Category Archive

For those desperate for late-breaking Canadian Liberal Party leadership election coverage, Andrew Cunningham (the Ectomorph himself) and Pithlord have you covered.  Ecto has a great description of Michael “We Must Be Evil To Beat Evil” Ignatieff’s convention speech:

The final speaker, Ignatieff, was something else — really weird. If I hadn’t known what famous public figure this was, I might well have guessed “L. Ron Hubbard”. His speaking manner seemed evilly hypnotic, replete with demands for the audience to chant little catchphrases back at him. I just can’t see Mr. and Mrs. Canada falling for such an…odd fellow. From a Conservative point of view, I’m really hoping Ignatieff wins, of course, but I think he just lost it. Non-supporters at the convention won’t be won over by someone who seems so out of place in politics — not to mention in the party and even the country.

Just to be clear — there is nothing wrong with French-speaking Quebecers feeling a particular sense of kinship with one another, as a hardy linguistic minority on a continent full of anglophones; there is nothing wrong with Québécois de souche remembering their roots, and feeling a sense of pride in their long heritage in this country that their ancestors did so much to build [bold mine-DL]; and there is nothing wrong with the rest of us applauding that kinship and saluting that heritage. Indeed, we ought to.

But that is not an argument for tossing around such politically charged terms as “nation,” or for turning the Constitution into a vanity mirror in order that the “narcissism of minor differences” might catch its reflection. ~Andrew Coyne

As I read this, Mr. Coyne is saying that they can feel kinship, remember their roots and be proud of their heritage in “this country,” but what they must never do is make any suggestion that they are a distinct people in any politically meaningful way (i.e., a “nation”).  In other words, their identity should best be limited to speaking their language, having their story in history books, and enjoying non-threatening folk songs and ethnic cuisine (if Quebecois have their own cuisine–I confess to not having the slightest idea on this point) in the same way that all multicultis neutralise real ethnic identities by making them commodities.  They can have all the trappings of a nation, but they cannot call themselves a nation.  Isn’t there something rather odd in all of this?

Then there is this narcissism meme that I have been seeing today.  Mr. Coyne regards all of this as a function of narcissism, and Reihan gave a swift kick to “the worst kind of illiberal, navel-gazing narcissism.”  I know illiberal is meant to be an insult here, but in any case what exactly is illiberal about indulging the Quebecois in their claim to nationhood?  What makes it “navel-gazing narcissism”?  Indeed, where is there any navel-gazing at all?  This line seems to come from a grab-bag of labels of Things That Everyone Knows To Be Bad, and which you use to label something if you find it really frustrating but have no good descriptions available.  Illiberal suggests either meanness of spirit or some creeping authoritarianism; navel-gazing suggests passivity, excessive contemplation, otherworldliness and preoccupation with irrelevancies; narcissism’s meaning is obvious.  How does anything related to the Quebecois even match this description, much less constitute “the worst kind” of it?

But they did not feel it in their gut. Because a nation is hard work. To assert a national will, national objectives, a national interest, in a polyethnic, multilingual, transcontinental country, means upholding a national idea, a transcendent nationalism of ideals, against the more earthly delights of ethnic and cultural tribalism. It suggests that we are tied by something more than blood, something higher than ethnicity. And in turn it demands that we live up to that vision, that we hold a greater ambition for ourselves than mere existence. ~Andrew Coyne

Via Reihan

It is worth noting (again) that Pithlord, an actual Canadian, is no more excited about Mr. Coyne’s “transcendent nationalism of ideals” than I am.  Mr. Coyne sounds like a proposition-nation man on meth.

It reminds me of a question one of my history professors in college posed to us in our Civil War class.  He gave us an assignment to write a short essay articulating which side had the stronger motivation and the more meaningful cause, as I recall, and almost to a man all of us (most were Southerners except for the odd Westerner such as myself) gave what seemed like the blindingly obvious answer: of course, the Confederacy had the more meaningful cause in defending their country against invasion.  There were those on the Unionist side who were earnestly devoted in good faith to the Union and Constitution.  They thought they were defending, not destroying, both of these.  There were perhaps a few wild-eyed dreamers who espoused a “transcendent nationalism of ideals,” but their motivation was even more airy and removed from real life.  In the end, once you got past these political and constitutional commitments, the motivations for the Union men never struck me as being nearly as powerful as the loyalty to your home, your kin and your country.  Perhaps if more of the War had been fought in the North, it would have been more of a draw or one would have to judge by different standards, but as it was it seemed obvious what the answer was.  Our professor, whose classes I enjoyed tremendously, disagreed and thought they the Unionists had the superior motivation because they were fighting, at least officially, for certain high ideals. 

This seems to be an often unbridgeable chasm between people who usually see rhetoric about ”high ideals” as a lot of abstract rationalisation to serve a particular policy goal and those who fervently believe in those ideals and intend to use whatever means they have at their disposal to carry them out.  To the former, nothing could be less compelling, more vague and more insubstantial than a “transcendent nationalism of ideals” and very few things more powerful than the claims of ethnicity and culture; to the latter, these things are “earthly delights,” to be shunned by those who see farther and have greater vision and ambition than the rest. 

People who talk about being tied by “something more than blood” and “something higher than ethnicity” are frankly rather odd chaps.  It is as if you mixed Hegel, Lincoln and Valentinus together in a bowl.  Free us from our hylic contingency, they cry!  Let us embody the Geist to which our nation is dedicated!

The resentment against a politics of “mere existence” gives off a whiff of teleocracy to me.  Nations can’t simply exist, they have to be for something, the teleocrat insists.  What Oakeshott called nomocracy was the alternative to this, where the settled customs and habits of a people shaped and governed that people rather than some purpose, some great end, that the state would be trying to achieve.  Related to that, it was Kant, I believe, who said that any government with a specific end was a despotism.  Certainly, if it does not begin as one, it will become one. 

