A good week for ‘indig-nationalism’ and anglo bashing

For Quebec anglos who can still laugh at foolishness over language in our province, this was a good week.

Let’s start with the latest flare-up of what I call “indig-nationalism.”

It started with a story in — where else? — Quebecor’s Le Journal de Montréal (more on them later) that Hockey Canada had asked public-address announcers at the Pyeongchang Olympics to anglicize the pronunciation of three Canadian players’ names that were apparently French.

Now, right there, a red flag should have gone up. Why only three players, when there are seven on the roster whose names appeared to be French? Le Journal didn’t bother to explain.

And after the false Montreal mosque story by Quebecor’s TVA network only two months ago, shouldn’t everybody have learned to fact-check Quebecor stories about identity issues before reacting to them?

Not Quebec politicians, apparently. Mélanie Joly, the federal Liberal minister responsible for language, assured that her staff was “on the case” to see that Hockey Canada’s “highly questionable” request was withdrawn.

The Bloc Québécois official languages critic, Mario Beaulieu, demanded an apology from Hockey Canada for “lacking respect for francophones and Québécois.”

The New Democratic culture critic, Pierre Nantel, tabled a motion in the House of Commons to have Hockey Canada, which receives federal funding, hauled before a parliamentary committee to explain itself.

At the National Assembly, the Parti Québécois identity critic, Pascal Bérubé, said “the names of our Olympic athletes must be pronounced correctly.”

Liberal language minister Marie Montpetit, whose “irritation” at the sound of English led to the Assembly’s unanimous motion last December against the “Bonjour-Hi” commercial greeting, said Hockey Canada had shown “a lack of respect for francophone commentators and players.”

And Premier Philippe Couillard said that “it should have been normal and natural for them to pronounce the names as they are.”

Got all that? “Pronounced correctly,” “respect,” “francophone” players, “pronounce the names as they are.”

Except that by then, it had already been established that two of the three “francophone” players in question were actually anglos. Hockey Canada had merely asked announcers to respect the players’ pronunciations of their own names.

At worst, it had mistaken the preferred language of a French-speaking player who has an Italian surname. The names of the other franco players continued to be pronounced in French.

But politicians weren’t alone in making fools of themselves over language this week. There was also Le Journal.

All had been too quiet on the language front since “Bonjour-Hi.” So, Le Journal commissioned a poll to smoke out anglo attitudes, giving its columnists a new hook for anglo-bashing.

And bash away gleefully they did. As of Friday, I had counted no fewer than 15 columns over seven days (!) in Quebec’s most-read newspaper referring to the poll. Most criticized or ridiculed anglos in general because some had answered Le Journal’s questions in ways that its columnists didn’t like. (Sometimes, I mentally substitute the word “Jews” for “anglophones” in certain Le Journal columns, just to see how they read. It’s … unsettling.)

Well, at least the Muslims got a break this week.

For would-be bridge-builders in the anglo community, there was a serious message in the lack of intervention by politicians and other media against Le Journal’s bullying of a minority: a reminder that anglos can expect no sympathy in French Quebec, and have few reliable allies there.

But as Le Journal’s descent into self-parody went on, I found the excess amusing.

It can’t be easy to come up with a different angle for, say, the 12th column in a week in the same newspaper on the ingratitude of the World’s Best Treated Minority.

To find meat that the earlier arrivals among Le Journal’s anglophobic wolf pack hadn’t already chewed off the bone, the stragglers had to go back several decades. I mean, Mordecai Richler?

So, thanks for the week’s laughs, all of you. But no, I wasn’t laughing with you.