DESUETUDE

(06,23,2023) Desuetude refers to the state of being no longer used or practiced. Sadly, all truth, honesty and honour, which were once common practice, seem to have entered this state. They have been replaced by the uncommon malpractice of lies and deceit among many conservatives and separatists, not just in the states, but, also in Canada. The most common thing about them, ironically, is that they all call themselves nationalists. And yet, many of them talk about separation. The conservative nationalists, who are also called ‘patriots’, mostly by themselves, and who, in reality, are supremacists, want nothing more than to split up the country, be it in the United States or Canada. In America, their base, and that of the P.O.T.A.S. (President of the American Supremacists) are the confederates of old, who have been trying to break up the United States for over two hundred years. Their spokeswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has already announced this to the country. In Canada, we have similar conservatives, out west, who would like to separate from the country, as certain ministers have already suggested, thereby both figuratively as well as literally dividing the nation in half. Then we have the separatists in Quebec. It grieves me to say that they have been ruining things, in that province, for over fifty years, and things have only gone from bad to worse! In the province of Quebec, Canada, both respect and tolerance of differences carry no place in the separatist government. Bill 96, with its new amendments, further empowered the Office Quebecois de la Langue Francaise (OQLF) or, in English, Quebecois Office of French Language, to perform what simply amounts to the illegal (without a warrant) search and seizure of anyone’s premises, and property, and particularly data from your computer, if they even suspect that you are communicating or advertising in English, rather than French. It is just one more way of ensuring that the English language will not be tolerated in Quebec. In fact, one’s very livelihood has been threatened, with fines and loss of work or business, for daring to print or speak the English language, personally or in public. The OQLF reminds me of the Nazi Gestapo in Germany, during the Second World War, as well as the KGB in Russia and their more recent German counterparts, the Stasi in East Berlin after the war. The English people’s rights have been slowly dissolving into desuetude, in Quebec, since 1977, when the separatist government gained control over the province. The discrimination against the English, from that time forward, has resulted in English people losing their farms and small businesses as well as any chance of moving up or ever succeeding in a career or vocation. I know many of the people to whom this has happened, even a family member whose entire family, wife and children, including all his inlaws, are French. However, he was born an Englishman and although he is fluent in French, to the point that he now has trouble speaking the English language, Quebec’s French separatists would not support his enterprise on the grounds that he is an ‘Anglais’. Others have been threatened with loss of job for simply writing a personal note in English, on a note pad, while at work. The same goes for sending a text or E-mail. If that isn’t discrimination, I don’t know what is! Those ‘brown shirts’ who enforce this prejudice are bigots just like the lawmakers who created it! Their bias actions are an attempt to rid Quebec of the English, once and for all. Fifty years ago, when I was still a resident of Quebec (born and raised there), I became one of thousands who, sadly, felt compelled to leave the province. It was not an easy decision, nor did it happen over night. In fact, the feeling that had come over me, was akin to suffering from some debilitating disease that slowly robbed me of my strength or, in this case my will to remain where I was not wanted. In the Eastern Townships of Quebec, where I grew up, French people, who I once considered to be my friends, had adopted the anti-English attitude, and begun to avoid me or shun me altogether, as though I was a disease that could wipe out French people. I loved the beauty of that province, and still miss it. But, I do not miss the rampant discrimination and bias that has infected that province. I knew, then, that Quebec was becoming a fascist state where English people had little to no rights. It started with Bill 101, erasing the English language from public use, and has escalated from there. Bill 96 is an extension of the 1977 Bill 101, which had, ironically, been designed to protect the French language in Quebec. However, it took things from one extreme to the other. What about the rights of the English? Extreme French separatists, who are attempting to wipe out the English, sometimes refer to themselves as patriots or nationalists as well. This is because they see (the Republic of) Quebec as a nation within a nation. Their constant attempts to establish Quebec as a sovereign state is testament to that fact. Thank God for the more liberal thinking young people of Quebec, who, so far, have been able to vote down such a separation. It gives me cause to believe that there is still hope for the province. French separatists would also like to split the country, leaving the Atlantic provinces cut off just as they have always felt. Bill 96 affects mostly businesses, but is still an infringement on basic human rights. Those who fail to comply face fines and legal action. This latest amendment came about because certain separatists complained that they were still seeing English words being used in some public business communications. And, now, unannounced spot checks by the OQLF will simply become a regular occurrence. English speaking Quebecers are already encountering difficulty accessing government website data that was once readily available in English. The government workers, who were once willing to speak English, have also moved into the state of desuetude. Recently, an English Quebecer who had to go to the SAAQ (Quebec’s auto insurance registry) was told that nobody there was even allowed to speak English while standing in the lineup at