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Who Deserves Kindness?

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People in Quebec are super excited about the possibility of welcoming Syrian refugees. The media and the social networks are filled with touching stories of the Quebecois who are pledging to give their life savings to the refugees. People are creating databases of their houses and apartments where they are willing to welcome the refugees for free.

But wait, money and lodgings are nothing. The Quebecois’ kindness to the refugees has forced them to do something really unthinkable. They are willing – I’m not even sure I can pronounce the words, I’m overcome with emotion – to suspend their draconian language laws and allow the refugees into English – language schools!

What I find really curious is that these very same compassionate and kind Quebecois have been extremely hostile and shitty to the teachers of Quebec who were striking against the cuts to secondary education that are destroying Quebec’s public schools. If there is a case of people fighting for the public good it’s that of these teachers, yet they kept receiving threats and insults.

This whole phenomenon reminded me of the 19th – early 20th-century practice of getting kids to donate toys and coins to send to “savages” in Africa and Asia while teaching those same kids to despise the poor they saw in the streets.

10 responses to “Who Deserves Kindness?”

  1. el Avatar
    el

    \ getting kids to donate toys and coins to send to “savages” in Africa and Asia while teaching those same kids to despise the poor they saw in the streets.

    Loved this unexpected way to look at the issue, but I see two large differences whose significance is worth exploring:

    The “savages” then always stayed far away, never becoming “the poor in the streets”.
    Donating toys and a few coins sometimes, only when one wished, was easy. When Syrians come, they will need quite a lot of money, constantly and for a long time.

    What do you see happening a few years down the road, when Syrians are not so new and interesting anymore, but still need funds? Will they still be treated better than the teachers? If yes, why?

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      “The “savages” then always stayed far away, never becoming “the poor in the streets”.”

      • Quebec has a very robust social safety net. There are no poor in the streets, nor will there be any time soon.

      “When Syrians come, they will need quite a lot of money, constantly and for a long time.”

      • That will never be a problem for the Quebecois. They are not Anglos, so they are not as fiercely materialistic. It’s a different culture. (Very different from the French of France, as well.)

      “What do you see happening a few years down the road, when Syrians are not so new and interesting anymore, but still need funds? Will they still be treated better than the teachers? If yes, why?”

      • There is already a huge Muslim immigrant community in Quebec, so there isn’t anything particularly new about Syrian refugees. Everybody has met and knows Syrians in Quebec. The Quebecois have this very interesting and quite paradoxical mentality where they will be incomparably, incredibly, fabulously kind and generous to those they perceive as miserable but very harsh and unforgiving to those whom they perceiving as being slightly better off than themselves.

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      1. valter07 Avatar
        valter07

        Strange impression you have of us Anglos… 🙂 🙂 We in our very Anglo department founded a scholarship for a refugee (if some wants to come study our subject). I mean – funded by the donations of the faculty members…

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          I cannot believe that you just renounced the proud name of a Quebecois Allophone to brand yourself as an Anglo. 🙂

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          1. valter07 Avatar
            valter07

            Oh, well… I am not technically an Allophone, as my French is very bad. So I am not deserving of that proud name. 🙂 Besides, one more time PQ comes to power and I will become a British Imperialist, I swear. It runs in the family, so it is excusable. My grandfather was once arrested by the Germans due to suspected pro-British sympathies (eventually released).

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              I thought all immigrants who were not native speakers of English were considered Allophones.

              “Besides, one more time PQ comes to power and I will become a British Imperialist, I swear.”

              🙂 🙂

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  2. Ol. Avatar
    Ol.

    I love the analogy you made in your last paragraph. And I feel that you miss Quebec (and your family) dearly these days. Right?

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      True! I won’t be able to travel there this winter, you know why. But it’s for a good cause. 🙂

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  3. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    We should help Syrians to assimilate in French.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Of course.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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