Skip to main content

Bill 101, the Education System, and the Power of Cultural Persuasion

A lot of people who live in Quebec have stated that you won't make it by in this province unless you learn or speak French.  Included there are exceptions; some tight-knit communities, reclusive as they may be, that differentiate from the French-Canadian mainstream have made it through family employment or labor jobs that do not require french communication.  In these employment area's there is usually at least one person who can speak the native language relative to the mentioned minority's mother tongue.  This is a primary reason for why minorities who do not speak the relative language to Quebecors, the French Canadian language, can be a part of the economy while so pertinently avoiding the vast society that promotes itself as culturally significant.  Cultural Minorities are more common, and to some degree, increasingly integrating into the French Canadian society while giving off an impression of their own culture at the same time.  This exists evidently today, as it is acquired to our common sense that it would have since the origin of Canadian society. Since this time the interaction and communication between some of the French and the English carried with it a stale impression, and to popular discontent, it has become a perspective that the English language is a disease or taint to the Quebec way.

To a very noticeable degree, is the need to assimilate foreigners within the Quebec mindset.  What some may notice, is that they are sacrificing themselves one limb at a time to foreign cultures, or 'new societies', that make their home within the valleys of the Quebec province.  Bill 101 infers that you must learn or speak French to be socially acceptable to the French Canadian, and while the cultural minorities are learning the French language, they are not forgetting their own mother tongue.  This refers to their respect for their own ancestral heritage.  While they are learning French, the assimilation method is only declined for the modern ultimatum; ~ 'Learning the French language doesn't mean I should forget who I am.'.  !.  How could the average Quebecor refuse this person of their inherent human right, and that is the one they are inherent to, a basis around their Heritage.  In fact, Quebecor's founded their individuality from the rest of Canada based on a pretense with their association to their sacred homeland, France.  So how could a Francophone Quebecor refuse a person the right to their own family history and simultaneously force them to learn the names of the French society?  How is the distinguishing mark of the Quebec persona not a mutual connecter with people from other cultures?

It occurred firstly with the English living close to and nearby French colonies that emerged within regions around the St. Lawrence Seaway.  The French say that they were there first while the English response was, 'So What! We do what we want!'.  The French, of this period in history, grew in detest for reasons that a war existed between their home territories for hundreds of years.  If we take into account the cultural dissonance at this time, we could conclude that a brand of pessimism and solicited feuding between this colonists carried itself across the Atlantic ocean, well within the hearts of our English and French ancestors to settle to no agreement on friendship, and draw lines and boundaries as to where each other's languages could respectfully be used within their new interdependent society.  This happened in business interaction in the old colonies, whether they were in bars, in stores, or at a park enjoying a leisurely afternoon.  I am only assuming that what it is like today, may in no way be different to how it was before, due to the separation that legally exists between both of these societies.  It's not that I possess a time machine.  I grew up in Quebec, and I assume that nothing has changed.  Most of the cultural pessimism shows itself between the interactions of the French and English children, for they may be more unstressed about showing their discomfort with each other's appearance and dialect.  It's excruciatingly funny for a Quebec child to watch an English person learn the French language.  Are their naivetes here?  Or is this prejudice?  I don't know their language well enough to pick up on the sensitivities of my verbal pronunciation or selection, though feeling notable persecution is demoralizing enough for me to ever want to brush up on my French.

With regards to colonial periods, and the war that happened between France and England several hundred years ago, did we ever hear anything back from either of these two countries?  We have founded colonies with people based out of these two powerful countries and with justification to either's economic priorities, we have tried to get along since then.  To very little awareness does it occur to the angry Francophone, that if he used the internet or television, he may eventually find out that these two countries that established our one nation, are no longer enemies, or rivals, or foes in the sense of world power, but they are established friends and neighbors that rarely disagree on major international issues.  I believe the rivalry is purely comedic by this point for Europeans.  But wait..  That angry Quebecor of today is sad.  He is sick to his stomach and he feels that persecution on him for his own identity that he would ever be forced to assimilate into English society.  He feels the tremor of his father's father within his veins and he knows why he ever gets angry. He knows how anyone in his family tree ever got angry, and that is the prejudice that stains the relationship between the Canadian French and English.  Originating from military pessimism, or imperialist pessimisms to be exact is the differentiation of blood and soil and who tells the story at the end of the day.

Sadly to the point, is the manner in which Canadian History parallelled with the rest of the world over the past 300 years.  More specifically, the imperialist pessimism of old Europe got ditched in America while the new European world attempted diplomacy and co-existence to build a better economy.  What did the European English and French say for Canada; it might as well be that they can take care of themselves.  That might as well be the motto, with respect to the turmoil and internal struggle that exists in one nation as perceived by another.

