Quest-ce que la démocratie ? (Essais) (French Edition)

This feeling is justified since it is an expression of the fragility of francophone Quebec in America, a condition accentuated by globalization and by uncertainty over the francization of immigrants. It is also justified to the extent that it affirms the importance of preserving fundamental values like gender equality and the separation of church and state. Finally, it is accentuated by the fact that the national question remains unresolved and even seems to be sliding towards an impasse. That said, it is undeniably conflated by some participants in the public debate with a desire to formally consecrate the dominant status of the foundational culture and to give legal recognition to this precedence.

The incontestable fragility of francophone Quebec does not seem to me to justify measures so radical that they would institute a regime of a priori inequality between citizens. Here again we see a potential risk associated with the duality paradigm. Thus, it is important to instill a pluralist mindset and protective mechanisms at the highest levels of the duality paradigm in order to avoid falling into ethnicism impingements on the rights of others for inadmissible reasons.

The second original attribute of interculturalism is that, while fostering respect for diversity, the model favours interactions, exchanges, connections, and intercommunity initiatives. It thus privileges a path of negotiations and mutual adjustments, but with strict respect for the values of the host society as inscribed in law or constitutional texts and all while taking into account the so-called shared values of a common public culture.

A spirit of conciliation, balance, and reciprocity presides over the process of interaction at the heart of interculturalism. The preceding makes a case for a culture of genuine interaction and mutual adjustments as a condition for integration. This is why interculturalism makes all citizens responsible for maintaining intercultural relations in daily life, especially when facing the inevitable incompatibilities that surface at the levels of institutions and communities.

It is the duty of each citizen placed in an intercultural situation to contribute to mutual adjustments and accommodations. The courts obviously retain their indispensable function, though only as a last recourse after citizen action has failed to resolve disagreements. It also follows that beyond state policy, interculturalism encourages creative initiatives from individuals and groups working on a microsocial level. In total, we can identify four avenues for action corresponding with as many categories of actors: This view presupposes the existence of a culture or ethic of exchange and negotiation, which might seem idealistic.

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However, and this was an important finding of the Commission I co-chaired, such a culture already exists within a large part of the population of Quebec. We saw it in action in the daily life of institutions notably in the spheres of education and healthcare , as well as in the hundreds of groups that have been formed primarily in metropolitan areas in the last few years to foster the socio-economic integration of immigrants.

Many municipal councils, even in rural areas, have also enacted policies designed to attract and integrate newcomers. In any case, these efforts must obviously be extended and expanded with support from the State, which should work to put in place a whole network of officials, locations, and communication channels that encourage connection, mutual recognition, and integration.

Contrary to the so-called communitarian mindset and for the sake of countering the risks of fragmentation ordinarily associated with multiculturalism, interculturalism aims for a strong integration of diverse coexisting traditions and cultures. According to the most commonly accepted sociological view, the term integration designates the totality of mechanisms and processes of insertion or assimilation that constitute the social bond, which is further cemented by its symbolic and functional foundations.

These processes and mechanisms engage all citizens new and long-standing , operate on many levels individual, community, institutional, and state , and work in multiple dimensions economic, social, cultural, and so forth. On a cultural level, the concept of integration is devoid of any assimilationist connotations. Nevertheless, during the recent controversies in Europe, it sometimes came to acquire this kind of connotation.

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In keeping with these ideas, interculturalism advocates a particular type of pluralism that I would define as integrationary. This is its third defining trait.

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A majority culture that feels threatened by its minorities will feel the need to either assimilate them which predicts the end of duality or to integrate them the road that Quebec has thus far taken. It instinctively fears all kinds of fragmentation, ghettoization, or marginalization. This is even truer when this majority is a minority on the continental level, as is the case with francophone Quebec. This state of affairs becomes an imperative that frames the discussion on how to approach the intercultural reality of Quebec. It highlights the importance that must be given to the integration of minorities and immigrants in order to strengthen this francophonie and ensure its future.

Measures that run counter to pluralism such as those currently proposed by republican secularists tend to increase the risk of marginalization and fragmentation—two phenomena precisely associated with multiculturalism that have contributed to its rejection. The central idea here is that francophone Quebec is itself in a difficult situation and must avoid fostering costly long-term divisions—it would do much better to create the allies it needs within immigrants and cultural minorities.

All attempts at a general model must incorporate this basic concern. Furthermore, when speaking about Quebec one cannot ignore its more than two centuries of struggle for survival in a context marked by an unfavourable population imbalance, unequal power relations, and by the various assimilation policies of the colonial authorities. Memories of this period naturally feed present-day anxieties. They also provide a constant reminder for vigilance.

