Does anybody know? Why is Scotland so… unusual? Why, in general, do separatist societies these days tend to be so far left? And why are they so heavily into the police state? It’s like they want nationhood to snitch on each other all day.
Yes, Je me souviens, I’m looking straight at you and your intense COVID-era snitching. And the rest of your leftie antics because the stories I could tell are quite out there.
Modern separatist movements often stemmed from anti-colonial ideologies, so they lean towards the left. Of course, there are some interesting exceptions, like Alberta. And of course, there are some interesting ideological amalgamations, like in QC.
Also, only in the US the CAQ would be considered a left-wing party. People who voted for the CAQ are conservatives, left-wing moderates, or soft supporters of independence (i.e. traditional right-wingers, like the PM). People who massively supported the CAQ’s insane COVID policies were everything from left to right, excluding the extremes. The traditional left stayed with the PQ or voted for QS. The new left voted for QS. Anglos and anglo wannabes voted for the right-wing PLQ, because as we say here, put a red tie to a swine, and anglos and anglo wannabes will vote for it. All of them supported the CAQ COVID policies.
There has not been a left-wing party in power in QC since Jacques Parizeau, or maybe Pauline Marois. The Left as I understand it is gone. Could not vote for post-2016 Bernie. Could not vote for post-Layton NDP. The COVID years sealed my dissociation with left-wing parties, but unlike you I cannot recognize myself in right-wing movements, and trust me, I have tried.
Je me souviendrai toujours of what the CAQ did. From my 1-bedroom apartment in Hochelaga, trust me, it was awful. The only thing that saved that government was that they opened public schools earlier than in other Canadian provinces, provinces with governments even more conservative than the one in QC. The consequences in Ontarian universities from remote teaching are atrocious.
I do not follow Scotland’s policies. It seems to me that they want to differentiate themselves from the conservative UK, and hence come up with these policies. All those complaints are fascinating. They are detrimental to their separatist project.
Snowstorm in Lanaudière. You would love it.
Ol.
—Anglos and anglo wannabes voted for the right-wing PLQ, because as we say here, put a red tie to a swine, and anglos and anglo wannabes will vote for it.
I’d happily vote for some other federalist party if it existed and stood any chance…
I have an interesting story to tell… as you may know, QC government has recently increased tuition for out of province students. Some of my esteemed colleagues live in a bubble so insular that they attempted to enlist Quebec Solidaire for help (because someone vaguely remembered that QS stands for affordable education)… Yeah, right. The response was that funding of the universities should be based on the proportions of the population, and therefore anglophone universities are overfunded by a factor of about three… The only calculation in which this is possible, is where only the “historic anglos” are entitled to anything in English, anglophone education is just a toy of the anglophone community (inevitable evil from the Quebecois perspective?) and “anglo wanabees” as Ol puts it should not exist…
Anyway, serious question: why should any non-Francophone support this kind of nation-building that is clearly against their interests? The only reason I see – some misguided left-wing decolonization guilt…
I think that, with the ongoing collapse of college enrollments everywhere, it’s an… erm… interesting decision to turn away out of province students. Here we are scraping the bottom of the barrel, trying to get everybody with a pulse to enroll. And in QC they are trying to get rid of students. It’s something that I find hard to understand against the background of what we are going through with enrollments. I mean, how is it better to bring crowds of illiterate immigrants instead of educated students from other provinces?
And by the way, white people can’t get decolonized. Colonization is something that whites do to the non-whites.
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The CAQ is officially a federalist party.
The CAQ was misguided regarding of-out-province tuition. They went too far. Tuition should just be the same for out-of-province students as it is, for instance, for a Québec university student studying in Ontario. I also find it ironic that Belgium or French students have an agreement to study in QC for cheap, an agreement unavailable for Acadiens or Franco-Ontariens.
Not surprised by QS reaction. It was a party I completely supported years ago, but that is now trapped in so many contradictions it is embarrassing.