the SAAQ. Furthermore, the security guard had been instructed not to speak English or help people with questions in English. In Quebec, human decency has sadly also entered the state of desuetude. They would not help a 95 year old anglophone woman, at the SAAQ, who was trying to sort out some papers. Such ignorance, on this level, as well as any other, has often given birth to fascism. Members of my family, past and present, have often been witness to this type of fascism, for over 150 years. Back in 1880, my ancestors were forced to leave Prussia because the German Chancellor Bismarck, who was appointed Prime Minister of Prussia, had begun a persecution campaign against Roman Catholics. My great grandfather, along with his young family and many of his brothers, emigrated to North America. Some settled in the United States, while my great grandfather took refuge in Ontario, Canada. Eventually, for work, my father moved to Quebec, around the year of 1949, where he believed he could raise his family in what he thought would be a convivial Roman Catholic environment. But, the discrimination had begun almost immediately, because Quebec is predominately French Roman Catholic. The public school board is French Roman Catholic, and, in my own home town of Farnham, in the Eastern Townships, there were no English Catholic schools. So, I had to go to a French school. I was advanced, for my years, at the age of five, so, my mother had me tested by the grade one teacher. The teacher agreed that I should be enrolled and tried to get me into the school at that time. The French school board vehemently rejected that idea, and said to come back when I was six years old. By the end of grade one, my teacher saw that I could do reading, writing and math at a grade three level. She tried to get me advanced to an upper grade and was rejected again. This went on for the first three years of my schooling, where I had the same teacher who attempted to get me advanced each year, and the rejection had come back each year. There was no way in hell that the French Roman Catholic School Board was ever going to advance an English student over a French one. I spent most of those three years drawing pictures, which was all my teacher could offer to keep me from being bored while my co-students struggled with their work. Ironically, by the seventh grade, the final elementary grade in said school, I came to realize the full implication of discrimination. Another student, a French boy one year younger, had been advanced into my grade, because his parents thought that he was bright. The school board advanced him because he was French like his parents which apparently had given them pull with the school board. He was not, however, as bright as they thought. He had struggled with the math, to the point that it brought him to tears. The male teacher, at the time, become so frustrated with this student, that he declared that he did not have the time to waste on him. Then, to add insult to injury, the teacher had ordered me to tutor the French student who represented the hypocrisy of the entire French Roman Catholic School Board. I took pity on this fellow student and tutored him so that he passed his grade and moved on. However, needless to say, my own frustration with the educational system in Quebec, led me to swear off academics altogether. I spent most of my spare time, during the next four years of high school, at the pool hall and the local bars. I didn’t bother to waste time on study and just did enough to get passing grades (whereas before I had been an ‘A’ student), waiting for the time when I would no longer have to attend any school. This led to controversy with my parents who had always intended for me to go to university. But, I remained adamant (the first time I refused my parents bidding) and suffered the awful consequences at the hand of my own father who made me pay, in so many ways, for my steadfast refusal of higher education. I won’t go into the details of my father’s actions. But, I will add (for the benefit of my readers) that, years later, I did attend Algonquin College, in Ontario, when I was ready to pursue subjects of my own interest. Consequently, it had resulted in my employment as an instructor for Algonquin College, teaching a course in electronics, trigonometry and the fundamentals of building one’s own computer. Just so you know that I ended up doing what I wanted, in Ontario, no thanks to the French Roman Catholic School Board in Quebec! I should add, here, that in the same year when I finished high school, 1969, my parents decided to move back to Ontario. After twenty years in that province, they’d had enough. In the mid sixties, French separatists had begun acts of terrorism, such as bombing federal buildings and even railways, one of which my father worked for. But the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back was when the growing anti-English sentiment struck home in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Suddenly, we were frowned upon as though we were the enemy. Members of my family, including me, were assaulted for simply being English. My older brother was struck on the head, from behind, splitting it open with a piece of rebar, while walking home from work. My younger brother was punched in the face and had his front teeth knocked out, by a much bigger and older boy, while walking home from school. I was assaulted by a much bigger young man, on the ball field behind our home. But, I believe that the second assault on my own person, was what convinced my mother to move. My face was so badly beaten that not even my own mother could recognize me. All this happened within a year or two, just prior to my family’s move. And the French police, in our town, did nothing about any of those assaults. The acts of terrorism and persecution were just beginning. English people were being forced out of Quebec, in droves, by the early seventies. For nearly fifty years, any immigrants, coming into the province, were forced into learning only French, raise their children in French, and have them attend French schools. They were made to understand that they, along with the English, had no right to fight this kind of authoritarianism!