Quebecers demonstrate during the Moulin à paroles readings on the Plains of Abraham: indecent spectacle. The Gazette
Quebec is truly a distinct society, as the Moulin à paroles readings on the Plains of Abraham on the weekend showed us again.
For where else could such an extraordinary political event have taken place?
Try to imagine a public gathering in the United States, 39 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, at which a statement issued at the time by Al-Qa'ida to justify its actions is not only read but cheered.
What's more, imagine that this gathering is organized by declared supporters of, say, the Democratic Party, with technical support from the party and public financial support arranged by Democratic congressmen, and speeches by party leaders including its presidential candidate and a former president.
Well, something like that happened at this past weekend's "Felquofête" on the Plains of Abraham.
As everybody knows, the October 1970 manifesto of the terrorist Front de libération du Québec, justifying actions that were as traumatic for Quebecers and other Canadians as the Sept. 11 attacks were for Americans, was read - twice - during the 22 hours of the Moulin.
What readers of the gushing coverage in most of the press might not know, however, is that the readings, delivered with clenched fist and rising fervour by singer Luck Mervil, elicited cheers and chants of the FLQ slogan "nous vaincrons" from the small audience.
To provide "context" and "balance," the pro-sovereignty event's organizers immediately followed these indecent spectacles with readings of a letter signed by Quebec minister Pierre Laporte while he was held captive by the FLQ.
But even the letter, in which Laporte pleaded with Premier Robert Bourassa to negotiate for his life, could be interpreted as blaming the authorities, and not the FLQ, for Laporte's subsequent murder.
Indeed, Françoise David of the leftist-sovereignist Québec solidaire party was quoted in Le Soleil to the effect that the letter shows that "Bourassa let Laporte down, since there wasn't much negotiation with the FLQ."
Other pro-sovereignty texts were read by Pauline Marois and Gilles Duceppe, leaders of the Parti Québécois and the Bloc Québécois respectively, other elected members of both parties and former PQ premier Bernard Landry.
In addition, the Bloc provided technical support for the event, and most of the 50 PQ MNAs contributed about $300 each in public funds from their discretionary budgets.
Thus the sovereignist parties, their leaders and elected representatives contributed to the rehabilitation of the FLQ and the legitimization of political violence - and not only in a relatively distant past.
For they agreed to participate in the presence of another reader, Patrick Bourgeois, leader of the radical Réseau de résistance du québécois (not "du Québec," as I wrote last Thursday).
Bourgeois is among those sovereignists whose threats of violent disruptions resulted in the cancellation of a 250th-anniversary re-enactment of the battle of the Plains of Abraham on the weekend, making the Plains available for the sovereignist readings.
This was far from an isolated case of association with extremism on the part of the PQ and the Bloc.
Elected members of both parties regularly participate in the more orderly activities of the radical Jeunes patriotes du Québec, which is also known for trying to intimidate federalists and disrupt their meetings.
And, as reported in this space in June, the JPQ thanked a dozen elected representatives of the PQ, the Bloc and Québec solidaire for financial contributions for its street march and outdoor concert marking the Patriotes holiday in May. Among the benefactors they named was Marois, whose spokesman confirmed that she gave $200.
Now, try to imagine a major party anywhere else in Canada providing moral and even financial support to extremists like this.
Only in the distinct society.
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dmacpher Uvk thegazette.canwest.com