A compromise plan to honour Oscar Peterson
Quebec just isn’t ready to re-evaluate Lionel Groulx, Jérémie Mcewen and Martine St-victor say.
Until the mid-1980s, when landing at what was then the only international airport in Haiti, one would do so at François Duvalier Airport, named after the dictator who ruled the country for over a decade. He was succeeded by his son Jean-claude, who gave the airport its identity as an homage. That is why monuments bear the names of historical figures. It is meant as a celebration of achievement, a testament of pride, a badge of honour, a tribute to their memory.
Earlier this month, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was quoted as saying, while objecting to the removal of a Winston Churchill statue, “We cannot now try to edit or censor our past. We cannot pretend to have a different history.” And he’s right, we can’t, which is precisely why history books exist. The best ones, those shying away from romanticizing, help us to remember with proper context.
Today, when landing in Port-au-prince, one does so at Toussaint Louverture Airport, named after the leader of the Haitian revolution. Now, that is something to remember, to celebrate and to be proud of. In no way has it erased the memory of François Duvalier. Not in school curricula, not in the minds of those who have suffered under his regime, nor in the twisted fantasies of the inexplicably nostalgic, who choose to remember the father-and-son dictatorship as one of Haiti’s greatest eras.
Holding on to old perceptions doesn’t make them more accurate. We must have the courage not only to confront our history, but to question it, how it was taught to us. We must take a collective step back to better see the big picture, through a broader lens that is not solely that of those who were seen as heroes, and reconsider what is honourable and what we can no longer pretend is.
We must urgently overcome the head-butting over the question, and strive for some progressive result.
Quebec doesn’t seem ready to put into question the memory of Lionel Groulx within Montreal’s urban fabric, at least for now. Indeed, the recent petition to change the métro stop named after him to Oscar Peterson was met with very strong resistance. The reason is this: the Quiet Revolution, and those who inspired it, are still sacred when it comes to questions of Quebec identity, and questioning its heritage head-on seems almost impossible.
Yet, we must urgently overcome the head-butting over the question, and strive for some progressive result.
On the one hand, Groulx was a sometime anti-semite, eugenicist and quite enthusiastic reader of the bigoted French intellectual Charles Maurras, as must admit even historians most sympathetic to his cause. On the other, even his most fervent critics cannot deny his central role in the affirmation of Quebec’s nationhood, which made possible the likes of René Lévesque and Robert Bourassa.
We do not wish to pontificate as to how Groulx should be remembered in the future. Rather, we wish to suggest a compromise in the present. Is it not possible to have the Quiet Revolution’s heritage meet the present day necessity of a “Révolution de l’inclusion,” as it was recently put by Tiffany Callender, side by side?
One stop away from Lionel-groulx is Placesaint-henri métro station. Changing the name of that station to Oscar-peterson would be relevant from historical, geographical and inclusiveness standpoints, and, given that it would replace a name with a religious connotation, also from a secularist standpoint, which is what the Coalition Avenir Québec government believes to be the most important legacy of the Quiet Revolution.
And while we’re at it, to keep Groulx in good company, why not think about another name change for one of the three other stops next to him: “prochaine station, Leonard-cohen.” Jérémie Mcewen is the author of the book Philosophie du hip-hop: des origines à Lauryn Hill and a columnist on ICI Radio-canada Première. Martine St-victor is a communication strategist and a columnist on ICI Radio-canada Première, on RDI and on CBC Radio.