Quebec and Personal Expression. . . .

I have been so offended by the recently proposed legislation in Quebec that I felt compelled, despite a long silence, to speak up, if only for reasons of catharsis. First of all let me say at the outset that I believe that this legislation, supposedly intended to establish so-called Quebec 'values,' is, at best, racially incendiary and, at worst, actually motivated by fascism and racism. For years I have believed that, despite leftist apologism, much of the Quebec legislation that is supposedly intended to "protect" Quebec culture, is, in fact, racism in disguise. And the proposed "Quebec values" legislation confirms my worst feelings about the latent racism that has been gradually emerging from 'la belle province.'

Tonight on CBC the leftist commentator Ian Capstick was swift and assertive in his support for any legislation that outlaws any sort of religious symbol in publicly owned space. Though Capstick is essentially on the left, I often disagree with his arguments. Though he is sometime insightful, I find that Capstick is often pedantic and very seldom demonstrates a deep understanding, sophistication, or a concern for the 'big-picture' in political matters. And while I said that I often disagree with his "arguments," in this case he simply didn't present any. Instead, much like the religious ideologies that I assume he opposes, he simply made the basic assertion that he thought religious symbols had 'no place' in public places (by which, he confirmed to me, he meant publicly owned spaces such as government offices). But, of course, as we all know, an assertion in itself never constitutes and argument. And the problem is that in my thirty five years of political consciousness I have never heard a clear argument (let alone a convincing one) why individual professions of faith in the form of symbols such as, for example, a yarmulke, a cross, or a Sikh turban is in any way problematic. I understand that religious activism can be a problem. I understand that, in a democracy, we can't have the state sanctioning a particular religious belief. But nothing in my experience suggests to me that simple acts of religious self-expression in visually symbolic form, are problematic or threatening to democracy in any way. In fact, I am convinced that self-expression, in personal religious symbols, promotes democracy because it promotes discourse, diversity, and personal understanding between people. If my university professor, say, wears a yarmulke, I am in no way threatened nor is my learning experience diminished. provided he is an effective, open, and supportive teacher. If my doctor wears a hijab, it doesn't undermine her ability to give me proper medical care. And because religious communities are so diverse, these symbolic acts suggest little to me concerning the 'values' of the professor or the doctor. I may share fewer normative values with an atheist doctor or an agnostic professor. Admirable values are certainly not something that belong to any one group, whether religious or otherwise. I have met good Christians, good Muslims, good atheists, good Buddhist, etc; people who share many, if not most of my values.

But, perhaps most importantly, I believe that freedom of self expression is itself a profoundly  important value for a just and decent society. And by undermining such acts (whether they are in the form of restricting religious headwear or some other, secular, expression) the Party Quebecois is engaging in an act of performative contradiction. To outlaw simple, non-threating, acts of symbolic self-expression is a dangerous act of imposition that takes us, as a society, in the very opposite direction than most of us on the left want to go. Such an act is a thin edge of a perilous wedge. For, it begs the question, will we soon be restricted from political self-expression? I am not sure I see a significant theoretical difference between wearing a cross around one's neck and, say, donning a Che Guevara t-shirt. Both the shirt and the cross express certain ideological notions, basic beliefs that might have deep implications concerning one's normative values.

Thus, I contend that, restricting acts of self-expression in a university, a government office, or a hospital, is not only deeply problematic, it is a dangerous precedent. I want to live in a diverse society where people hold different beliefs and we can engage in acts of discursive redemption concerning those beliefs. If Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action taught me anything, it is that we build community through discourse not through the restriction of discourse. And acts of self-expression are essential to discourse. Furthermore, in many cases it is in our publicly owned spaces that are conducive to discourse and understanding.

The PQ is engaging in the kind of political strategy that is, I believe, always dangerous and eventually always fails. Ultimately you cannot protect or promote culture through acts of restriction. The promotion of culture is an organic process that grows out of a rich commitment to language, philosophy, and the arts. What is happening in Quebec is, I believe, a deep act of racism disguised as legislative reason. Ultimately the people who will pay will be non-whites and non-Christians who will become an easy target because of a legislative licence. Military Chaplains will still wear dog-collars and crosses. No one will ask a nun in a hospital to remove her habit. No one in the Catholic studies department at McGill will be compelled to remove their cross. All of this compels us to ask, what are the values that the PQ thinks are Quebec values and what are they really promoting? And, while we are asking questions, what does Ian Capstick think such legal restrictions on personal expression will achieve?

Quebec, Protests, Activism, and Threats to Power. . .

