Chartre des valeurs - Quebec Charter of Values

  The debate regarding Quebec’s proposed Charter of values has taken a preoccupying turn in the last few days. The time has come to attempt to adjust the aim and, hopefully , come to a more fruitful dialogue about the proposal.

Photo from Radio-Canada

     First of all, I am of the opinion that the proposed charter is not in any way racist. The reason is because of the context. I am of the school that understands racism to be discrimination by a group holding dominant power in society; it is directed against an oppressed people, often a minority, because of an incidental element (for example, skin colour).  The Charter cannot be racist because Quebec is itself an oppressed minority struggling for its survival as a francophone society. An oppressed society cannot be racist.

     However, and for me this is extremely important, any society, including an oppressed and marginalized society, can be discriminatory. Discrimination is a larger term of which racism is one expression.

     It is my view that the Quebec government has decided to invoke its constitutional right to discriminate. This is written into the charter of rights through the notwithstanding clause. It has done so by invoking the important character of its unique status as a religiously neutral state within Canada. This is seen as a way of assuring Quebec’s continuing identity within the larger context of North America. In other words, the Quebec government seems prepared to discriminate for the good of the societal project to which it claims most people in Quebec are in agreement.

     However, the question then becomes whether or not the Quebec government is justified in such discrimination. My answer would be a resounding no. My reason for rejecting the proposed charter then, is that I cannot accept that the discrimination invoked here will advance the special character of the project of society at work in Quebec. It will, in fact, work much to its detriment. This is not at all like the passage of Law 101 that resulted in the exit of many Anglophones from Quebec. They were in fact part of the dominant force in North American society.  The Charter proposal goes much further in discriminating against some of the most vulnerable people in Quebec: immigrants, women, and religious minorities.

     I am convinced that the Quebec government has shot itself in the foot by proposing this Charter. It has lost whatever support and credibility it might have among religious minorities as also among a good part of the religious majority (Christians) and, not least, among many immigrants and women.   

The only motivation I can find behind the proposal is strictly electoral: The government is under the impression that the proposal will strongly unite its bases within the regions of Quebec outside of Montreal and within all the traditional Quebec society - those identified as “de souche.”  And it may well be that the debate will provide the Partie québecois with a chance to become a majority government after the next election. However, in that case, what will be left of the famous inclusive project of society for Quebec. I fear: very little.

The History of Story

    I am in no way a historian of culture or an anthropologist. Nevertheless, in the course of some work on a presentation on the story of the universe, I have become interested in the history of story. In 1909, Arthur Ransom wrote a classic history of storytelling that attempts to outline the phenomenon in English literature.  Much more recently, the BBC also produced a two-part series on the history of story that looks into the long historical background to the modern novel.

    My interest is somewhat different. I have tried, for several decades to understand religious experience as a vital part of the structure of human consciousness. The phenomenon of storytelling is closely related to the development of religion among humans. Story and storytelling plays a huge role in indigenous and African cultures. The tradition runs back long before written history and serves the transmission of identity, values and traditions in these cultures. I will be looking at it particularly from what is known of human habitation particularly in Europe.

    The history of story is a fascinating part of our human development.  1,250 million years ago homo habilis appeared throughout Asia and Central Europe leaving behind a legacy of hand axes. This was an marvellous new development for the survival of the species. However, at that point language, and therefore stories did not exist. There was no such thing as religion. The concentration was on the immediate struggle for survival. However, the fabrication of tools indicated a use of memory and a capacity for planning. Animals, of course, also use tools, but the scale of hand axes was a qualitative leap.  

    Much later, about 500 thousand years ago, homo erectus settled into Asia and Southern Europe. During that period fire was mastered. This too marked a major new development in human culture since it greatly assisted survival by lowering the vulnerability to disease as a result of eating raw meat and other foods.  Beyond that, the mastery of fire meant played a role also in creating the first elements of a culture as family groups gathered in the evenings around the campfire for warmth. It was a perfect setting to begin telling stories of what had happened during the day. What is not clear is the extent to which language matched the setting. This would require a pivotal turning in human culture.  

    More or less 200 thousand years ago archaic homo sapiens, with a first glimmering of self-consciousness, began the practice of ritual burials in a circle of stones with animals placed nearby to nourish the departed. Archaic homo sapiens occupied central Europe from the area of the Czech Republic to the eastern border of France. At this time, the importance of harmony with the mysterious forces of the world around them had led recognition of the importance of gestures that would unite them to the spirit world that inhabited everything around them.  This was the prelude to the emergence of modern human beings sometime between 120 and 40 thousand years ago out of Africa.

    The Neanderthals, the first modern human beings, left behind an enormous artistic output in music, painting and sculpture. We find also the beginnings of a more sophisticated form of language that enabled an elaborate use of memory and  communication on a symbolic level.

    Some painting in caves of this period reveal shamanic figures, consciousness of a world of spirit and a desire to be integrated into the cosmic processes that dominated their life, especially  birth and death as well as the cycle of seasons. There are elaborate burial sites and a bear cult that continues to exist in one part of northern Japan.

    Sometime around 40 thousand years ago human sapiens sapiens, our own species, appears.  They are marked by an expanded use of language though symbolic sound and gesture. Increasingly, there was a need for teaching, for handing on knowledge for survival in very broad terms.  In other animals this is minimal. For humans it became a major period of early life. The telling of stories was designed not just to learn hunting and defense skills but to be in harmony with the forces of nature around them. Humans are vulnerable and have to depend on a harmonious relationship with those forces.

    From about 11 thousand years ago, there is a mysterious absence during three thousand years of evidence of human habitation in the world. The next evidence of human presence will be in Neolithic villages throughout Southwest Asia and Africa as well as the Americas. These people are engaged in raising domesticated animals and in agriculture.  Starting about five or six thousand years ago, early civilizations lie directly at the foundation of the world as we know it today

    Organized court religion will emerge full-fledged in the courts of Near-Eastern civilization, but the original inspiration through stories and gestures aimed at harmonious communion with the mysterious spirit-world that guides life and death as well as the turning of the seasons will continue to be very present right up to our day even though it is often repressed.

    Christian have a large task ahead of them to re-reat the life of Jesus in the light of this history. Jesus was an extraordinary observer of nature around him and the way in which he was able to interpret this through his life and teaching deserves much more attention.