Some comments regarding freedom of expression and Québec in response to The Line editors’ post: Dispatch from the Front Lines: Harjit Sajjan now somehow looks even worse.
Silencing BY not OF Freedom of Expression?
“Freedom of expression and academic freedom should be vigorously protected, but not at the expense of silencing marginalized people and groups.”
Ok, have to admit, I don't get this.
Why would protecting freedom of expression have the effect of "silencing" anyone? I could understand, maybe, saying protecting freedom of expression should not be at the expense of...fill in the blank here (hurting, humiliating, violating, etc.) someone else. But I don't get how protecting someone's freedom of expression would equate with "silencing" anyone. Makes no sense to me.
Surely protecting freedom of expression would not silence but protect the freedom of expression of anyone and everyone, including marginalized folks. The problem, from a freedom of expression perspective, is, if anything in this story and academic context, it appears those marginalized folks are trying to silence the freedom of expression of, in this case, some university profs.
Sounds like, freedom of expression here is perhaps meant to include the freedom to be incoherent. Surely every student's dream evaluation! As in: this paper is completely incoherent, however given your right to freedom of expression I am obliged to give you an 'A' anyway! Hurrah! Shouts of joy were heard emanating from the hallowed halls and dorms of academia as students discovered their new-found freedom of expression. The revolution has arrived! Liberty to all! No need to march! Sleep in whenever…!
About Québec
I'll hazard a speculative generalization. Virtually every violent social conflict around the planet involves some degree of ethnic conflict. Ethnic identity, language, culture, remain as motivating realities for human individuals and societies.
Curiously, in an era when identity politics is all the rage played out as fractured personas fighting for screen time on digital devices, Québec nationalism can still rub as unintelligible.
Here's a current take (shift or rift) regarding an old distinction. Québec does not see itself as Nouvelle France. Never has. Nouvelle France was an administrative construct of French imperialism.
La nation canadienne/québecoise is a 400 year-old society with a long cultural memory.
Frankly, not to understand Québec is simply not to understand Canada. As if Canada actually began with the great bureaucratic coup of 1867 and the propaganda mills it spawned and celebrates every July 1.
Similarly, not to understand First Nations is not to understand Canada, as if Canada began when the colonials started to arrive.
But then such misunderstandings just reflect the isolated cultural regions bureaucratically cobbled together in 1867. Cultural memories lie across the country, like unmarked graves, to disturb the unwary with ghosts of unintelligibility that seem to arise as if from nowhere.