I would react to the two texts by Gilles Bourque, published in Le Devoir on 30 and 31 July. Although very relevant and challenging, they are based on what I consider a reductionist reading of the conclusions of the report of the Bouchard-Taylor. My intention is not to defend the position of the commissioners - with which I agree on the merits - but to indicate some blind spots in the criticism that Bourque book. His thesis is that the representation of community ties put forward by Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor to be "ethnic" and "narrowly psychological." However, although one can share his reservations vis-à-vis the "psychologism" found in some passages of the report, as well as about a number of experts, it seems that Bourque remains trapped in a schematic theory that prevents the introduction to his reading of Quebec society, the item that the word "ethnic" - stripped of its pejorative connotations - aims to define. By remembering correctly that the dimension National - itself linked to an inescapable historical depth - should not be removed from the analysis, Bourque guilty, in my view, the error of opposing radical politics to the particularities and social experiences.
First, Bourque sees the reasoning of the Commissioners a chain of logic that would lead the "racialization" (cultural level) to the "psychologizing" (pre-political level) collective behavior. For him, focusing on the cultural sphere implies moving away from the political sphere, ultimately, come to the depoliticization that is clean the psychic life. It builds without explaining, on a three-step route that goes from the universal (the policy), in particular (culture) and the singular (the experience). Its regulatory framework is transparent: any significant difference vis-à-vis the universal horizon of the political leanings is a concession to "particularistic" first and "subjectivist" which then "fragment" the social totality. In this context, the concept of "ethnic nation" is totally inadmissible. According to Bourque, the "ethnic nation" is "a national community formed by the relationship (not hierarchical) between groups ethnic. " Not only do I disagree with this definition because the majority-minority hierarchy is critical, but I think only a caricature of reading Bouchard-Taylor can be assumed that commissioners and describe the real or desired Quebec . Let us be clear. I think that the Quebec nation, because it does not have a monopoly of the universal in its territory - what most independent nations have done through a huge physical and symbolic - n'ad ' choice but to apply its particularism - call it cultural or ethnic identity - As it is: a project to claim civic and inclusive, built on the universal values of Western modernity, but inexorably linked to a group that coexists with other (indigenous peoples, the Anglophone community, but also increasingly, religious communities and recent immigrant). That is why Quebec society, especially if it remains within the Canadian federation, will always consist of a majority in constant search for legitimacy among minorities. This is not good or bad, although I tend to think democratic pluralism that will win. But this is in any case, a reality in which relations "ethnic" or "intercultural" occupy a central place in public debate on major orientations. Affirm that this type of dynamic policy is not fully due to the absence of a principle that would neutralize the total national ethnocultural particularities seems to me to an idealistic vision, rigid and already exceeded what the policy twenty-first century.
Secondly, Bourque lingers, as did several others, on the eye "psychologizing" the commissioners would have covered the majority of Franco-Quebec. According to him, Bouchard and Taylor would consider that Quebecers of French-Canadian origin suffer in terms of ironic Bourque, an "ethno-psycho-pathology of identity" that must be addressed. Apparently they completely miss the target because, according to Bourque, the "anguish" or "frustration" expressed by the French-speaking Quebecers about the crisis of "reasonable accommodation" belong to the private realm and individuality, making them unnecessary for the analysis sociological. Note, before continuing, that the malaise of the majority who perceive themselves "besieged," "weak" or even "abused" by minorities who would "become too powerful," "untouchables", "protected and favored by the courts," etc.. is not unique to Quebec. This reversal of the imaginary relationship of domination between majorities and minorities is at the heart of the populist discourse that prevails in most Western societies, which are grappling with the tensions that arise naturally from a growing socio-cultural heterogeneity. In For Quebec, it is obvious that this type of speech is one of the most fertile ground: a national community whose representation of self is so strongly marked by the figure of the victim. But to speak of a "self image", a "feeling" or the "figure of the victim" seems to agree with Bourque. Are we not falling into this "psychologism" that he denounces so vigorously? It is obvious that words are loaded - even if they are used as metaphors - and the risk of slipping toward subjectivism is real. However, we exclude completely up to another risk, which is in my view more serious: to make living a non-social, as if the fears, anxieties and discomforts of identity (as well as illusions, hopes and plans group) were not inextricably linked to how we are doing society. Since we know how Bourque attributes importance to the role of political discourse in modern institutionalization process, I remain perplexed by his refusal to see in the discourse of "ordinary people" a place of construction of reality social. Thus, the fact that much of the public French-Quebec interpreter the problem of immigrant integration and relations with religious and linguistic minorities through the prism of his "fragile" - which turns any public affirmation of the identity of the Other as a threat to the integrity of identity - is a sociologically significant explanatory factor. The fact that this representation of self as an entity "weak" leads many francophone Quebecers not to assume their responsibilities as the dominant group within Quebec society - which would mean actively devote themselves to the protection of minorities is by definition most vulnerable to discrimination - is also a significant explanatory factor sociologically. In short, the experiences of people organized to how to structure social weft. These "emotional" group that can be observed are not mere aggregates of subjectivities constructed by the polls, or manipulated by leaders more or less randomly relayed by the media, nor of "essences" immutable but social configurations of meaning in a given context, direct citizen action, their leaders and institutions. In Quebec, one of the main " narratives "that shape the state action is the fragility of identity Franco-Quebecois. It is for intellectuals to justify it, to question and, if necessary, to deconstruct it.
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