In Hong Kong there are many of us who want to preserve Hong Kong/Cantonese culture from erosion by CCP/mainland culture. For example, sometimes you can see a lot of mandarin around school kids rather than cantonese. The government is also pushing for schools to teach in mandarin rather than cantonese. Mandarin is the language for mainland china, Cantonese is a minority language.
I imagine it is like this in other parts of the world where someone from a ‘minority’ culture wishes to preserve their culture & language against the dominant culture/language. Is there a word for someone like this in English?
the closest i could think of is “nationalist” but that’s definitely not correct, it’s not like one saying one culture is superior, but just that you want to protect it and conserve it and keep it in place.
If you were to listen to Anglo Canadians when they talk about French Canadians trying to protect their culture, that word would be “racist” because they feel persecuted by the fact that we don’t want to assimilate.
I think the racist label has more to do with the way french Quebec leaders go about supposedly protecting their culture. Limiting religious expression (Bill 21), no longer allowing anglos to access essential services in English, mandating that new immigrants become fluid in french within 6 months I believe? The idea that Quebec has language police has been a running joke for years.
They can claim these steps are taken to protect Quebec culture, but they seem pretty targeted to me. Anyway, I’m anglo and was born and raised in Quebec, so am I just not part of the culture?
Supposedly?
French was in decline until the introduction of Bill 101 and it needed to be updated to reflect today’s reality and to patch some of the flaws in it.
Anglos can still receive services in their language as it’s something protected by the Constitution.
Is it that far-fetched to communicate with immigrants in the official language of the place they decided to live in? No matter how long we would have given them, some people would have been mad that we didn’t just communicate with them in English forever meaning they would feel like they don’t need to learn French to live in Quebec (like many Anglo-Quebecois feel).
As for Bill 21, Quebec had a hard split with religion in the 60s contrary to the rest of Canada and religion is treated like something that stays in the private sphere by French Quebecois. Considering our history with the church and how it might have protected our culture but it also oppressed us, it’s no wonder that we want a true separation of religion and State.
I’ll ask you something I never get a real answer to, should a judge be allowed to wear a political party logo on their robe? Because that’s currently forbidden at both the provincial and federal level and it’s also something protected by freedom of expression, just like religious expression.
French being in decline is apparently not as straightforward as that.
Source 1 Source 2
Likewise, neither is the ability to access services. Even if service in your language is technically available according to the constitution, the quality and equality of these services arguably suffers for anyone who is not a french quebecer (see the healthcare, court and justice sections). Anecdotally, I had trouble accessing many government services in English even before bill 96. Ive been hung up on several times when asking for service in English, even when it was offered to me in a menu or whatever. Luckily I’m okay at French so I got by. Someone from a country that speaks a language which doesnt resemble French whatsoever may struggle. Or someone with a disability like Autism as cited in the gazette article above. Especially with only 6 months to learn a new language, which is just not a long enough time in many cases. Overall I agree that its reasonable to expect most people to learn french if they intend to stay in quebec long term.
The bill 21 debate is tough, because im not religious or French. I’m against the bill on a personal level, but dont feel I can really argue from that view alone. However, the bill does seem to impact non-christian faiths more negatively.
The political logo argument probably doesnt get many answers because its a pretty poor comparison in my opinion. I dont have to be religious to know that someone’s faith is more integral to who they are as a person, their identity, than any political affiliation in most cases. So long as that sort of expression isn’t hurting anyone in Quebec directly (religious violence, etc. specifically) I dont see what right Quebec politicians have to interfere with that.
As an outsider with no horse in the race, I thought this a good discussion.
In the end, I think maybe Quebec gets what it wants: I have no interest in visiting a place that tries to police its “culture” that much.