So-called "radical" political protest and activism, from the great peasant revolts to the 'velvet' revolution, has always been, in the final analysis, about the big issues of justice, social and economic equality, and political representation. Sometimes activist movements have erupted into distinctly anti-capitalist efforts, more often such efforts are more modest and localized in nature. In the past thirty years or so in Western 'democratic' nations, activists' movements have generally been focused on protecting the gains that were made during the long post-war boom. The issues in this cause have been connected to holding the line on wages, workplace safety, tuition rises, public (and private) pensions, environmental protection, and the expansion of democracy. However, in the past decade or so we have seen a gradual change in discourse which has begun to subtly shift back toward the bigger issues of overall inequality and capitalism in general. Though this change is too general to be reduced to any one moment, I often think of the great WTO riots in Seattle. The reason for the change in discourse is fairly simple - the the post-war gains in economic and political equality are being lost and these losses coupled with a looming environmental crisis are causing a slow ideological change. Though the concentration in media control has made this ideological shift weaker and more gradual than it might otherwise be, the change is becoming palpable. The three primary areas that are changing people's minds are an awareness of the startling growth in income inequality in Western capitalist nations, the distinct attack being waged upon democracy by Western elites, and the environmental crisis. As usual, capitalists and economic and political elites have blithely ignored the general impact of their thirst for money and power and this is resulting in a growing number of people who are searching for the underlying causes of our big social and economic problems and the basic issues of capitalism will increasingly become a target for political activism. The more you take away from people the less they have to lose and the more they will look toward the economic system that is at the root of their perceived suffering.

Obviously the reaction of the economic and political elites to such activism will be predictable. They desperately attempt to portray economic inequalities as the outcomes of a "natural" and unchangeable process. Marx called it 'reification,' which is the portrayal of relations between people as only relations between things. They want you to believe that the control of our wealth by a handful of people is the result of some natural, unavoidable process rather than a result of a conscious effort by rich and powerful people.

Outside of the elite, a surprising number of people emulate the ideology of corporatism. The reasons for their support of such an ideology are multi-fold, but the primary reasons are pretty simple - ignorance and fear. Their ignorance is an almost total lack of historical and political knowledge, and their fear is the standard fear of, to borrow a phrase from Edmund Burke, the 'swinish multitude.' Many people see political activists on television and they imagine that any such activism will necessarily result in the rise of another Robespierre and the guillotine. The most unfortunate factor in this public ignorance and fear is that it often becomes the primary push toward greater and more dangerous radicalism. Events such as the French revolution are generally easily avoided through simple reforms. But elites, in their greed for money and power, get comfortable in their power and their egoism gradually convinces them that their positions and wealth are somehow 'god-given' and a natural expression of their merit. They are loath to succumb to reforms which may cede any of their wealth or power and in an effort to protect that power they gradually push the nation toward revolution. The scenario plays itself out over and over again until it begins to look like a comedy of errors, as it has over the past week in Quebec.

The political and economic elite in Quebec (and by association the rest of the nation) see the growing threat of radicalism expressed in a what began as a relatively simple student protest. Because the political elite are desperate to shift economic wealth away from the people and toward the rich and the corporate class, they gradually take the tax burden away from corporations and the rich and they slowly throw it onto the middle and working-classes. Anything that begins to threaten that shift strikes fear into the capitalist class, as it did in the Swing Riots of the 1830s or the anti-corn law riots in the 1840s. (In the early 1840s the Anti Corn-Law League whipped up the revolutionary fervor of working-class in an effort to overturn the Corn-Laws but it quickly betrayed the workers when it realized that the working-class didn't care that much about the corn-laws but they actually wanted real reforms in the system of industrial manufacturing.) In Quebec the ruling class was comfortable in ignoring the protests as long and it felt no threat to their overall plan to maintain their power. However, in the face of a perceived threat, it was the political elite that quickly expanded the issue beyond a protest over tuition fees and made it an issue of controlling dissent in general with a law that de facto attempts to stop protest altogether.

The efforts in Quebec may simply die away (as many such protests do). But make no mistake, these protests are part of a larger historical moment in which people are questioning the radically expanding wealth of a small group of people and a growing power of a corporate elite. Each time I see someone deride protestors as "selfish" or "stupid" I shake my head. As France inched toward revolution in the 1770 and 1780s the elites dismissed anyone who protested inequality as simple 'troublemakers" and "malcontents." And instead of reforming their shockingly unjust system of wealth, they further oppressed and attacked any and all opposition until it was too late and they found themselves at the wrong end of a guillotine. Deride radicals and activists if you will, but you do so at your own risk. Today they are only trying to protect their jobs, their right to an education, their pensions, and their basic democratic rights. Leave their demands unheeded and tomorrow you will find them in your gated communities, in your legislative buildings, in your corporate headquarters. And instead of carrying signs they will be carrying guns and bombs. And if you think it can't happen -- open a history book! It has happened time after time and it will happen again. As long as Western elites continue with their system of radical inequality it will not be a question of "will there be another revolution," rather it is only a question of "when will the next revolution be on our doorsteps?"