Translation of the radical leftist artist opinion at http://www.ledevoir.com/2007/03/31/commentaires/0703312025326.html
"Francophone, old-stock Quebecois": No longer a name, it's Elvis Gratton
Yesterday, a Québécois meant us: The Tremblays of Saguenay, the Lavoies of Ste-Foy, the Dumonts of Rosemont, the Landrys of Gaspésie. It meant the "viens icite chose" under the Effel Tower and the "ayoye..." on a piece of broken bottle in Acapulco.
It was us, in all of our greatness and suffering , our disarming naturalness and naivety, our own genius and kitsch. "This unbetraying path to the heart", said Fernand Dumont.
Things started to go downhill after the "No" vote of 1980 when the great liberators of the people went from linguistic nationalism to civic nationalism. The initial project, which sought a Homeland for the Tremblays of America after two centuries of survival and a dispersion to all corners of the continent, was surreptitiously transformed into territorial nationalism.
As it suddenly Sikhs of DDO (Dollard-des-Ormaux), West-Indians of Côte-des-Neiges, Italians of St-Léonard, the Loyalists of Estrie, the Jerseys of Baie des Chaleurs and the Crees of the Bay James had started to scream for "necessary independence".
And especially as if the Nation-State which we requested as a compromise to the "ancestral enemy", at the price of the abandonment of a country as large as the continent, and the abandonning of our diaspora brothers from Malliardville to Chéticamp at the hands of francophobic Red Necks, had suddenly become a shameful tare (burden), too reactionary for the nice salons, anachronistic for great conferences.
A burden which had to be covered up by a "French-speaking and modern multicultural State" (sic), a mini-Canada with a flower of lily instead and French at the top of the poster. A burden which one could no longer show in public even in Puerto Rico, in Catalonia, in Corsica, in Scotland, in Slovakia, in Slovenia, in Armenia, in Kabylia, in Palestine, in the Baltic States, in the Basque Country, Tibet, in Timor, to the Kurds and all the small peoples that hopelessly seek a political structure to sit their future (when we think that since then half of these peoples freed themselves whereas us, who started (the race) along with all the others in the sixties, and without the Red Army on our back, are still stuck in the BIG SHIT...)
It continued to skid in the middle of the Eighties when, in an effort of total openness, we established a world premiere by celebrating others on the day of the Fête nationale (National Holiday)! Imperial rolls, tacos and couscous in the middle of June 24! Go ahead full drive Jean Dorion. In the back, in the corner, at the Extreme Right, on a squared tablecloth, poutine and some meat pies. If you are still hungry... Not too disturbing the Tremblays.
We reached the height of ridiculous at the end of the Eighties when, following a thorough investigation by the Mother of the nation announcing our nearest disappearance, we started to call "Quebecer" the las Tamoul-just-landed-without-papers-at-Mirabel. Under the pretext that he now lived on the territory, the he was soon going to attend the COFI, to work for a damn English boss, before founding two fifty-two employees SMEs and generating a beautiful family of thirteen living children, all first of class in French school! Sahid in Wonderland? No, Jean-Claude Leclerc and Gerald Leblanc three times a week.
Lastly, we reached the bottom of the barrel, the day before the referendum of Charlottetown, when Bernard Landry and the other-great-liberator-of-the-people went to dance salsa and meringue for peanuts. For a fabulour 5% of soveregnist compassion! Less than the surveys of the National Enquire on the ghost of Memphis.
We had to wait the crossings of tables on the computer of Monsieur (Jacques Parizeau) to hear the bell ending the récréaction (playground break?). The end of a decade when, by painting ourselves in the corner, by excusing ourselves in front of the visit, elvisgrattonizing ourselves, we reached the low end of "French-speaking Quebecers of old stock"!!!
