Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
I am primarily of Acadian origin. I speak French natively and I know the culture pretty well as it is the culture of both my parents and of the majority of my extended family. Even if I haven't lived anywhere "Acadian" in many years. Charles Lawrence was responsible for an initiative to aimed to "get rid" of the people who represent perhaps 80% of the people I am descended from.
And yet I don't identify with this mindset:
https://this.org/2017/12/01/forgetting-charles-lawrence/
It's also not a big deal to me that lots of other stuff is named for the other architects of the Grand Dérangement, like Murray, Winslow and of course Monc(k)ton for whom the largest city in New Brunswick and the largest Acadian university anywhere are named.
As someone else said - I'd rather Acadians look forward, without forgetting the past. But without being obsessed by it.
I understand how people like Tyler LeBlanc feel. But he doesn't speak for me or most of my family. (At least I hope not.) |
I feel like we Canadians, Anglo or French, are a pretty forward- or future focused people rather than past-focused (not necessarily saying that in the sense like we're particularly enlightened or something but just that we seem to not that particularly or obsessively attached to past grievances, or past pride either as a collective).
Even something like the US South's attitude and debate over treatment of the confederate flag or statues seems different from the attitudes about French Canadians and their past. Though French Canadians and American Southerners are among the most "rooted" and "old stock" of European-descent people of their countries respectively, the French Canadian obsession isn't about symbolic statues, monuments, nods to past glory (even if "Je me souviens" has been likened to "the South will rise again), etc. but about actual day to day policy -- how is the modern French or Francophone language and culture being preserved, not past glories. I get the impression that Francophones care little about lip service to ancestors, statues etc. if there's no real, current policies that favor successful cultural preservation for the people alive today and their kids. It's a focus on current nation building looking forward (for the French and English Canadians societies alike), not the past.
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