Paper Presented At

PAPER PRESENTED AT

THE 2005 ANNUAL CONFERENCE

BRITISH SOCIETY FOR POPULATION STUDIES

THE UNIVERSITY OF KENT AT CANTERBURY

12 SEPTEMBER, 2005

MONTREAL NATIONALISM: A DEFAULT MULTIDIMENSIONAL IDENTITY

BY

YOLANDE BOUKA

SETON HALL UNIVERSITY

JOHN C. WHITEHEAD SCHOOL OF DIPLOMACY

ABSTRACT:

This research was conducted on the urban/local nationalism in Montreal. The intent was to develop a theory, or to contribute to existing theories, which would explain why many Montrealers who are not of French or British descent define their identity as Montrealers, or Canadians to a much lesser extent, but not as Quebecois, while maintaining ambiguous ties to their homelands. This topic is not only relevant in understanding the crisis faced by Quebecois nationalism, but also helps conceptualize the relative stability of Canada as a country of opened citizenship, but not necessarily as a nation. In order to develop our model, we explored different theories and studies related to the conditions of Montreal, Quebec, and Canada as a whole. We looked into studies addressing nationalism, taking into account language and ethnicity as markers of identity, territorialization of nationality, bilingualism and identity, and transnationalism.

After developing a theoretical framework, a focus group, composed of Montrealers of different ethnic backgrounds, was carried out, during which were discussed: markers of identity, citizenship, patriotism, immigration, perception of identity, and ethnic and civic nationalism. So far our findings have led us to conclude that a growing number of Montrealers coming from ethnic minorities tend to define themselves as members of a nation confined within the Greater Region of Montreal due to the lack of specificity of what the Canadian nation is, and the fact that most people have an ethnic understanding of Quebecois nationalism rather than a civic one. Furthermore, the politicization of language usage in Quebec has led non-“Quebecois de souche” to refuse to take part in the debate that would crystallize language usage with identity, since a strong percentage of minority Montrealers are multilingual.

“I am a Montrealer. When people ask when I travel, I tell them I am Canadian from Montreal, but I am originally from Lebanon… What I know is Montreal, that’s it!”

- Paul Younan, November 2004, Laval, Quebec

In 1996, when the Parti Quebecois launched its referendum, the second in twenty years, for the secession of the Quebec from the rest of mostly English speaking Canada, it encountered its strongest opposition from the Greater Region of Montreal. When the final count was made official and the “yes” vote had failed to win by a little less than one percent, a drunk and defeated Jacques Parizeau said unapologetically what every citizen of Canada knew: Quebec had not been able to achieve independence mostly because of ethnic votes. Evidently, this outburst of emotions cost Parizeau his leadership position of the Quebecois nationalist movement, but it also lead the entire population of the province of Quebec to wonder about what defines a true “Quebecois.” There is no doubt that some Quebecois nationalists started to doubt whether a “Quebec Libre” was even attainable with the problematic, but necessary, growth of the diverse population of Montreal: the “ethnic votes” roadblock.

Montreal, the second most populous city in Canada, is the metropolitan hub of the province of Quebec and one of the only true bilingual cities of a the so-called bilingual country. While Montreal is known for its opened bilingualism, social liberalism and diversity, it is also the most important city in the French speaking province of Quebec, home of the strong francophone separatist movement, and where French, in the past thirty years has become the lingua franca (Lamarre, 2002). Since the end of the 1970s, and especially during the early 1980s, a very important vague of immigrants and refugees found a new homeland in the province. For Haitians, Romanians, Lebanese, Salvadorians, Cambodians, Rwandans, or Armenians, for obvious economic opportunities and sometimes linguistic reasons, Montreal became one of the favorite destinations where they had to learn both French and English in order to be economically viable in the city. While they do not surpass the population of “Quebecois de souche,” ethnic Montrealers (Montrealers members of a visible minority or an ethnic minority) have succeeded in shaping the image of Montreal into one of the most multicultural cities in North America. Today, a growing number of young Montrealers are not “Quebecois de souche,” but of ethnic[1] immigrant descent and the majority of them are trilingual (Lamarre 2002).

While many ethnic Montrealers have a loose attachment to the Maple Leaf, I found that they feel like their identity best finds its definition in the region of Montreal. Evidently, if given the choice between defining themselves as Quebecois or Canadians, many will draw from the Canadian essence, and not from the Quebecois “fleur-de-lis.” Moreover, one of the interesting characteristics of the young immigrant population in Montreal is the strong ties that they have with their “native” land. “Native” should be used loosely since a considerable number of those youth were, if not born, at least mostly raised in Montreal, and not in some distant land. However, when one is asked where he’s from, he or she will say that he is from Senegal, Romania, or Lebanon, whether s/he is a second or third generation citizen. Additionally, the young ethnic Montrealer them speaks his/her parents’ language at home or with other members of their community, French in school (thanks to the Bill 101) and English or French with his/her friends who are, at times, themselves sons or daughters of immigrants from a diversity of countries.

