frandroid | (no subject)

I met the guy who was the NDP candidate in Charlesbourg in 1997! He was pretty cool. He had an accent, it was German although I'm not sure. Weird for a guy named Jocelyn Tremblay. Maybe he was a militarty brat stationed in Germany when we had a base there? How was that base named again? Ladr? hmmmm. I had voted for him in my first election in 1997. He was a hardcore independentist, even then, even in his campaign material. Hah. Fucker.

The more I transit back and forth between Toronto and Québec City, the more I feel that one day, the separatist fuckers will manage to ride on a wave and get Québec out of the country.

"Oui bonjour, je cherche un roman de Rohinton Mistry en traduction française, avez-vous ça?"

"c'est qui ça?"

Well, that was the used bookstore. I had more luck at Librairie Pantoute (although they file him, along with Margaret Atwood, in their "Littérature étrangère" section), but they were all out of stock, except for the hardcover of Family Matters. I want my mom to have an idea of who Parsis are.

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i remember you said growing up, you used to be a separatist. just wondering what changed for you and what are your critiques of separatism now?

I actually travelled outside of Québec, and got to clear the stupid myths about Canada that we hear in Québec. I learned more about politics, and I realized that the federal government was ripping off all provinces, not just Québec. I don't mind the Parti Québecois at a certain level, I mean it's democracy, but when the Bloc goes saying that they'll defend the interests of Québec, I think that this is a cruel joke that people are buying into. The Bloc makes me sick in a way that the PQ doesn't, in spite of my dislike of separation. At least the PQ can implement progressive policies in a way that the Bloc can't.

Also, I had always been a "slow" separatist, advocating for gradual decentralization towards independence. That was in line with my anarchism. What has gotten more in line with my anarchism over the years though, was a dislike for nationalism. I'm not an anarchist anymore, but that dislike stuck around.

The main arguments for separatists right now are:
1) Québec is culturally different, and thus desserves its own nation.
- bullshit. Québec's culture is fully flourishing within Canada, and is awash with federal government money to make it flourish. Radio-Canada used to be the hard core of Québec's culture. Now the 17 top-watched shows in Québec are watched on TVA, Québec's biggest private TV network, and many of the shows are translated American shows. Radio-Canada in Québec was not what the CBC is in English Canada. Radio-Canada used to be the top-watched TV network in Québec. Anyway, the end point of this argument is that the threat to Québec's culture comes from Hollywood and from record labels in New York, not from Toronto, and that an independent Québec would not be the solution to stopping this tide. There used to be economic and cultural domination of English Canadians in Québec, but that has been turned around using the legislative tools available to the people of Québec within the Canadian federation.

2) The federal gov't is ripping Québec off.
- true, on one side, and patently false, on another side. The feds are ripping off the province Québec. and the provinces of Ontario, BC, Alberta, etc. As for the amount of being ripped off, Québec actually gets the largest equalization cheque from the government in the entire country. The federal investments in cultural production end up disproportionally (in terms of population) in Québec. I think B.C. and the Maritimes, Newfoundland and Labrador in particular, have a far more credible case of being ripped off by the Federal gov't.

3) People in Québec are more on the left, they would elect leftist governments and not by stuck with conservative liberals.
- Yeah, from the 1970s to the early 1990s, Québec was ruled by rather progressive governments, whether they were liberal or péquiste. However, that era is gone. Jean Charest is not butchering programs as fast as a Mike Harris or Gordon Campbell, but he's in the same mold, and people elected him. Highly doubtful they'll re-elect him next time around though. There was talk of a SINGLE day of general (union) strike to protest against his policies, but even that pitiful show of "force" fell apart when one of the unions pulled out, in spite of wide support from its members. Also, in the last provincial election, the Action Démocratique (ADQ) got 20% of the vote on an extremely conservative fiscal agenda. If an independent Québec got proportional representation, this would make the ADQ the kingmaker of a minority government. Hardly the recipe for a progressive agenda.

People accused the separatism movement of being racist and I won't defend it from it, but I don't think that it's particularly more racist than the rest of the population. When Maka Kotto won a seat for the Bloc in the last election, becoming their first african-canadian (or african-québécois, if you want) MP, it was his Liberal opponent's PR person that told the media to "go talk to the nigger people just elected". That was just a week ago.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/OopBooks/UsedBook.asp?userid=Er72ISr0NA&ean=2830564866815&author=rohinton+mistry&WID=66263188&rFlag=Y

i hope that link works for you.

oh cool. I thought you were just linking me to a B&N page, and I hate buying books online (it's highly convenient and often cheap, but I like to support bookstores), but I see that it's actually linking to a Québec City store that sells it. Thanks. :]

Also, I just finished reading the English version of this book, and this version you linked to was the very one I wanted to buy for my mom. You must be reading my mind!

I thought it was getting slow for a while, but the end redeemed it.

wow. so is that the first mistry book you've read? it's about time mister. i haven't read that one, but a fine balance is genius. the only other thing i've read is journey to dharmsala. which is the essay i had to analyze and present a seminar on.

as for the bn website. i've become addicted to the used and out of print section. because all the books i want seem to be out of print and rare. but yes, that section is linked to all the individual booksellers who have the book in stock. so you go through bn, but the transaction is with the bookseller.

No, I've read Tales from Firoszha Baag too, last summer. I didn't even know of this Dharmsala essay. What is it about, besides the obvious?

As for used books, I stocked up on my first summer in Toronto, and I haven't caught up still. I don't read as much anymore. Although I want to get in the habit of reading one book chapter a day, whether study or pleasure.

journey to dharmsala is about mistry's childhood dream of dharmsala and wanting to go there. when he eventually does, he finds that it's not what he expected, and he goes thru a journey of accepting change and loss.