“I’m gonna dress you up like the Mother Queen
Fuck you up like you’ve never seen.”
– Serge Fiori, from Crampe au cerveau
Reconciliation?
It’s just a bunch of letters in Quebec, it seems. It’s meaningless.
Sure, there are many who believe the white man needs to reconcile with the Indigenous Peoples of Quebec and Canada.
But for some of them, leave their statue of John A. Macdonald alone. That’s where they draw the line at reconciliation, apparently.
Never mind that Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, may have built the nation through genocide of Indigenous Peoples and Chinese people. Never mind that a statue in a public square is a constant reminder of that genocide to so many.
Some fans of the statue — which has been vandalized several times over the past 15 years and even beheaded, most recently on Saturday past when it was pulled down — want it restored and put back up on its pedestal, where it has been lording over all who pass by for 125 years. This despite pleas by some Indigenous people and supporters to drop it in the river or move it into a museum or a warehouse.
Yes, British Imperialism is alive and thriving in French Quebec, despite all efforts by separatists here to stamp it out.
Most mind-boggling of all is the fact some of those separatists and other francophones — whose ancestors were defeated by the British in Quebec and mistreated for generations — are calling for the statue to be put back as well.
The message seems to be: They don’t care what John A. Macdonald did to Indigenous Peoples, and if the statue is rubbing the genocide with all its horror and grief in their faces, so be it. The statue means more to them than Indigenous Peoples do.
So much for the much-touted reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.
The uproar over the statue has once again revealed the hypocrisy of the white man, both English and French. And their sense of British Imperialism, apparently.
It doesn’t surprise me so much coming from the tea cup crowd, who still fawn over the monarchy.
But francophones, too?!
Merde . . .
— Jillian
Jillian Page 
Impérialistes ou indépendantistes, tous unis dans le populisme…
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Bon point, mon ami
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He is an important historical figure. I think it would be appropriate to keep the statue but with a plaque objectively explaining his actions and their consequences. You don’t want to deny your history even if it is painful.
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There are some saying that removing the statue is “cancel culture” and is “erasing history.” But it’s not that at all: the history can’t be erased, but a symbol of it can be. Still, some have suggested that a plaque be attached. But, not to compare him with Hitler, but would anyone tolerate a statue of that monster? Not a chance. Enough people are offended by the statue of Macdonald, so why leave it there? It seems so insensitive of authorities.
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I have one issue with all this; am I permitted to go to a neighbor’s home and decapite the head of a Christopher Columbus Statue because I find the explorer who also spearheaded slavery in North America offensive? Probably not because it’s private property.
I guess we as a society can do what we want, when we want, how we want and to who we want because our agenda is more important than civic law.
Whatever happened to petitions?
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They’ve been asking for 15 years for the statue to be removed. They’ve vandalized it and decapitated it before. Officials didn’t budge. Now, it’s the season of civil unrest in the U.S. and, to a point, Canada, too. Statues of people who committed genocide etc. are targets all over the place. Today’s white Canadians are out of touch with the reality of our history. People were conquered, people were assimilated, or the British Empire tried to assimilate them. But I’ll doubt we’ll see the type of reckoning that is happening in the U.S. Canadians of all stripes are far too polite, and so easily scandalized by episodes like this one.
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