Ethnic cleansing of Anglos in Quebec

[s_lone]

Cultures come and go, this has been true throughout history, if French or English or Portugese dissapear because the population prefers another language, then so be it. If anyone misses it, they can visit a museum.

Cultures do come and go but rarely does a culture disapear without people fighting for it. In Quebec we have chosen to fight strong and it has worked quite well. I'm perfectly happy with that.
I only wish English was better taught in French schools.

 

[Numure]

A good friend of mine was fired from a food store. (and she <SNIP: SPAM> a beginners french). The reason she was fired is that a french customer complained she said 13 wrong in french. My friend said treize) . She said this french customer was harassing her for a week and finally told my friend's boss that her french wasn't good enough. To everybody that thinks this is o.k I think it' was just ridiculous. It made me mad as hell to be part of this province. There are a lot of spies. Yes I call them spies that just want to rid english from this province. How many times have I gotten on a bus only to see the grafitti., GO HOME ENGLISH CANADIAN. Or yelled at by a bus driver that doesn't want to speak english. IMaybe I'm generalising here but these situations go on all the time. To protect my 3 year old I'm enrolling her in french school . It's the only way to get a half decent job without having to be limited in the job market because you don't speak french.

If you want to have equal job opportunities in Montréal, you have to be fluent in both english and french. This goes for not only anglophones, but francophones too.

Catch up with the times.

 

[Numure]

When you require laws (like Bill 101) to force culture upon the population, what does that say about the culture itself?

.....

Bill 101 was passed in responce to Anglophone Multinalitonals using english only in their business conducts in Québec. Official Bilingualism didnt exist when Bill 101 came into play, btw.

Everysingle none French Business didnt use french, neither in their work enviroment, or their business operations.

We asked for change, the Government gave us change. French wasnt even the official language of Québec until Bourassa made it Official, with his first draft of 101.

 

[missile]

You are right.. and the fired person's problem must have been one of fluency.

 

[Machjo]

Cultures come and go, this has been true throughout history, if French or English or Portugese dissapear because the population prefers another language, then so be it. If anyone misses it, they can visit a museum.

Cultures do come and go but rarely does a culture disapear without people fighting for it. In Quebec we have chosen to fight strong and it has worked quite well. I'm perfectly happy with that.
I only wish English was better taught in French schools.

It is a natural human reaction to fight for a threatened culture. I personally prefer the solution in Quebec to the ones here in the PRC. In Quebec, they fought by creating new laws. In Xinjiang, they'd blown up bused (though that hasn't happenned for over a year now I believe, but that's still recent enough, not to mention that the ethnic tension in Urumqi was palpable when I was there (just like Montreal, really). In Tibet, it can be potentiall unsafe for a Han! and in Yanbian, some of the locals aren't particularly welcomming either. But of course here the situation is different. The central governmnet policy is to ensure that Putonghua has at least an equal official status with all otehr languages in the nation. But then when you add the sheer economic, demographic, cultural, military and political power of teh Chinese language, it sure is overwhelming.Those who want their child to have opportunity must seriously consider Putonghua even if they hate it (many who hate the language the most are precicely those who speak it!), while trying to defend the local language at the same time.

 

[Machjo]

They aren't rejecting it.

It says the culture is threatenned and needs a legal counterbalance.

Bill 101, or language laws discriminate one language over another. If the population is "moving" towards another language or culture, why is there a need by some to preserve something that people are rejecting?

The Uighurs arent' rejecting Uighur. The Tibetans aren't rejecting Tibetan. The Inner Mongolians aren't rejecting Mongolian. And teh Chinese koreans and Chinese Russians aren't rejecting their languages either. The issue rather is that their communities are increasingly overrun with Han (up until teh 1980's the Chinese couldn't freely move around their country. Now they can and are moving west for new opportunities, and that is flooding Tibet and Xinjiang!In Urumqi, the Han are the majority already, and their numbers are growing by the day due to this new found freedom of movement. To succeed, children must learn Putonghua whether they like it or not. that's a matter of economic necessity. But the han aren't reciprocating. This means that over time the pressure will be towards assimilation to Putonghua. Yet teh lack of interest on the part of the Han to learn the local languages is offensive to teh locals, and so they react.

Sound familiar?

 

[damngrumpy]

I think we should have the kids learn as many languages as possible in a changing world.
The problem is polarization, people demand French to protect themselves. From what?
If they can't speak other languages they are doomed and they can't move outside of their
own narrow little world. The young people who do leave will likely never make it back to
Quebec. On the other side of this issue, if we insisted on English only and decided to cut
our nose off to spite our face, how loud do you think the screaming would be that we were
all bigots and racists? I hope we never do that as it limits choice but what if we did, the
whole French quarter would have a fit.
I like the ethnic cleansing bit though, with no mention of the fact that English Canada under
the British ethnically cleansed Cape Breton and much of New Brunswick, but we should not
talk about that here. The ethnic cleansing stuff is hysteria at best, hard to take it seriously
after that.

 

[lone wolf]

Damned necropolls.....

 

[Dexter Sinister]

I think the whole premise of this thread, from 2004 originally I might add, is just stupid. To equate the circumstances of English speakers in Quebec with ethnic cleansing is so ludicrous it makes the phrase meaningless. Ethnic cleansing is one of those spin terms for genocide, and that's not remotely what's happening in Quebec. Are French speakers massacring English speakers? No. It may not be very nice, but it doesn't deserve the label "ethnic cleansing." A little perspective, please.

 

[relic]

Cut off the federal money and see how long they wanted to be independent.. F...'em,what have they got except poutine and some hydro they stole from the Newfies !

 

[Cliffy]

Cut off the federal money and see how long they wanted to be independent.. F...'em,what have they got except poutine and some hydro they stole from the Newfies !

The flip side of that would be that they discover that they don't really need the federal teat, an move off on their own. Although, I think they would have to lower their standard of living for a while their economy adjust to the loss of the corporations that would abandon them.

 

[Johnnny]

Who cares about this look at the people with french last names in Ontario who cant speak french, it works both ways....