martes, 4 de noviembre de 2008

El Comité Editorial del National Post no está de acuerdo conmigo…

Copyright CanWest Interactive, Inc. Oct 31, 2008

So it becomes official: The tiny town of Herouxville has won the great argument over "reasonable accommodation" of immigrants to Quebec.
In 2007, Herouxville's municipal council passed an official code of "life standards" designed to advise new Quebecers (though there were none in town yet) of the province's culture norms. We do not, the code said, practise polygamy, separation by caste, sex discrimination or segregation or honour killing. Although it is a secular society, Quebec does observe traditional Christian holidays and has buildings and streets named after great Christian figures. Boys and girls play together in our parks and public facilities, and your doctor or lawyer or MP might be a woman. Get used to it.
Herouxville's code is rambling, deliberately provocative and in parts just plain weird. But what mostly made it controversial -- in this culturally relativistic age -- was the core idea that Quebecers had the right to consciously impose any cultural expectations at all upon immigrants. And that idea has now been taken up by the government of Quebec, which announced Wednesday that it will require newcomers to sign a declaration promising to participate in the "shared values" of the Quebecois people.
The province's neo-Herouxvillian document is simpler and much less objectionable than the original model -- but it surely never would have been adopted in the first place if the little community hadn't thrown down the gauntlet. From now on, immigrants entering Quebec will have to indicate their understanding and agreement that Quebec is a pluralist, liberal-democratic society where French is the official language, the sexes are equal, church and state are separate and secular law takes precedence over religion, though everyone is free to observe his own faith.
If a sign of liberalism's lamentable journey from egalitarian origins to cheap identity politics were needed, one could find none better than the frantic race to object to this motherhood statement of what ought to be liberal fundamentals. The editorial board of the Montreal Gazette, for instance, complains that the declaration is unenforceable, and yet at the same time is "somehow repellent" in its explicitness and clarity and yet again is too "slippery" in its meaning to be of any good.
Elsewhere, we read of the declaration being denounced as a pre-election "political stunt"; this, of course, is what you call a very popular measure when you don't personally like it. Would it be much of a "stunt" if it weren't near-certain to win votes?
Other measures were announced along with the declaration: The province plans to expand French-language education for prospective immigrants, and language-training funding is also to be made available to Quebec employers who hire newcomers. Nobody described these expensive measures as "political stunts," and some critics ignored them completely; only the culturally assertive, low-cost idea of advising immigrants how to integrate was singled out.
Perhaps most extraordinary was the quote from sociologist Victor Armony, in our own pages, to the effect that successful immigrants "don't need Quebec society to patronize them." But as we see it, the far more patronizing slight comes from doctrinaire multiculturalism, which refuses to recognize the reality that immigrants are real people with real values -- not human props in a feel-good ethnic fun fair -- and that oftentimes those values are in conflict with Canada's, especially as regards women, gays and the place of religion in our society. Quebec's government, like Herouxville, at least pays immigrants the respect of recognizing the hard edges on their worldviews, even as it asks them to bend them as the price of integrating into their new homeland.
That's a fair price -- one that millions of Canadian immigrants have paid since the birth of this country. We see nothing wrong with the Quebec government making this trade-off explicit. Indeed, we urge other governments to follow its example.

3 comentarios:

Gus dijo...

Creo que el tono es intimidante. Buscan desesperadamente mano de obra, si barata mejor, y adoptan una filosofía prejuiciosa.

Es más fácil que en USA un negro sea Presidente que aquí digan a los inmigrantes "bienvenidos"...

Paola Bianchi dijo...

Gus, yo creo que se trata más bien de no perder de vista que uno no va a la casa del vecino y hace lo que se le antoja. Si alguien te invita a comer a su casa y vos no estás de acuerdo con sus normas y costumbres (o te sentís incómodo), tenés la opción de agradecer y rehusar la invitación; pero si vas, te adaptás a las normas de la casa.
Ahora, si vos sabiendo que no estás de acuerdo o te sentís cómodo, para qué vas?. No sería acaso tu deber saber cómo se manejan antes de decir "dejo todo y me voy"?. Creo que ese es el error más común.
Pero bueno, son puntos de vista.

Victor Armony dijo...

Paola,
En parte creo que tenés razón (el que eligió venir a esta sociedad no vino "engañado”, sino que tomó una decisión bien pensada – y si no lo hizo, ese es su problema). Hay inmigrantes que, ante las dificultades y los obstáculos naturales del proceso de integración, proyectan la frustración como bronca contra los locales: son vistos como "intolerantes", "cerrados", "rígidos, que "no quieren aceptarme como soy". Sin embargo, me parece que hay que reconocer que también, socialmente, hay un problema cuando se plantea que es el inmigrante que tiene que hacer todo el camino de adaptación. La idea de que “si no te gusta, volvete a tu país” es, a mi entender, inadecuada, injusta y, en ciertos casos, peligrosa. Ojo con las metáforas. La del “invitado a la casa del vecino” es dudosa. Los inmigrantes somos ciudadanos (en el sentido cívico del término) y tenemos derecho (algunos dirían la obligación) de cuestionar, exigir y, cuando es lo apropiado, criticar. Por ejemplo, yo acepto los valores fundamentales de esta sociedad, pero no estoy de acuerdo en la manera en que la mayoría entiende la noción de laicidad (dicho más precisamente: pienso que la invocan erróneamente, en contradicción con los mismos valores fundamentales que la sociedad busca promover). Entonces, discuto, critico y exijo cambios. No voy a aceptar que otro ciudadano, prevaleciéndose del hecho de haber nacido aquí, me diga que me calle y deslegitime lo que tengo para decir. Para volver a la imagen de la casa: si yo te invito a cenar y te pido que te saques los zapatos para no manchar la alfombra con nieve, sería incorrecto que te niegues. Pero cuando inmigrás, es como si venís a cohabitar en mi casa: tendrás obligaciones (pagar tu parte del alquiler y de los gastos, ayudar a limpiar, etc.) y, por lo tanto, también derecho a opinar sobre como se hacen las cosas. No podrás reclamarme de entrada que pinte todo de otro color o que mueva todos los muebles. Pero eso no significa que no tendrás una voz y un voto, progresivamente más importante, en los asuntos domésticos. En suma, prefiero – y me parece más justa – la metáfora de los “colocataires”, como dicen aquí, que la de los "invitados".