All these interesting characteristics about Montreal and its ethnic population lead one to ask herself the following questions: Why do a large number ethnic Montrealers develop such a strong feeling of belonging to the Greater Region of Montreal without developing a sense of belonging to the Quebecois nation. Furthermore, while young ethnic Montrealers might pride themselves of their Canadian citizenship, why do they still not consider themselves connected to the greater Canadian nation? The final question addresses the reasons why young Montrealers retain a strong sense of transnational identity towards their parents’ or grandparents’ country.

I- WHAT IS A NATION?

Here we find ourselves faced with the old inevitability of defining the nation. Plano and Olto offer a simple definition of “nation” and it significance: a “nation” is “[a] social group that shares a common ideology, common institutions and customs, and a sense of homogeneity…[T]here is a strong group sense of belonging associated with a particular territory to be peculiarly its own… The concept of the nation emphasizes the people and their one-ness… [and] involves a socialcultural perception of the group” (Plano and Olto, 1982). On the other hand, Nolan describes it as “[a] self-conscious, imagined (but nonetheless real) political community composed of those who share ethnicity, language, and possibly also a common religion and/or culture, but who may or may not possess a legally sovereign state” (Nolan, 2002). The second meaning according to Nolan is “[a] political community that need not to share common race, language, or culture but has a recognized and defined territory and government derived from historical circumstance, which it defends with a display of some degree of common purpose… Such nations might contain one or more regional identities of subnationalities, which, under different circumstances, could see themselves constitute nations” (Nolan, 2002). Of course, the latter seem to be more description of a civic nation.

Since the topic of nationalism is at the forefront of this research, it was essential to review what people like Ernest Renan and Benedict Anderson have developed on the topic. According to Ernest Renan’s essay What Is a Nation? one makes a dangerous mistake in reducing nationalism to ethnicity, religion, or “linguistic groups” (Goeff 1996). Instead of taking these overly simplistic routes, Renan concluded that the nation was “a soul, a spiritual principle” (Goeff 1996). The willingness of a people to choose to forget, to remember, and to share a common history in which are imbedded a culture and values, whether in the past or in the present, derives from a purely “spiritual principle” (Goeff 1996). According to his essay, an individual is not be bound by his/her language or his/ her race. It is the will of his heart that will dictate the sacrifices the individual is ready to make for the better good of the community (Goeff 1996). “Yet the essence of a nation is that all individuals have many things is common, also that they have forgotten many things” (Goeff 1996).

This last statement is considerably important in making sense Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities in which he defines a nation as “an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently and sovereign” (Anderson 2003). Benedict wants to clarify that nations are “imagined” or “spiritual,” not because there is no validity in their claims of possible common heritage and history, but “imagined” in the way that the ties have been conceptualized. That is, what defines a nation is not as fascinating as delineating the “how” it all came together, since one could say that people are not born into a nation, but rather grow into one.

Still according to Anderson’s Imagined Communities, one cannot deny the importance of print capitalism and the revolution of vernacular languages. While the reality of communities might have been rooted in time, the actual defined concept of nationalism is recent, since in order for a nation to come together under one banner, she has to be able to communicate with her members what defines her and determines who is worthy of being called of her. Added to the essentiality of the development of print capitalism of some sort of vernacular language, is the immediate consequence of the latter. The community develops into a nation as people feel some sort of simultaneity in time by imagined linkage (Anderson, 2003). Anderson describes this phenomenon as when, through the ability of being mutually and consciously aware of the existence of other members of a so-called nation, the individuals grow together in a feeling oneness.

Added to those attributes of a nation and nationalism, one can add the importance of allegiance and patriotism as “components of national identity, as their definition refers to the latter; patriotism is indeed defined in terms of attachment and loyalty to a country and its political community” (Chastenay, and al. 2004).

II - CANADA

a) The Morning When Everything Changed

A few minutes: that’s all it took for the British army to defeat the French on the Plaines D’Abraham in 1759. Like the Moors loosing Granada to the Reyes Catolicos in 1492, the French capitulated, packed up, and left their population to mercy of the new British rulers and allowed the creation of Canada, a state with two founding peoples: The French and the British. It was a unique case in history as the colonizers became the colonized. The country that we know today is much different from what it was 1867. Today Canada, the second largest landmass, has a population of approximately 30 million mostly established close to the southern boarder and has the privilege to have its economic survival depend on its neighbor: the all-powerful United States of America.

