FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
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| VIEWPOINT IRELAND - You can excuse Parti Quebecois dinosaur-emeritus Jacques Parizeau if he got up alone, a little bit early on Saturday morning, tottered downstairs in his bathrobe, flipped on the TV with the volume turned down and cried on the couch. It was, after all, a massive "yes" vote, his fantasy coming true in flickering grains of blue and green. Coming true for someone else. But maybe he could pretend, even just for a little while. By noon, reality must have set in. The overwhelming vote in favor of the Good Sunday Agreement in Northern Ireland was another nail in the coffin of Quebec separatism. Parizeau must have experienced a moment of déjà-vu watching the mirror of Ian Paisley's face, as the leader of the extremist Unionist movement contorted in agonizing defeat . Parizeau and Paisley are, after all, clichés cut from the same suppurated cloth. Round, old, angry men with sweaty dewlaps and bulging girths, hatred for their opponents effusing from every pore, they are an animate caricature. A barrel in search of its waterfall. About 150 years too late with their nationalistic rhetoric of division, they are anachronistic parochial bigots adrift in an age where national identity has been reduced to the lowest common denominator of the two-letter suffix on one's URL. On the surface, it might be observed that, their leaders notwithstanding, Ulster Unionism and Quebec Separatism have little in common. Unionism desires to celebrate the sectarian victories of the past and embalm the umbilical link with the United Kingdom, whereas Quebec nationalism seeks to separate with the defeats of the past to create a new and distinct national identity based on language and culture. Of course, the irony seems lost on Unionists that the United Kingdom is rapidly becoming neither, with both the Welsh and Scots voting for their own assemblies and institutions earlier this year (leading almost inevitably to formal Scottish independence within the decade), and the monarchy still reeling from the near-mortal blow inflicted by their mishandling of Diana's death. In truth, however, both movements are very much alike, as are the reasons for opposing them. Both seek to create racial and religious segregation in frightened xenophobic defiance of the prevailing internationalist trend, and both seek to insulate historical minorities from integration, and the risk of assimilation, into their broader milieu. The reasons for ending the Troubles in Ireland and the troubles in Quebec are also parallel. Both peoples are understandably drawn to exchanging beggar nationalism for the prosperity of stability. Quebec and Northern Ireland have both foundered in the economic doldrums as the Canadian and European booms of the 1990s swirled around them. Pride can only fill empty, uncertain stomachs for so long. Weary of the pall of uncertainty and intimation of violence hanging low over their children's horizon, to say nothing of their own, the Irish have voted definitively to move forward together. Go back to bed, Mr. Parizeau, the news won't be getting any better. |
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