As a proudly Canadian Québécois who is a strong federalist, NOT a separatist, I imagined that the tactless, offensive and unnecessary event had wisely been set aside. But lately, as the anniversary of the battle approaches (it is in September) I note more and more grumblings of discontent in the media of English Canada by people who are miffed at being deprived of their gloating rights.
So here is a modest proposal. The Plains of Abraham are now a park in downtown Quebec City.
So why don’t all of you anglo-Canadian battle enthusiasts hold a form of rehearsal by going to a park in downtown Dublin on July 12, and reenacting the Battle of the Boyne?
Those who come back to Canada still filled with enthusiasm for battle reenactments will be more than welcome to come stage the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City in September. Do we have a deal?
(shrug) Down here we have reenactors from both sides gleefully shooting muskets and playing dead while reliving the happy days of the American Civil War. And many of the Confederates are still touchy about how the war turned out, but they don’t seem to let it get in the way of their fun. Maybe the Québécois would do well by emulating them. I think the first step is to buy a keg of beer.
How is the commemoration of the battle of the Plains of Abraham “tactless, offensive and unnecessary”? It was one of the most significant events in 18th century Canadian history, and had it and its aftermath happened differently, England probably would never have taken control of Canada from France, and Canadian history would be radically different. Canada, as we know it, wouldn’t have existed. So what’s wrong with remembering and celebrating that?
I can’t tell from your profile what you are, C.A., but let me just put it this way. Celebrating a conquest is a lot easier if you are the one conquering than the one who got conquered. Can you see that point?
I am all for letting it go. The corollary of my earlier statement is that it is easier for the conquered to forget about it than the conquerors.
As a French-speaking Canadian, do you know when I last had it thrown in my face? Try 1998. I had just explained to a pleasant WASP lady in Ontario why I was in favour of firm federal legislation to stop Quebec separatists from pretending they had a mandate.
I was arguing against separatism, in favour of unity, and she just waved me off saying “Wasn’t that settled on the Plains of Abraham”? My opinion really did not matter to her. They (her ancestors immigrated here from the industrial slums of Victorian England about a century earlier) had conquered “us” and no further discussion was necessary.
It’s a historical event. It happened. Would you rather pretend that it didn’t?
As for this being a way for the “victors” (in quotes, because the victors, like the losers, are centuries dead) to gloat, there are people reanacting both sides. Do you think the folks dressed up as French soldiers are somehow gloating?
I’ve made it pretty clear in the past that in my opinion, the English conquest of Canada was a pretty much unmitigated good, and that, in hindsight, one of the biggest mistakes Parliament made afterwards was the Quebec Act, because it had the effect of establishing separate French-Canadian and English Canadian cultures.
When someone says he would like to see your culture exterminated, I guess there is not much to talk about. Don’t bother answering me and I won’t bother answering you. If this were the Pitt I could tell you a bit more, but let’s leave it at that.
Captain Amazing’s assertion that the British generously allowed French to survive in Canada after the Conquest is part of the bullshit mythology about Quebec. In point of fact the British government (See the Rebellions, Durham’s Report the Union Act of 1845, et al.) made a number of attempts to overwhelm, absorb and exterminate French culture in Canada, and the tradition was continued after Confederation in acts too numerous to mention.
We survived as a French-speaking entity in America because we had to guts and the daring to do so against seemingly impossible odds and at a huge price. We founded our own Universities, our own newspapers, our own community structures. They were not a gift from the English. We do not need to thank you or anyone else for that survival.
If you want to celebrate the Conquest, do it somewhere in English Canada where it will be really appreciated, not in Quebec.
What would be really enjoyable would be to open a thread in GD initiated by Valteron that sought to simply explore both sides of a controversy instead of being a whiny rant directed against people with whom he disagrees. I expect to see that at the 250th anniversary of the founding of the SDMB.
As already noted, lot of battles are reenacted by descendants of both sides without one side or the other insisting that it is insulting to commemorate the event.
Beyond that, there is the obvious case that without the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, the Qubecois would have nothing to celebrate, today.
Had the French held on to Canada, the French near-feudal system would have remained in place until the French Revolution, stunting the colony’s economy and retarding the development of a spirit of independence among its people. There would also have been no British Army to save the Quebecois from the invasions from the British colonies to the South. There would have been no Quebec Act of 1774 that established French language and the seigneurial system in law to protect what eventually became Quebecois culture. Following the French Revolution, the insolent Yankees would have rolled into Canada the way they eventually took Florida, Texas, and California and there would have been no compromises between Anglophones and Francophones regarding land ownership, language, or religion.
And if your aunt had balls she would be mon oncle.
Tom, since you are soooo good at finding references, please find me the specific references in the Quebec Act of 1774 establishing the French language. Not the parts that establish the Roman Catholic Church. The parts that establish the French language. I await your answer with interest.
My OP made the suggestion that the enthusiasts of battle re-enactments could go to a park in downtown Dublin on July 16 and re-enact the Battle of the Boyne. Strangely enough, nobody has told me what they think of that idea.
I suppose if I said that things would be happier here on SDMB if your ancestors had been wiped out 250 years ago, Captain Amazing, our ever-fair moderator would censor that remark.