They cannot be ignored. Interculturalism therefore advocates in favour of integration, thus emphasizing the need for interactions and connections Boiled down to its essence, the argument is simple—the best way to counter the unease we sometimes feel towards foreigners is not to keep them at a distance, but to approach them in a way that breaks down stereotypes and facilitates their integration in the host society.

In other words, exclusion is reprehensible not only on a moral or legal level, but from a sociological and pragmatic standpoint as well. And yet interculturalism is not a straitjacket. It acknowledges the right of ethnoreligious groups to organize themselves in small communities that, while respecting the law, maintain a rather distant relationship from the rest of society.

In the opposite direction, it gives great latitude to individuals who wish to identify themselves first and foremost as Quebecois by relegating their identification with their group or culture of origin to the background, or by renegotiating this belonging. On another, often-neglected level, it is of course true that social and economic incorporation must accompany cultural integration. It may even be a necessary precondition. For this reason and for others having to do with basic social justice, we must lament that current debates on integration do not give this fact the attention it deserves.

In Quebec as elsewhere, access to employment is the area most likely to be affected by discriminatory practices. Prolonged negligence on this front has important social costs, as we have seen recently in various European countries. Cultural integration contains a fifth characteristic that deserves greater attention.



While seeking an equitable interaction between continuity and diversity, interculturalism allows for the recognition of certain elements of ad hoc or contextual precedence for the majority culture. I say ad hoc because it is out of the question to formalize or establish this idea as a general legal principle, which would lead to the creation of two classes of citizens. In this way, interculturalism distinguishes itself from radical republican that, whether directly or not, use the pretext of universalism to bestow a systematic, a priori precedence on what I term the majority or foundational culture.

This kind of arrangement, which establishes a formal hierarchy, opens the door to abuses of power. That said, I think that as long as the nature and the reach of ad hoc precedence are carefully circumscribed it can avoid the excesses of ethnicism while giving some advantages or the needed protections to the majority culture. This principle is justified on several levels. The first stems from what I term the identity argument. In order for the majority group to preserve the cultural and symbolic heritage that serves as the foundation of its identity and helps to ensure its continuity, it can legitimately claim some elements of contextual precedence based on its seniority or history.

This claim is, as already mentioned, even more grounded when the cultural majority is itself a minority in the continental environment. As we will see, it is always difficult to establish in the abstract the full extent of this concept, which should take shape in specific situations conditioned by democratic debate and through negotiations mediated by the Charter of human rights and freedoms. This is a second argument, based on history and custom.

Many intellectuals, liberal and otherwise, have in effect demonstrated or recognized that while the cultural neutrality of nation-states or more precisely, the majorities that control them is sought-after and proclaimed in principle, it does not exist in reality—some authors even maintain that it is impossible.

They see the margin of non-neutrality as an unfortunate inevitability.

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For others, it proves even useful and necessary. For example, it allows for the consolidation of national identity, which is at once a source of solidarity and a foundation for responsible citizen participation and social justice. What is involved here are some initiatives or policies that aim to preserve a so-called national culture, which we know to be in large part the culture of the majority.

These initiatives usually have the effect of supporting the religion of the majority, its language, and some of its institutions and traditions, all in the name of history, identity or continuity. Think of gender equality in Quebec, individual liberty in the United States, racial equality in places formerly rife with segregation, familial solidarity in Mediterranean societies, social equality in Scandinavian countries, and so forth.

In fact, although it is never put in a theoretical, normative or even explicit form, the principle behind elements of ad hoc precedence occupies an important place in the functioning of democratic societies. Secular states in particular make for an eloquent example. Beyond their founding principles, values, norms, and laws, these states typically incorporate a number of contextual and historic elements as well as political and social choices befitting the majority. We could claim that all secular regimes are an arrangement of four constitutive principles or values: Actually, there is little new in my proposition.

What I add is a willingness to acknowledge these forms of ad hoc precedence and to consider them head-on in order to clarify their status, reach, and limits, rather than pushing them to the margins as though they were accidental or non-existent. So, this second argument relies on a wisely institutionalized and unavoidable practice that is seen as useful, if not necessary, to even the most democratic of societies, even if it is dealt with as a blind spot.

From a general perspective, and this is the third argument, this practice can be considered a kind of accommodation that minorities accord to majorities, under certain conditions subject to debate. This is very much in the spirit of interculturalism, which seeks harmonization through mutual adjustments according to a principle of reciprocity. In this respect, an important lesson can be drawn from recent experience in Quebec.



