Hezbollah Peace Rally
A question of character...Again!
The irresponsible Mr. Boisclair
By Beryl Wajsman, Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal
Friday, March 23, 2007
There has been considerable effort spent in the media recently explaining away any racist undertones in Andre Boisclair's comment about "slant-eyed" Asians. Two arguments in particular are posited front and centre. The first is that in French this expression is supposedly idiomatic and in no way meant in a denigrating fashion as it may be in English. The second is that the context in which Boisclair used the term was complimentary to the industry and intellect of Asians because he was speaking about their ubiquitous presence and upward mobility in all facets of society. Both arguments are half-truths. And because they are only half-truths that may satisfy many in absolving him of any charges of latent prejudice, they should not be enough to close our eyes to his culpability of irresponsibility. For a man who wants to lead, it is a question of character. And in Boisclair's case, this is not the first challenge to his character.
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PQ Leader Andr Boisclair. At left is FTQ President Henri Mass. They are standing in front of a defiled Jewish prayer shawl. Boisclair said: "The Quebec I saw marching in the street is the Quebec which inspires me." Photo and caption courtesy of David Ouellette (Judoscope.ca) |
Montreal became the only city in the world on that infamous Aug. 6th where demonstrations for Lebanon and Palestine were led by leaders of civil society including Andre Boisclair. And they led them even though peace for Israel was specifically excluded though Israel, a sister democracy, had been aggressed; had its soldiers kidnapped; had absorbed thousands of Katyusha and Kassam rocket attacks; had seen the town of Sderot destroyed; suffered hundreds dead and had 500,000 refugees fleeing from north to south. None of that seemed to matter to the political and labor elites in search of votes and memberships from the large and ever-growing Arab communities of Montreal.
Excuses were made for Andre Boisclair after that day too. It was said that he did not know there would be so many Hezbollah sympathizers. It was said he did not know peace for Israel had been excluded. It was said that he made no intolerant remarks. More half-truths. For if he did not know about the Hezbollah presence, then he certainly could have left when he saw it materializing. If he did not know that peace for Israel had been excluded, then he could have stated clearly and candidly that it should have been included. If he did not make intolerant remarks, he certainly was guilty of tolerating the intolerant. For on that day that Boisclair stood and spoke, the flags of Hezbollah flew and its leaders hailed. Yet a smiling Andre Boisclair had the temerity to say that, "The Quebec I saw marching in the street is the Quebec which inspires me." Andre Boisclair had his picture taken in front of a defiled Jewish prayer shawl.
The seminal post-war thinker Viktor Frankel, author of "Man's Search for Meaning", founder of the Third Viennese School of psychotherapy and a survivor of Auschwitz, once wrote that, "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lays our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. The awareness of that space, that split second before we respond to a certain stimulus, this is where the nexus of responsibility is found." Andre Boisclair chose poorly; Andre Boisclair did not grow; Andre Boisclair missed that space; and Andre Boisclair did not find responsibility.
It seems he still has not learned. For Boisclair is a man who spent a term at the Kennedy School of government in Boston. Worked in finance in Toronto after leaving politics. He is very familiar with idiomatic English and French. He should have anticipated the reactions to a term as pejorative as "slant-eyes". Quebeckers merit leaders with the discipline to distinguish. And too, we merit leaders who do not engage in feeding self-doubt by demonstrating an envy of others self-belief. Nor by pandering to fear. Leaders chose courage. If Boisclair wants Quebeckers to compete, let him loosen the chains of statocratic law and legislation that strangle our most creative urges through restrictive rule and regulation. Let him free us to more noble aspirations. Let him celebrate the politics of decency and diversity and not those of division and disdain.
Words matter. Images sear. The "optique", as it is called in very politically savvy Quebec, is everything. How majorities react to minorities is sparked by the six-second sound bites of its leaders. Those sounds must peal with the equity of just consideration not with the dirges of nullification and interposition. That's what Oliver Wendell Holmes meant when he said "Justice must be seen to be done as well as to be done." Boisclair knows all this very well. Or he should as a minimum responsibility of leadership. If he cannot control his own messages and metaphors, particularly as head of a tinderbox party flashing so often on questions of "langue et sang", language and blood, it is fair to ask whether his lack of intellectual rigour is a danger to the commonweal.
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