“I believe that recognizing the Québécois as a nation, even within a united Canada, is nothing else than the recognition of an ethnic nationalism and that I cannot support,” he said. ~The Globe and Mail

Via Reihan

Mr. Chong is perfectly correct that this is a recognition of an ethnic nationalism.  That has to be the point of it, or else it wouldn’t really be a concession to the Quebecois.  It must refer to those who call themselves les Quebecois, which would almost always refer to francophone people in Quebec.  If he finds that unacceptable, I suppose he had no alternative but to leave the Government, so give him credit for putting his principles ahead of a post as a minister.  Of course, Harper will fall all over himself saying that this is not pandering to ethnic nationalism (which everyone knows is Very Bad)–no, it’s reconciliation!  More likely, it’s an attempt at pandering to ethnic nationalist voters to support his government in the future.  “Look, I threw you a bone!  Vote for us next time!”  That’s the kind of “reconciliation” Mr. Harper is interested in fostering, come what may to Canada. 

Mr. Harper continues to confirm what Kevin Michael Grace (I’m linking to all of our Canadian friends this week) said of him immediately after his election: “Stephen Harper is what David Cameron hopes to be when he grows up.”  To wit, when David Cameron grows up he will have moved from “hug a hoodie” to “hug a Welsh nationalist” or a representative of some similarly appropriate ethnic separatist movement.  Mr. Harper’s motion might be dubbed “hug a Quebecker.”

Andrew Cusack asks in the comments on another post, more or less, “What’s the big deal?”  He writes:

I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Landed empires such as Canada and the United States cover territories stretching across continents, and are of a size that makes Austria-Hungary seem small. Yet the Austro-Hungarian empire incorporated dozens of nations and nationalities, while it seems Canada only has two or three. So what if the fact that Quebec is a distinct nation is given legal sanction? I don’t think that merely giving legal recognition to reality is much of an offense against order and tradition.

I don’t know whether it is really that much of an offense against order and tradition.  That is really something for Canadians to comment on, since they would know better than I the intricacies of their domestic political arrangements.  The answer to the “so what?” question is, I think, that this concession officially invests the Quebecois with a certain status that they have claimed but have not had recognised on the federal level and thus elevates them even higher, so to speak, than they already were.  It is not a constitutional revision like the Ausgleich that created Austria-Hungary, but it might point toward some kind of even more unwieldy arrangement than the one that currently exists that will follow the Austo-Hungarian model to its eventual crack-up. 

The Austrian Empire worked less and less well the more its politics were filled with competing ethnic nationalisms.  Finally, after the war, those nationalisms had become too strong for a defeated government in Vienna to hold together any longer (and the Transleithanian rulers in Budapest gave up on the empire after the war).  In this sense, those who want to keep Canada in one piece have every reason to follow Mr. Chong’s lead in opposing this motion because it encourages ethnic nationalism.  It is true that such a nationalism is the enemy of a multicultural federated state.  (This is also why the Belgian authorities hate the Vlaams Belang with a red-hot passion.)  Were this simply a matter of acknowledging that the Quebecois exist as one of many nations inside Canada, it might be less provocative.  But acknowledging this when there is a sizeable movement of Quebecois nationalists in existence is to give in to the forces of the dissolution of Canada.   

Here’s a question that always comes to mind when talk of Quebec separatism comes up: what on earth are the poor Atlantic provinces going to do if Quebec becomes independent?  Remain in Canada?  They are poor enough that they would almost have to stick with what was left of Canada (forming their own state would be out of the question–that way lies the fate of East Timor), but how would that work logistically?  Any insights from Canadian readers would be most appreciated.   

That’s fine with me. I don’t cry for the loss of Andrew Coyne’s dream state. I don’t want the homogeneous (although supposedly diverse), post-national liberal “civic nationalist” polity which there are only individuals and governments. (And by governments, he means the Federal government, with the judiciary at the apex.) Yuck.

The trouble is not with the Québécois (OK, there are troubles there — an overweening state, an excessive reaction to a Catholic past, but the point is, those are NOT OUR TROUBLES). The trouble is us, our inability to reestablish an identity when the British Empire passed away, other than the identity of consumers and rights holders. ~Pithlord 

Reihan has a few words to say about the demise of the dream that was Canada.  The short version?  “Weird.  Very weird.”

What our little experiment has shown the world (assuming the world has watched) is, first, that even under the best imaginable conditions, divided countries are hard-pressed to become nations, and second, that even in a successful and individualistic society, “civic nationalism” doesn’t cut it with most people. They seem to need and want a “real” nation. ~Andrew Cunningham

I would go further and say that it is especially in a “successful and individualistic society” that civic nationalism doesn’t cut it.  It is, unfortunately, usually the only thing being offered, because no one is inclined to imagine a different kind of national identity or a different kind of bond uniting the people within a polity.  But civic nationalism is uniquely unsatisfying to a people who have often already attenuated or shucked off their other, stronger identities and who are only relatively recently rediscovering or attributing political significance to their language and history.  In the end, it has everything to do with a sense of belonging and whether one has a stronger sense of belonging in a nation defined by language, a shared history and some kind of cultural distinctiveness or whether one has a stronger sense of it in a “multicultural and multilingual” federation.  The weaker sense of belonging will eventually yield if it is not constantly reinforced and unless its rivals are continually beaten down and undermined.  A civic nationalism is among the most fragile of all.  Like an ideological nationalism, it survives because of the enforced absence of as many natural attachments as can possibly be pushed to the margins.