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The principal criticism levelled against the Bouchard-Taylor Commission Report came from members of the francophone majority. According to them the Report granted a great deal to minorities and immigrants but very little to the majority——a forceful reminder that because francophone Quebec was also a minority, it too needed protections; so, there was a need for balance.

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The elements of ad hoc precedence are conceived in this spirit. A fourth argument, which calls for closer examination, is a legal one. The law has always recognized the value of antecedence. Think of birthrights primogeniture and all the advantages conferred by virtue of seniority. The most eloquent example in this regard is the ancestral rights recognized for Aboriginal populations as first occupants.

On what grounds and to what extent can this logic be transposed to the world of intercultural relations as the basis for an ad hoc precedence in favour of foundational majorities? First of all, we must avoid easy and abusive conclusions; the situation of francophone Quebec is obviously not the same as that of Aboriginal cultures. The idea does, however, deserve our attention, even if only to articulate the required nuances.

A fifth argument relates to the diversity of cultures and identities on a planetary level, which is celebrated by UNESCO as a source of innovation and creativity at the same level as biodiversity. In November the organization made diversity one of its chief priorities, receiving the support of member states. Contextual precedence justifies itself in a sixth way, this time from a sociological perspective.

As I indicated above, all societies need a symbolic foundation identity, memory, belonging, and so forth to sustain their equilibrium, reproduction, and development, since the legal framework alone or so-called civic principles does not adequately fulfill this function. Especially in situations of tension, change, or crisis, only widely shared common reference points——that is to say, a culture or an identity——provide for the solidarity that forms the basis of any kind of collective mobilization towards the pursuit of a common good.

This process is a prime engine in the struggle against inequalities, and this is where the ideal of liberal individualism reveals what is likely its greatest weakness. All these conditions require a continuity that is guaranteed to a large extent by the majority culture and the values forged in its history.

In order for a society to take hold of its destiny, it must devote itself to principles and ideals that encompass both its heritage and its future. If the former is the responsibility of all citizens, the latter is primarily the work of the foundational majority. A final argument, this one more pragmatic, makes the case for this thesis.

Ancient and recent history has taught us to fear minorities that are terrorized or fanaticized in some way. But it has also taught us to be equally, if not more, afraid of cultural majorities that take on aggressive behaviour when they feel profoundly humiliated, unjustly treated, and victimized. Wisdom demands that we take this into account.

The principles behind ad hoc precedence can soothe majority anxieties that could easily turn into hostility——especially when there are social or political actors who readily stand to profit. However, the principle of contextual precedence might be unacceptable to advocates of an absolute legalism or liberalism. This is the place to remember that in aiming for the perfect society, we sometimes sow the opposite seeds. To conclude this point, it would be an error to believe that all majority cultures are basically menacing or harmful.

Some have a remarkable history of openness and generosity towards minorities, while others, despite difficult circumstances, have managed to maintain their liberal leanings. Often dominant cultures are helpful agents in advancing democracy and individual rights. Nineteenth-century Europe also provides a number of examples of national majorities that promoted democratic and liberal values. Again, the above argument may in a certain light run counter to the principle of formal equality between individuals, groups, and cultures. In its defence, one can say that it does nothing more than reflect and conform to a state of universal reality, namely the impossibility of cultural neutrality of nation-states.

Likewise, it somewhat detracts from the ideal and abstract vision of a society formed of a group of perfectly autonomous, rational, and self-made citizens. However, it brings us closer to the complex, shifting, unpredictable, and omnipresent reality of identity dynamics and the vagaries of political life. The argument for elements of contextual precedence thus proceeds from a more sociological and realist vision of liberalism.

It would be a grave mistake to underestimate the weight or deny the legitimacy of collective identities. It is often said, and rightly so, that they are arbitrarily constructed or even invented, but that does not prevent them from being lived as profoundly authentic by the large majority of individuals who need them to make sense of their life and to ground themselves. Finally, they come to acquire a level of substance that keeps them from being entirely arbitrary or artificial. Largely driven by emotion, they arouse suspicion the consummate rationalists.

Unpredictable and irrepressible, they can be linked both to the most noble and the most vile endeavours. In any case, they fulfill an essential function of unification, stabilization, and mobilization. In this vein, democracies may have an important lesson to learn from what happened in Russia after the fall of the USSR. In short, during the transition liberal elites sought to instill new values and imprint a new direction on their society.

