to embrace the enemy.

We've had a myriad of federalists who went sovereigntist and vice-versa, including Lucien Bouchard and the newest member of the National Assembly, David Heurtel, who won his seat as a Liberal.

"Heurtel, once an adviser to former Parti Québécois leader Bernard Landry, said his thinking has evolved. He said he opposes the PQ’s Bill 60, a secularism charter that would make a ban on the wearing of religious symbols a condition of employment for Quebec’s 600,000 public sector jobs." Link

But for many of the sovereigntist pur et dur,  the Mourani defection is a bitter pill to swallow, made all the more unpalatable by her contention that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms offers a greater protection to the Quebec heritage than does the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

That contention is what has rendered hardliners livid, as if Stephen Harper suddenly embraced the Communist Manifesto.

For as long as the Canadian Charter has existed, it has for separatists, remained the ultimate symbol of Quebec's betrayal and humiliation at the hands of the devious and scheming Anglos.
The story of the Night of the long Knives has gone down in separatist lore as a turning point, as momentous as the hanging of Louis Real or the razor thin referendum loss in 1995, ascribed to federalist scheming and cheating.

"The new deal was signed by Trudeau and nine of the premiers that morning. Only Lévesque refused to endorse it. Lévesque didn't say anything. He just got up from his chair, spun around, and walked out.
"Behind his Oriental impassivity," Lévesque observed, "One could feel Trudeau literally rejoicing. He had put one over on us."
There are conflicting interpretations of what had happened. Trudeau supporters argued that Lévesque was committed to separation and would not have accepted any agreement to patriate the Constitution.
But Lévesque and his supporters saw the agreement as a betrayal, one in which English politicians had conspired against Quebec. Lévesque left the conference, denouncing the premiers and their role in what would be characterized as "The Night of the Long Knives."" Link

As Jews repeat the story of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt each year on the celebration of their Passover holiday, so do Separatists keep alive the saga of their betrayal at the hands of the dastardly English, searing those events into the collective memory, lest that ultimate betrayal be forgotten, remain unresolved or un-avenged.

And so in this context, for Maria Mourani to embrace the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom is just too much to take and as such, just as I promised you, reactions in the separatists blogs and indeed the  mainstream press were dripping with rage.

My favourite reaction comes from Sol Zanetti, the newest leader of the hardline Option National political party, who wrote in the National Post that there should be rules for switching sides.

"Being deeply democratic is to accept this fact. (that people switch sides..ed.) However, this can be done in a noble manner and not so as to feed cynicism.....
.....One may no longer agree they want it (sovereignty..ed), but cannot begin actively fighting against it. A separatist member who changes his mind should have the decency to withdraw completely from partisan politics.... Link

How about a federalist politician who changes sides like Lucien Bouchard, should he too have withdrawn from politics, respecting the federalists he left behind?
Ha!.... that notion is just frustration talking and I must admit to a delicious case of schadenfreude, delighting in the palpable agony that has manifested itself in articles such as Mr. Zanetti's.

Here's a collection of rants and frustrated raves that makes it all more enjoyable.

"By any measure of loyalty, she should have warned me before sending this amalgam of lame and demagogic slander to Le Devoir." The Treason of Maria MAourani{fr}

"We are in mourning for our Bloc member, we mourn our dedicated, committed and intelligent member, Maria Mourani , ."  Lettre à Maria Mourani{fr}.

She publicly crucified the draft charter in the most violent terms, got excluded from the Bloc Quebecois and then took time "reflecting on her future" and returned, stating that the Canadian Charter of Rights is better protection  than the Quebec Charter and at the same time is no longer an independentist, happily throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Link{fr}

"This is a childish betrayal, selfish, irrational and disgusting." Link{fr}

"So Maria Mourani, the new darling of the Federalists is treacherous, one who is willing to do anything to get re-elected." Link{fr}

"It therefore seems paradoxical and incongruous that the member for Ahuntsic quotes a French text from the national anthem in praise of the colonial order of  this anti-Bill 101, Canadian Charter of Rights, deliberately imposed upon Quebecers, together with the adoption of the 1982 Constitution without Quebec's consent - the worst colonialist insult in our recent history. Link{fr}

"She has demonstrated her incoherence and how little it is based on principles, which she changes as it suits her. " Gilles Duceppe{fr} 

Your arguments are worse than your gesture and contemptuous of Quebecers" Bernard Landry{fr}

The reaction by militants isn't surprising, Mourani's reversal is a rather heavy body blow, a warning to other Ethnics that flirting with sovereignty is a dead end, a fact not lost on the movement.

The militants would be advised to take a page from Pauline's playbook and move on quickly, letting the Maria Mourani affair pass into ignominious oblivion.
In other words, the less said about Mourani, the better, and feeding the news cycle, an act of self-humiliation.

Although it makes good political sense to let the matter of Maria Mourani drop, it will not happen.
The rage and sense of betrayal is too intense to be assuaged by time alone and so  the enemies of Mourani will continue to empower her, creating a monster, the very public symbol of the sovereignty movement's inherent rejection of ethnics.

The wishful thinking described by Sol Zanetti in hoping that Mourani would retire from the political scene is perhaps telling.
He understands the clear and present danger Mourani represents.

Mourani is certainly up to the task.
She brooks criticism with aplomb and is composed, unfazed and unbowed in the face of opposition. She is an excellent debater and has shown herself to be media savvy, a formidable political personality who would be a great addition to the Liberal or NDP party.

Indeed the PQ  and the Bloc have created a monster in Maria Mourani and like Dr. Frankenstein, will ultimately pay the price for building her up, when it would have been easier to put a little water in their wine and contain her, as did Quebec Liberal leader, Philippe Couillard, when a caucus member Fatima Houde-Pépin, came out on favour of the Charter publicly.

But the hardliners are enraged and like an angry bull, cannot be stopped, even if the course of action is unwise.


I hate to admit it, but it is fun to watch.