“Why should any non-Francophone support this kind of nation-building that is clearly against their interests?” What interests are you talking about? Being educated in English?
When I write “anglo wannabees,” I mostly have in mind French-Canadians who somehow think English is better than French, easier than French, and/or that their children should be educated in English. Some even talk to their children in English; the Wish version of the English language. It is quite sad. And a very colonial mindset. I equally hate the visceral anti-anglophone reaction of some Québécois, but for now it is somehow more folkloric than anything else.
Montreal and its suburbs will make anyone bilingual, provided your first language is French. Maybe also if your first language in English, but I don’t know.
The love-hate relationship I have with this province. It is something…
Ol.
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—The CAQ is officially a federalist party.
A statement like this illustrates how far out of whack even the baseline is… “Federalist” should not mean “let’s severe as many ties with the rest of Canada as possible without formally separating”… Sorry, I do not believe CAQ did not know how much education costs in other provinces…
—What interests are you talking about? Being educated in English?
Yes, for example. But not limited to it. Strengthening rather than weakening various connections with the rest of Canada. Mutual acceptance of (govt run) medical insurance with all other provinces.
And as far as education goes – the point is about freedom of choice, or about accepting that freedom of choice is a higher value than unilingual nation-building…
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I know, COVID was terrible in QC. My sister’s business was destroyed in 2 weeks. Had to fire everybody, declare bankruptcy. The children suffered, especially the little boy. I missed the last 2 years of my father’s life because of the lockdowns. We got off easy here in downstate Illinois. I’ll never claim fully to know what you all went through over there.
I’m also politically homeless, to be honest. I can’t vote for Trump but neither can I vote for Biden. We are locked in a terrible cycle, and right now I’m not seeing a way out.
Let’s talk about it in person when we finally meet, which is not going to be soon because my 1-month yearly vacation was stolen from me by the new bargaining agreement. So I’m stuck here. With wasps, human and entomological.
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Oh, you are coming to San Sebastian! I’m so glad. Finally, we’ll meet while I’m not on child duty. :-)))
Make sure you have good gossip. 🙂
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A very good point. I follow Catalonia and the Catalan independence movement and it’s the same there: the pro-Independence people are either left-leaning or far left. I suppose the repression under Franco’s regime would explain it but it’s not enough. I doubt that there would be a place for a right-of-centre party in an independent Catalonia.
Sinn Fein in Ireland is the same: basically former revolutionaries-cum-terrorists turned Woke leftist opportunists.
There must be more to it than meets the eye: can anyone help with some sharp intellectual analysis?
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“separatist societies these days tend to be so far left?”
They want to frame their separatist narratives as ‘progress’ and the left passes itself off better as ‘progress’ than does the right (the name ‘conservative’ is a give away here….).
And since this is less organic leftism but opportunistic leftism they tend to go for ‘purer’ forms which always involve things like denunciations of those who get in the way of ‘progress’
The right, for all its other problems, isn’t much into making a pubic spectacle of transgressors on its own side while the left has a big tradition of that.
And… it might be necessary for any chance of success… the northern Italian separatist parties were more right wing IINM and where are they now?
@cliff arroyo
the northern Italian separatist parties were more right wing IINM and where are they now?
Just this morning, Matteo Salvini, the leader of the formerly separatist Northern League, said that he is not a right-winger and that the League has never been right-wing. And who knows, he might be half-right, considering that he started his political career as an activist in the Youth Federation of Italy’s Communist Party – the exact equivalent of the Komsomol in the USSR – and was the leader of the Communist Party in the short-lived separatist “Parliament of the North”.
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“Salvini, the leader of the formerly separatist Northern League,”
Is there still any kind of separatist movement? I imagine there will always be a few but hasn’t it lost most of the support it had at one time?
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Policing is pretty much the most essential government function. (in societies unlikely to be invaded) It would make sense that this would be the main focus of separatists.
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