However, out of either negligence or too much concern for rationalism, they failed at reshaping Russian identity——in other words, at inscribing their ideals into a new identity dynamic; drawing on a modern set of myths. For a variety of reasons, it was the ancient myths stemming from Russian tradition that prevailed and, because they were unsympathetic to democracy and freedom, contributed to the failure of the liberal agenda. This resulted in the regime we know today—an authoritarian government with minimal respect for individual rights and democracy. All of this speaks in favour of the effort to foster a conjunction of identity and pluralism.

And this kind of alliance is possible, as Quebec has shown over the course of the last decades—there is no intrinsic incompatibility between the continuity and growth of majority cultures or national cultures and the law. In the Quebec debate over ethnocultural relations in recent years, several interlocutors have tried to foster extreme polarization in order to discredit pluralism.

This harmful opposition is groundless and must be rejected. In the spirit of interculturalism, these two imperatives are not competitive but complementary—it must be reminded that interculturalism does not operate only for the benefit of minorities and immigrants, but that it must also take into account the interests of the majority, whose desire for affirmation and development is perfectly legitimate. That said, we realize that the criteria for ad hoc precedence must be carefully mapped out.

In this respect, remember that important responsibilities fall to all majority groups because they largely control the institutions of the host society. They must embrace the general principle of equal rights for all citizens and fight all forms of discrimination. Due to the institutions under their control, it is also their duty to facilitate the integration of newcomers and minority groups into society. Except in extraordinary circumstances, contextual precedence must therefore operate within the limits of basic rights. If it must act against these rights, it can do so only to an extent that is proportional to the threat or peril incurred against the cultural majority——failing which it simply slips into ethnicism.

Minority groups are required to adapt to their host society, adhere to its basic values, and respect its institutions, but due to the double obligation just explained, the majority group must also sometimes amend its ways. That is why it is important to encourage the reasonable promotion of accommodations or concerted adjustments: Contrary to the current perception, these adjustments are not privileges; they are arrangements that are at once useful in favour of integration and necessary for the preservation of rights, including equality and dignity.

This being said, it is well understood that their implementation must be subject to strict guidelines in order to prevent a slip into a laissez-faire mentality that would compromise the basic values of the host society. Finally, here too, the rule of reciprocity applies. As we may guess, it is difficult to precisely set up in the abstract the limits of ad hoc precedence and the terms of its application. But is it not the same with several basic values and rights, which creates the necessity of interactions, negotiations, and debate?

In this context, and for the purpose of the present discussion, it can be useful to turn to a few examples, relevant to the Canadian and Quebec context. Some of them, as we will see, are rather superficial, while others strike at the heart of fundamental issues—but each illustrates an aspect of contextual precedence. The following could, to my thinking, be considered legitimate according to the criteria for ad hoc precedence:. On the other hand, I consider the following examples to be abusive extensions of the principle of ad hoc precedence:.

A sixth facet of interculturalism that stems from the preceding ones is the idea that beyond and separate from ethnocultural diversity, elements of a common culture or a national culture begin to take shape, giving birth to a belonging and an identity that grafts itself onto initial belongings and identities.

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In the long-term, both the majority culture and minority cultures will find themselves changed to varying degrees. This outlook also offers cultural minorities an exit strategy from what some of their members can perceive as imprisonment in ethnic ghettos. In other words, the cultural evolution of Quebec is already the result of three threads weaving together in subtle and complex ways, stemming from their sociological influence and their dynamism—the culture of the foundational majority, the culture of immigrants and minorities, and the culture resulting from the mixture of the two.

It would certainly be quite difficult to disentangle the contributions of each, but what good would that do? Fundamentally, interculturalism is a search for balance and mediation between often-competing principles, values, and expectations. In this sense, it is a sustained effort aimed at connecting majorities and minorities, continuity and diversity, identity and rights, reminders of the past and visions of the future. It calls for new ways of coexisting within and beyond differences at all levels of collective life.

Through the prolonged dynamic of interactions, it is not unrealistic to think that it may one day dissolve. Here we see two possibilities—either the two basic components of the dynamic will melt together completely, or that one of them will disappear. Both scenarios would mean a departure from the interculturalist model and the duality paradigm. In the case of Quebec, however, this eventuality remains largely theoretical.