It never misses, each time someone comes to visit the house, instead of giving the owner's tour, to explain the architecture and the foundations, to finally integrate and assimilate the descendants as does any normal people, we hide under the table to reappear in a smaller room, under another name. As if we were nothing. Twos of spades. A tribe of undertakers, snow up to the ears. A deadly walk at the Tremblays of America.
We thus passed from New France (the largest country of the world in the 18th century) to Canada, to French Canada, to Quebec, to French-speaking Quebec; from French to Canadians, French Canadians, Quebecers, French-speaking Quebecers to land in the shed with the iconoclast "French-speaking Quebecer of old stock". With five words, it is no longer an identity at all, it is Elvis Gratton. An act of contrition. A skin of sorrow. A refusal to be.
After having snoozed up the élite à gogo (1960s elite) with the "new Montreal reality and the opening on the world" here we are now with the bonzes of interculturalism and multiculturalism imposing us this ridiculous "French-speaking Quebecers of old stock" while our "Quebecer" label is to be found distilled among all those who live on the territory. As if it were racist to have a name! As if the Sikhs of Glasgow and the Jamaicains of Edinburgh were Scottish. And the Scot, taking refuge under the pub's table, kilt under his arm screaming: "Old-Stock Scottish Gaelic"!
I am sorry for the beautiful minds of the UQAM, but on my street of suburban Quebec City, there is not a single nordicomane (Nordic person?) who thought that the Swede Math Sundin and the Russian Valery Kamensky had become Quebecers because they worked for a sweatshop in Limoilou.
Close by in Portneuf, there is not a single Christian who thinks that Luc Plamondon of St-Raymond and Anne Hébert of Ste-Catherine became French because they lived in Paname for decades. And I doubt that in Prague, one believes that Kundera is a French writer and Forman an American scenario writer.
Which leads us to the basic problem: who is Quebecer? Someone of French stock? Obviously, but not necessarily. Winston McQuade, Claude Ryan, Daniel Johnson and Laurence Hannigan, with Albion stock full up the bulges, are Quebecers; Jerry Peltier, Ovide Wednesday, Veronica Louise Ciccone alias Madonna (Italian dad Fortin mom) and Jack Kerouac, in spite their pure wool stock, are not.
Lisa Frulla and Pierre Curzi are Quebeckers; teacher Marco Micone and Alfonso Gagliano, of the same stock, are Italian.
Who is White? Obviously, but not necessarily. Norman Brathwaite, Luck Mervill and Gregory Charles, who have visible stock up the Tombouctou, are Quebecers; Dan Philip (St-Lucie) and Dany Laferrière (Haitian), with the same stock, are not.
Max Gros-Louis and Claude McKenzie, if they ceased playing the Indians (and if Ottawa ceased encouraging them!), would be Quebecers eyes closed, whereas Billy Two Rivers or Ellen Gabriel could never be. Who is Catholic? Oooooh. The churches have been empty for 30 years!
Who was born in Quebec? Obviously, but not necessarily. Jeanne Sauvé (Saskatchewan), Nathalie Choquette (Japan) and Nathalie Petrowski (Paris), all born far from the St-Laurent, are Quebecer. Joe Norton (Caughnawaga), Glen Ford (Portneuf) and Saul Bellow (Lachine), born very close to the Majestic, are not.
A sovereignist? Come on! Is a French a Gaullist? André Ouellet and Jean Chrétien, in exile in Ottawa for 25 years, even more red than the flag on the hood, are Quebecers; whereas David Payne (English) and Nadia Assimopoulos (Greek), converted miraculously to the national cause, are not. IS Quebecer as one is French, Chinese, Chilean, chemist, surgeon or Tabernaco, 1) who SAYS is Quebecer 2) but especially who IS RECOGNIZED by common sense (a national treasure which is not lost!) as a member of the family. Beyond the thickness of the stock. Roughly is Quebecer who speaks Quebecer with a Quebec accent, whether he/she rrrrrrroulls his/her like Montrealers or swallows them like as the Bleuets (Saguenay people).