 PETER BLACK Quiet Revolution II
It may have come as a surprise to the flock who regard
Quebec Premier Jean Lesage as the Moses of the Quiet Revolution, leading the Quebec people out of Duplessian darkness into the secular promised land of state intervention, but the real inspiration for la révolution tranquille was Max Weber, the German sociologist.
At least that is the contention of noted political scientist and federalist warrior Stephane Dion, who, showing his trademark fearlessness, both intellectual and personal, addressed a recent three-day forum on "The Quiet Revolution, 40 Years Later."
Dion, no stranger to vigorous academic discourse, was compelled to endure a chorus of heckling from a group of free-thinkers at the Université de Québec à Montréal colloquium, many of whom were sporting red rat noses, an allusion to the rodent Dion is regularly depicted as in editorial cartoons.
The hecklers were objecting not so much to Dion's socio-economic theory of contemporary Quebec history, as to his claim that the federal government was a main engine of the Quiet Revolution.
Dion's proof of this would be the fact that Lesage and several other key Quebec leaders cut their political teeth in Ottawa before applying their smarts to their home province. Dion even quotes Jacques Parizeau saying "c'est à Ottawa que ça se passe" - it happened in Ottawa.
The Weberian thesis advanced by the minister of intergovernmental affairs is, in a nutshell, that the Quiet Revolution in Quebec was part of a larger global modernization movement.
That movement was propelled by what Weber identified decades earlier as a Protestant work ethic which is far more conducive than Catholicism to commerce and capitalism.
So, in Quebec's case, the reduction of the pervasive role of the church unleashed a repressed capitalist-interventionist urge that allowed a generation of dynamic bureaucrats (Jacques Parizeau, Michel Belanger) and visionary business leaders (Laurent Beaudoin, Paul Desmarais, Pierre Peladeau, et al) to seize control of Quebec's economy.
Dion's views aside, the Quiet Revolution has been the subject of a lot of scrutiny and even some abuse of late, much of it stimulated by the marking of the event's 40th anniversary -- Lesage's Liberals were elected in June, 1960. Just about all the major media in Quebec are onto the story in a big way, indicating that the province is in a period of reflection between referendums.
One will recall that rookie Liberal Leader Jean Charest was called an enemy of Quebec by the current premier, when he had the gall to suggest it may be time to trade in the sixties-edition Quebec economic model stamped out by the Quiet Revolution for something a little more modern and efficient.
But lo, we now have Finance Minister Bernard Landry, arguably one of the original "revolutionaries," stating in his recent budget speech: "... our national government ... has updated the model inherited from the Quiet Revolution."
Mere months ago, during the 1998 election in fact, those words would have been considered heresy.
As it turns out, Landry's gentle critique of the Quebec model was mostly words, since in 2000 Quebec has more civil servants than ever, and government spending has actually increased.
Another avowed péquiste, former youth leader Éric Bédard, went a whole lot further.
Speaking at the same forum that featured Dion (and a galaxy of other political stars, including Landry), Bédard said it was high time the current PQ leadership ditched the obsolete notions that sustained the Quiet Revolution.
These would include the idea the English of Quebec are the colonial overlords and that Quebecers are "hewers of wood and drawers of water."
According a report in The Gazette, Bédard told his secessionist elders "a lot of people in my generation are annoyed by those who still talk in those terms." In a Le Devoir story, Bédard is quoted as telling the PQ seniors to lose the talk of being victims and stop "pillaging" history. The "myth" of the Quiet Revolution has paralyzed the sovereignty movement, quoth Bédard, a history doctoral candidate at McGill and obviously someone to watch.
Bédard, reports noted, was berated and booed for his audacity.
It seems that in some circles challenges to the Quiet Revolution are best kept quiet.
Copyright © 2000 Peter Black/Log Cabin Chronicles/04.2000 |