Canada has known very little peace when it comes to determining a system that would allow both Franco-Catholics and Anglo-Protestants to fully and equally develop as parts of the same country. But as if it was not enough to attempt to untangle this intricate situation, the country’s necessity for immigration brought another set of issues for this newly founded state. As sundry waves of immigration took place, they slowly disrupted the duality of the Canadian origin system (McAndrew and Janssens, 2004).

b) Canada Compared

While it is sometimes difficult to reach a consensus when distinguishing between ethnicity and national identity is some parts of the world, many other countries, apart from Canada, from developed to developing states, are considered to be multinational states: Spain, Nigeria, South Africa, Belgium, and Switzerland amongst many others. For example, it not disputed whether a French-speaking Swiss is more Swiss than an Italian-speaking Swiss: the tests of time and history have proven the strength of the Swiss identity. Hence, what makes other multi-ethnic states so strong in defining their identity that Canada seems to be lacking? This question, evidently, if valid, can be subject to endless debate. However the premise of this paper assumes that the Canadian identity is weak in definition. We can concede, nonetheless, that a robust definition of the Canadian identity might not be necessary to observe the existence of the strong Canadian nation, which is embodied beyond the simple citizenship.

Nations, Language and Citizenship by Norman Berdichevsky brings a very interesting perspective on multi-ethnic countries and language and their implications on citizenship and identity formation. His main focus is to assess language in identity formation is spite of other factors such as race, religion, shared territory, or historical continuity. The book is consisted of twenty-six cases studies which evaluate each country with respect to how they deal with minorities. Berdichevsky analyses the possibility of rooting nationalism into linguistic differences or similarities and the ramifications on citizenship. He attempts to verify whether language has an overriding strength in determining national identity despite of shared citizenship. For the purpose of this article, I will summarize two of his case studies: Spain and Switzerland; and I will discuss Belgium from another scientist’s point of view.

As Spain has built its strengths on multiple coalitions, one of which ousted the Arab-Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula, the country has seen the majority of its issues rooted in regional autonomy and the status of each regional language. While there is no doubt that Spain has had it share of issues with the Basque independence movement, the Castilians, Catalans, Galicians “would not challenge the appellation of “Spaniards” (Berdichevsky, 2004). If fact, if language were to be the main source of identification, the Galacians would have found most comfort in uniting with Portugal since Galacian and Portuguese were at one time identical (Berdichevsky, 2004). While Galacians have linguistically tremendously more in common with the Portuguese than with the Castilians, it is common battles and memories that have contributed to the uniting Spaniard force.

The 700 years of common past of the Swiss have created a strong nation that has withstood the pressures of wars and invasions. With four official languages and two religions, Switzerland has enjoyed a great deal of internal stability as its people have cherished peace, neutrality, and strong democratic institution (Berdichevsky, 2004). According to the author the key to the Swiss success was in creating a system that allowed it citizens from different cultural identities to enjoy the “maximum of local self-rule” (Berdichevsky, 2004). Berdichevsky therefore concludes that the autonomy, the history of military resistance, and tolerance has allowed the citizens of this state to share of sense of nationhood, solidarity and sometime exclusive cohesion in spite of linguistic or cultural difference

Belgium’s geographical location “between countries of linguistic influence” has been one of the major causes of its history of language conflicts (Mc Andrews and Janssens, 2004). For a long time, while the country enjoyed a German majority, French was still considered to be the language of prestige and was therefore promoted in education. It is not until 1963 that the central government instituted a law territorializing official languages. Therefore, education must be received in Dutch, French or German, depending on which is the official regional language, unless the head of household can prove that the language spoken at home is different (Mc Andrews and Janssens, 2004). Brussels is, however an exception where parents and children can chose and reevaluate the language of education year to year.

The multi-ethnic and linguistic status of Brussels makes it very interesting to compare with Montreal. In fact, Mc Andrews and Janssens concluded that according to the home language date of Brussels, only 60% of the population could be labeled Flemish or members of the Francophone community. It was also possible to find approximately 10% of Brussels residents to be traditional bilinguals. The striking feature of Brussels is that out of the 30% of Brussels inhabitants that are non-Belgian nationals, and important number of them could identity themselves as Belgian but most of them cannot “consider themselves a member of the Flemish or Francophone community, even if they use French in their daily communication” (Mc Andrews and Janssens, 2004). Therefore language usage does not tend to define immigrants identity, while the great ideal of citizenship is embraced.

c) Canada as a Nation

Hey, I'm not a lumberjack, or a fur trader....
I don't live in an igloo or eat blubber, or own a dogsled....
and I don't know Jimmy, Sally or Suzy from Canada,
although I'm certain they're really really nice.
I have a Prime Minister, not a president.
I speak English and French, not American.
And I pronounce it 'about', not 'a boot'.
I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack.
I believe in peace keeping, not policing,
diversity, not assimilation,
and that the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal.
A toque is a hat, a chesterfield is a couch,
and it is pronounced 'zed' not 'zee', 'zed' !!!!
Canada is the second largest landmass!
The first nation of hockey!
and the best part of North America
My name is Joe!!
And I am Canadian!!!