It would require that immigration—which tends to renew the duality—diminish substantially, and that cultural minorities or the majority itself choose not to perpetuate themselves. This is at once a consequence and a paradox of a pluralist philosophy within a duality paradigm: Whatever the case may be, these scenarios remain unpredictable and somewhat arbitrary for another reason. As indicated earlier, paradigms and models are ultimately a matter of choice. The preceding paragraphs highlight the issue of common values, which are already or are becoming subject to a very large consensus, and the necessity for their protection under the law.

On this front, we know that over the course of the last few years some judgments by the Supreme Court of Canada have been met with sharp objections in Quebec. Some clarification is needed here. I am opening a parenthetical discussion to situate Quebec interculturalism in relation to Canadian multiculturalism.

I will first remind that, for political reasons, all Quebec governments federalist or not have rejected multiculturalism since its adoption by the federal government in Since the middle of the nineteenth century, francophones in Quebec have fought to gain acceptance of the idea that Canada is composed of two nations anglophone and francophone. This vision of the country was undermined by the introduction of multiculturalism, which made francophones in Quebec simply one ethnic group among many others throughout Canada.

In this sense, multiculturalism weakened Quebec and for this reason it is the source of keen opposition from the francophone population. On a more theoretical or sociological level, researchers have often extrapolated in order to bring to fore the difference between these two models. For many reasons, this question does not lend itself to an easy answer. One is that Canadian multiculturalism has evolved a great deal since This is an important fact that we do not always take into account.

In the s, for example, the promotion of a diversity of languages and cultures was a central element of the Canadian model. Beginning in the s, a social dimension the struggle against inequalities and exclusion emerged at the same time as the rights dimension was primarily being heard through the struggle against discrimination. In the s and over the course of the s there was a growing concern for social cohesion, integration and common values, and for the formation or consolidation of a Canadian belonging and identity.

More recently still, the model has made more room for ideas of interactions, cultural exchanges, Canadian values, and participation. We therefore note with interest that, in so doing, Canadian multiculturalism has slowly grown closer to Quebec interculturalism and that this is a source of persistent confusion in Quebec. Indeed, a number of interlocutors in the public debate argue for the similarity of the two models, but for opposite reasons.

One group, on behalf of Quebec nationalism, aims to discredit interculturalism by associating it with Canadian multiculturalism and blaming it for the drawbacks usually associated with that model fragmentation, relativism, and so forth , although in reality, one suspects that it is pluralism that is targeted. The other group, working from a Canadian or federalist perspective, downplays or denies the differences that exist between the two models by claiming that interculturalism is simply a variant of Canadian multiculturalism.

It seems to me, however, that these two models remain quite different for the following reasons:. The most defining and obvious difference is that interculturalism pertains to the nation of Quebec, the existence of which was officially recognized by the federal government itself through a motion adopted by the House of Commons on 27 November The two models are rooted in opposite paradigms.

The federal government still adheres to the idea that there is no majority culture in Canada, that diversity defines the country, and that this idea must guide all discussion of ethnocultural reality. This choice conforms to the minority status of this French-speaking people on the North American continent and the anxieties that it inevitably entails.

The crucial point here is that there really is a majority culture within the nation of Quebec whose fragility is a permanent fact of life. This results in a specific vision of nationhood, identity, and national belonging. Since francophone Quebecers constitute a minority, they instinctively fear all forms of socio-cultural fragmentation, marginalization, and ghettoization. This is where interculturalism draws its particular conception of integration, namely the emphasis on interactions, connections between cultures, the development of feelings of belonging, and the emergence of a common culture.

Paradoxically, an extension of these arguments reveals the strong collective dimension unity, interaction, integration, and common culture permeating interculturalism, which distances it from the liberal individualism that is also inherent in multiculturalism. Another distinctive trait comes from the fact that Canadian multiculturalism has little to say on the issue of protecting languages. Sooner or later, immigrants to English-speaking Canada will inevitably want to learn the dominant language of the continent in order to eke out a decent living. The case is very different for the French language in Quebec, where there is a constant struggle to find new linguistic protections.

This anxiety is obviously culturally motivated, but it also comes from the fact that language is an important factor in civic integration and collective cohesion. Multiculturalism does not echo this anxiety over a common language because English is in no way threatened. In a more general sense, all the rights and accommodations granted to immigrants in Western democracies are accompanied by a preoccupation with the values and even the future of the host culture.

This concern is understandably stronger in small nations that are anxious about their survival. Here, respect for diversity takes an additional dimension. In other words, the challenges linked to pluralism in small nations have an impact and spark a level of tension seldom experienced by more powerful nations.

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La démocratie représentative, pouvoir du peuple ? - Politikon #5

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