The prejudice is dissolving in Canada, though more slowly for this one than with respect to the two countries that shaped us.  And that is where I need to mention Bill 101, finally.  The reason, the cause, and the effect were all supplied with the introduction of this policy, ~the English shall not assimilate the French!  Though in determining a right from a wrong through the closed minds that founded this country, is the perspective that other threats could exist, that may endanger our most sacred French heritage.  And it is any minority that founds a new home with heartfelt strength and family courage, not only within Quebec but upon any national soil, foreign to his real home, that threatens the nationalistic facade of the dominant cultural group, for he or she is predetermined to bring diversity and a unique perspective with them.  In Vancouver, Japanese schools exist with open public admission.  In Quebec, all citizens must go through a Francophone controlled education system, unless they have a parent who had gone to an English school in this province prior to the introduction of Bill 101.  So if you are wondering, it's has been since 1977. that any newly immigrated person to the province of Quebec must send their children to a French school.  They are required to become fluent in this language, with no alternative to choose education in any other language.  Alternatives could actually make cultural integration easier on the part of both the minority and the dominant group if at least they offered French immersion courses instead of the use of intravenous brainwashing techniques.  At least if the society is backing up a desire for more represented languages within the open education system. They expect immigrants to rely on the French language to develop their own means within the economy, though there is little potential for these non-francophone immigrants to find an adaptable learning point unless they have established family already living in Quebec.

What will be the future of French and English Canada?  And did you notice that Quebec philosophy dictates self-preservation of its language within their education system?  We could all be speaking Chinese in 100 years, and did the English think about that?  Maybe the French did.  What does it mean to possess something great, and refuse other's the opportunity of a mutual cultural exchange?  Bill 101 is forced feeding and I am not alone in stating this.  The Greenfresh supermarket down the street from my house is advertising it's business with a store title printed 300% larger in Japanese, then in translated English version, though I feel culturally immersed when I shop here.  It's like I am in a different country.  I can still decide what I want to eat from here too.  If immersion were the ideal practice and respected as a philosophy by the Quebec government would they be doing the next thing on the list as oppose stopping cultural emergence, or establishing fines to the English when they host events that don't prioritize or cater to the French people?

Nationalism is one thing.  Though with Quebec, it's more like a tone of Narcissism.  They only want to see themselves at the end of the day.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Watching the wheel go round, or the Vanier parkway song

Hoe hoe hoe Down Vanier parkway The gift of love Is the apparent partay You can bust a nut On the sugar queen swirl Or give back to charity In the crackhead world If it’s broke, You fix it Simple and done But their time is a mission And they sell their buns Where a heart string creaks And Brook sold her pearls A thief sold his crack Then pimped out the girl Hoe hoe hoe Down Vanier parkway Could we ever find love And bring back Sunday? It’s now a confession Of too many crimes Indifference is deliverance When you watch people die An ambulance for Murphy A wagon for joe These are the homeless With no where to go. We see city taxes As a way to brighten our world So we stomp down on trash And ambitiously hurl Do we make the effort To show we are afraid What disgusts us distrusts us And they hide in the shade Could all this money Go to a wage? Prisons and shelters And services made? Can a sl...

Who said that we need education?

How many people in society have landed jobs respectively, in the field of study or education they pursued after high school? I am guessing it's not a very reassuring statistic you want to use in taking the realistic success rate of the post-secondary system. But to some degree, we still hold back our judgment and remain to our convictions that the education system is a beneficial aspect of our society. How could it be doing anything wrong? People are using their time productively and working, and learning. They are learning well. Or more exactly, their senses are being stimulated conductively to the coordination of their memories, and they are paying a lot of money to be responsible for anything they perceive. Of special consideration to keep their theory and practice within the moral high ground of the instructor. Regardless, a university is an icon representing values and virtues, that are seamlessly integrated into our perception of society. We learn history, how to be ...

Why is it Dark? A criticism of critics.

If you think a film is dark, could you elaborate on that?  A comedy can be dark, an action movie can be dark, a horror can hit the unexpected and be a surprisingly well lit, yet it is what it is, dark.  In all of these examples dark can be used to define things that are unalike each other.   You could say a comedy has self deprecating humour.  The action film is comically violent or excesses in profanity.  The horror dwells into the grotesque and violent imagery. Should you just assume what this means according to the genre, or do you find the criticism of saying a film is dark(and calling it a day) doesn’t cut it?  What do you do when a film reinvents a genre or blends genres in an original way?  My criticism of the YouTube film critics nowadays, is that some apply this term to define a movie in their review, and no one ever seems to call them out.  I know the average viewer doesn’t want garbage, so why accept this? Ever since Sin City(2005), and...