ISRAEL, IRELAND, QUÉBEC, AND THE GAZAN GHOSTS

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(Text first published on X, November 28th, 2024)

The state of Israel is built upon the ghosts of all those Palestinians that have been repressed or eliminated through the decades. The Israeli dream is the Palestinian nightmare, since 1948.

Those who lives in Gaza are being hunted down and killed, or just bombed out of existence, like so many animals, by the Israel armed forces. As for those who lives in the West Bank or East Jerusalem, they are left devoid of political rights, just like the black South Africans who were most of the population in their own country at the time of apartheid, not so long ago. The Palestinians living in that part of the territories that were taken from Jordan in 1967 must live under military occupation, while the West Bank and North-Gaza is slowly prepared for forceful annexation, against the will of its original population, just like East-Jerusalem was forcefully integrated to Jerusalem. Something must be said about the flood of settlers that is being used by Israel to turn the original inhabitants of the Occupied Territories into a minority.

That is an old trick. The same strategy was used by the British Empire to transform the francophone majority of Canada into a francophone minority in the decades following 1759, with an unending flow of English-speaking immigrants, from all parts of the United Kingdom. That flow of immigrants, incredibly, still exist. It has not stop. It is still a policy of today's federal government, the same federal government that acted crookedly in 1995 to prevent the population of Québec from leaving this anglophone kingdom once and for all. The strategy was to meddle with the financing of the No side. It barely worked, producing only a very thin margin of a few tens of thousands of votes, but it did work.

People have a long memory, strangely enough. Millions of Québécois were defrauded by the federal government and there is a price to pay for everything. Do not be surprised if the Bloc Québécois trounced the Liberals in the next Canadian elections, probably next year. They deserved it. Hopefully, they will go hide in some dark place, maybe some $8,000 a night hotel room, and die of shame, to be replaced by the Greens or the New Democrats. Who will mourn for them?

That's Canada for you. A crooked anglophone country run by a crooked federal government. Vive la démocratie. Don't be surprised if you see an indépendantiste political formation winning the next Québec provincial elections in 2026. That's certainly the way things are going now. If that happens, with the Conservatives in power in Ottawa in 2025, and the indépendantistes in power in Québec City the following year, whether it is the Parti québécois or Québec solidaire, things should become interesting...

What certainly may happen would be a series of intense negotiations, between the representatives of Canada and those of Québec, Anglo-Canadians and Franco-Québécois being connected by a quarter of a millennia of ties of all sorts, abundant, yes, but not always nice and sweet. Anglophones and francophones have a long and difficult history in this part of the world. We still remember les Patriotes' rebellion, Louis Riel's hanging, Batoche, the expulsion of the Acadiens, etc.

How it will turn out in the end, nobody knows. It certainly may end in some form of compromise, given the importance of the stakes. Nobody wishes for a disaster. Many scenarios are possible. Will there be one day an independent république québécoise, side by side with an independent Canadian Kingdom? Such an event would leave Canada divided in two parts, because of the unfortunate geographical position of la belle province. All sorts of arrangement will be necessary in such a case, especially in matters related to the moving of goods and people.

Still, that scenario is not impossible. Newfoundland became the tenth province only in 1949. It is not that long ago. If a political entity can join a country, it can also leave it. The future may take other shapes. We may see one day a new république autonome du Québec, inserted inside a new Canadian Republic, or integrated somehow inside the same Canadian Kingdom, still a part of the British Commonwealth, like some mongrel creature. It may even take the form of a federation of republics. The future is not written yet.

Ask a simple question to the Irish of the Irish Republic. Do they wish to become again a part of the British Empire, after centuries of English colonization and occupation, after having lost their culture and most of their language? Do not kid yourself, they do not. Most of those who are still Irish speaking over there lives on a string of islands and promontories along the west coast of the emerald island, as far away from London as it is possible to be without falling in the ocean. The Irish are quite happy to remain independent, in their own country.

https://johnmenadue.com/a-necessary-reckoning/

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PLUS:  @charles.millar3 (X-Twitter)